Into The Extreme

Download or read book Extreme written by Emma Barrett and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some people risk their lives regularly by placing themselves in extreme and challenging situations? For some, such as astronauts, the extreme environments are a requirement of the job. For others, they involve the thrill and competition of extreme sports, or the achievement of what seem like unimaginable goals to some - such as being the first to reach the South Pole or climb Mount Everest. Whether for sport or a career, these people have made the personal choice to put themselves in places where there is a significant risk. What drives such people? What skills and personality traits enable the best to succeed? Does a successful mountaineer, astronaut, and cave explorer share the same abilities? Are there lessons the rest of us can learn from them? In Extreme, Emma Barrett and Paul Martin explore the challenges that people in extreme environments face, including pain, physical hardship, loneliness, disagreements, and the approaches taken to overcome them. Using many fascinating examples and personal accounts, they take a close look at the psychological impact on those who face these challenges, the traits that enable some people to succeed, and what we can take away from their experiences.

Download or read book Into the Extreme written by Valerie Olson and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length, in-depth ethnography of U.S. human spaceflight What if outer space is not outside the human environment but, rather, defines it? This is the unusual starting point of Valerie Olson’s Into the Extreme, revealing how outer space contributes to making what counts as the scope and scale of today’s natural and social environments. With unprecedented access to spaceflight worksites ranging from astronaut training programs to life science labs and architecture studios, Olson examines how U.S. experts work within the solar system as the container of life and as a vast site for new forms of technical and political environmental control. Olson’s book shifts our attention from space’s political geography to its political ecology, showing how scientists, physicians, and engineers across North America collaborate to build the conceptual and nuts-and-bolts systems that connect Earth to a specifically ecosystemic cosmos. This cosmos is being redefined as a competitive space for potential economic resources, social relations, and political strategies. Showing how contemporary U.S. environmental power is bound up with the production of national technical and scientific access to outer space, Into the Extreme brings important new insights to our understanding of modern environmental history and politics. At a time when the boundaries of global ecologies and economies extend far below and above Earth’s surface, Olson’s new analytic frameworks help us understand how varieties of outlying spaces are known, made, and organized as kinds of environments—whether terrestrial or beyond.

Download or read book Science in an Extreme Environment written by Philip Clements and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-04-25 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On February 20, 1963, a team of nineteen Americans embarked on the first expedition that would combine high-altitude climbing with scientific research. The primary objective of the six scientists on the team—who procured funding by appealing to the military and political applications of their work—was to study how severe stress at high altitudes affected human behavior. The expedition would land the first American on the summit of Mount Everest nearly three years after a successful (though widely disputed) Chinese ascent. At the height of the Cold War, this struggle for the Himalaya turned Everest into both a contested political space and a remote, unpredictable laboratory. The US expedition promised to resurrect American heroism, embodied in a show of physical strength and skill that, when combined with scientific expertise, would dominate international rivals on the frontiers of territorial exploration. It propelled mountaineers, scientists, and their test subjects 29,029 feet above sea level, the highest point of Chinese-occupied Tibet. There they faced hostile conditions that challenged and ultimately compromised standard research protocols, yielding results that were too exceptional to be generalized to other environments. With this book, Philip W. Clements offers a nuanced exploration of the impact of extremity on the production of scientific knowledge and the role of masculinity and nationalism in scientific inquiry.

Download or read book Life to the Extreme written by Ty Pennington and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ty Pennington shares stories from his life and offers a behind-the-scenes look at your favorite home shows! As a kid, Ty Pennington had too much energy. He was chaotic, bouncing off the walls, and on a first-name basis with the local emergency room staff. Back then there wasn't public awareness of attention deficit disorder yet. People just thought Ty was rambunctious. A trouble maker. What do you do with a kid who just can't sit still? Who can't focus? But Ty discovered something amazing when he was just a boy: he felt focused when he was building something. He discovered that he loved to work with his hands - to use tools and be creative. He loved to try new things, build and design new things. In Life to the Extreme Ty shares his remarkable life story. In his characteristic humorous style, he takes you racing through his life with ADHD-infused diversions that will make you laugh out loud. He shares about how he was diagnosed with ADHD in college, and what it has meant to be an advocate for ADHD awareness. He shares about his start as a model and carpenter, and his eventual move to television where he starred in the hit shows Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Trading Spaces. Life to the Extreme will inspire you. Ty's boundless energy and his sense of humor are infectious. You'll laugh. You might cry a little. And you'll definitely be inspired to change the lives of those around you.

Download or read book From the Extreme written by Renea Collins and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rachael, who has suffered through abandonment, abuse, pain, and betrayal, becomes a woman full of rage until she turns to God for help.

Download or read book Being Extreme written by Bill Gutman and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As fast-paced as a freefall from a roaring airplane, as thrilling as a towering jump off a ski slope, Being Extreme is a fascinating examination of the adrenaline rush of extreme sports. Here is a world where living life on the edge is the only option, where you are only as good as your last jump . . . and where one false move can take you out of the game permanently. From mountain climbing and freestyle motocross to skydiving and snowboarding and beyond, in the past decade, the world of extreme sports has exploded onto the scene, with daredevils attempting acts of athleticism that leave spectators awed . . . and fearful. Being Extreme explores the motivations and societal impulses behind these high-risk lifestyles through interviews with professional athletes and recreational enthusiasts, as well as with psychiatrists who seek to understand the motivation behind these “Big T” personalities. Authors Gutman and Frederick also explore what heart-stopping sports are around the next curve, because in a world where the “rush” is everything, everyone is always upping their game.

Download or read book Extreme Fear written by Jeff Wise and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2009-12-08 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since the phrase "fight or flight" was coined in the 1920s, the common understanding has been that the mind respond to danger in one of two ways - either fleeing in blind panic, or fighting through it. But as scientists unlock the secrets of the human brain, a more complex understanding of the fear response has emerged. It turns out that the ancient brain circuitry wired to process fear is also intricately tied to our ability to master new skills, and that the icy sensation of terror can actually enhance both our physical and our mental performance. Veteran science journalist Jeff Wise, who writes the "I'll Try Anything" column for Popular Mechanics, journeys into the heart of the primal force to find its hidden roots: Where does panic come from? How is it that some people can perform masterfully under pressure? How can we live a more courageous life? Reporting from the front lines of science, Wise takes us into labs where scientists are learning how we make decisions when confronted with physical peril, how time is perceived when the mind is on high alert, and how willpower succeeds or fails in controlling fear. Along the way, he illuminates the science with riveting stories of true-life danger and survival. We watch a woman defend herself from a mountain lion attack in a remote canyon; we witness couple desperately fighting to beat back an encircling wildfire; we see a pilot struggle to maintain control of his plane as its wing begins to detach. Full of amazing characters and cutting-edge science, Extreme Fear is an original and absorbing look at how we can raise the limits of human potential.