Se ci sono 400 miliardi di stelle nella sola Via Lattea, e forse 400 miliardi di galassie nell'Universo, è ragionevole pensare che là fuori - 14 miliardi di anni dopo il Big Bang - esistano o siano esistite altre civiltà, avanzate almeno quanto la nostra. È l'enormità dei numeri a pretenderlo. Ma allora perché non abbiamo mai incontrato, se non specie aliene in carne e ossa, almeno qualche loro messaggio, artefatto o traccia? «Dove sono tutti quanti?»: è questa la domanda che il premio Nobel Enrico Fermi pose, per svago, ad altri fisici suoi colleghi, in una bella giornata estiva del 1950. E questo suo paradosso ancora aspetta soluzione. Gli extraterrestri sono già qui, ma non ce ne siamo accorti; oppure ci mandano messaggi, ma non li sentiamo; o invece non esistono affatto. Scienziati, filosofi, storici (ma anche i più creativi autori di fantascienza) hanno avanzato le ipotesi più varie, dai più vari punti di vista di ogni branca della scienza. Stephen Webb - fisico teorico e appassionato collezionista di possibili risposte al paradosso - presenta nel dettaglio le 75 soluzioni più stringenti e interessanti, regalandoci una seconda edizione del suo libro, aggiornata e generosamente ampliata con 25 nuovi capitoli. Un potente e inconsueto esercizio intellettuale per gli amanti della scienza e del pensiero speculativo.

Kat has a flair for fashion, but can she handle the glitz and glamour of the cyber runway?

Meet Kat Connors of Carmel Indiana: trendsetter, fashion blogger, and Glitter Girl Cosmetics' newest Alpha Girl. Kat is tapped to try out all of Glitter Girl's hottest beauty products before they hit the stores. Forty-eight hours after she blogs about the goodies in the new line, every girl at her school is sporting the gear. Kat's popularity skyrockets, but Jules - Kat's BFF - seems to be the only one who's not buying into the Glitter Girl lifestyle. Is Kat willing to sacrifice her friendship for life in the fab lane?

Legendary filmmaker Derek Jarman recorded his life and work in highly detailed sketchbooks. Encompassing both the private and the professional, these offer a personal view into the life and career of a highly influential filmmaker and artist.

Drawn from the collection of handmade books that Jarman gave to the British Film Institute shortly before his death in 1994, Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks showcases the most insightful and beautiful pages. Each of the original volumes is composed of drawings, photographs, and cuttings; pressed flowers are set beside scrawled ideas, and carefully penned poems accompany typed and edited working scripts. These once-private books are an intimate pictorial record of the detailed planning and research and the creative and emotional engagement behind every scene in Jarman’s films.

In Economic Growth: Unleashing the Potential of Human Flourishing, Edd S. Noell, Stephen L. S. Smith, and Bruce G. Webb make a comprehensive case for economic growth, equipping readers with an understanding of not only its pragmatic benefits but also its moral dimensions.

The Second Edition of this celebrated book by two of the world’s leading researchers in social work introduces readers to the main theories, theorists and perspectives that contribute to the debate on social work theory and social work methods. It brings together some outstanding international researchers in social work to challenge the reader to critically question how they think about social work.

With three new chapters, the new edition includes a focus on the psychosocial perspective. Each chapter allows the reader to relate the theories and methods discussed to their own personal experiences.

In social work, moral dilemmas are the rule rather than the exception. Reaching a clear professional judgement in stressful practice situations can be both challenging and complex. What is the 'best' course of action or the 'right' thing to do?

This important volume brings together highly regarded contributors from around the world to widen the debate about ethics and values through an unrivalled range of contemporary approaches. Divided into four parts, the book covers professional, moral, social and spiritual perspectives, including:

Ethical dilemmas and decision making

The ethics of care and the ethics of responsibility

Anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices

Islam and New-Age views

This agenda-setting text is both critical and reflective in content, demonstrating the impact of ethical and value perspectives on social work thinking and intervention. It is essential reading for all social work students studying ethics and values and for practitioners wishing to deepen their understanding of ethical practice

Mel Gray is Professor of Social Work and Research Professor in the Australian Institute of Social Inclusion and Wellbeing at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Stephen A. Webb is Professor of Human Sciences and Director of the Australian Institute for Social Inclusion and Well-being at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He is also Visiting Professorial Fellow in Social Work at the University of Sussex, UK, and was awarded the prestigious 'Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst' Visiting Professorship at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, in 2008.

Learn to play the turntable like your favorite DJs and create your own style! This essential guidebook and companion 2-record set teach you to play the turntable as a musical instrument. Use this first-ever turntable method to effectively master techniques and tricks. Includes step-by-step instructions on: setting up your equipment, scratching, beat matching, mixing, transforming, crabbing, crossfader technique, cutting and stabs. Book includes: photographs and musical exercises, tips on how the pros set up their gear for scratch mixing, and a history of DJing and hip-hop culture, plus interviews with top DJs such as: DJ Swamp (Beck), MixMaster Mike (Beastie Boys), DJ QBert (Invisibl Skratch Picklz), DJ Kuttin Kandi (5th Platoon/Anomolies), DJ A-Trak (Teenage DMC/ITF World Champion), and DJ Craze (three-time DMC World Champion). The companion records (two 7 inch. EPs) provide scorching grooves, phat beats, and wicked scratch material for DJs/turntablists of any level.

DJ Skills: The Essential Guide to Mixing & Scratching is the most comprehensive, up to date approach to DJing ever produced. With insights from top club, mobile, and scratch DJs, the book includes many teaching strategies developed in the Berklee College of Music prototype DJ lab.

From scratching and mixing skills to the latest trends in DVD and video mixing this book gives you access to all the tools, tips and techniques you need. Topics like hand position are taught in a completely new way, and close-up photos of famous DJ's hands are featured. As well as the step-by-step photos the book includes an audio CD to demonstrate techniques. This book is perfect for intermediate and advanced DJs looking to improve their skills in both the analogue and digital domain.


* In-depth interviews with the best DJ's for their genre offering insight, tips and techniques
* Covers the hottest new trends- DVD video mixing, effects, computerised DJ
* CD with audio samples features US National DCM champion DJ Perseus to demonstrate techniques

Stephen Webb, author of Where Is Everybody?, takes the interested amateur on a thrilling and enlightening tour of the amazing, even bizarre, new ideas of modern physics, including alternatives to the Big Bang, parallel universes, and an imaginary trip to the other side of the black hole.

In a 1950 conversation at Los Alamos, four world-class scientists generally agreed, given the size of the Universe, that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations must be present. But one of the four, Enrico Fermi, asked, 'If these civilizations do exist, where is everybody?' Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 million stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps 400 million galaxies in the Universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the 14 billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our own. Webb discusses in detail the 50 most cogent and intriguing solutions to Fermi's famous paradox.