"Before, there were trees and countryside. Man didn't intervene. Stalin decided to "rectify" that space, and now, instead of trees, there are concrete buildings, everywhere. Stalin had a factory built. Thanks to that, lots of people got jobs, like my dad." Born in 1979, Marzi is a 7-year-old Polish girl who looks wide-eyed at the world around her: her parents, her family, her school friends and the crabby women at the grocery store who don't even smile for a fruit delivery. Marzi lives on a council estate in an industrial town, and is a cheerful, carefree, mischievous and perceptive little girl, bound to run into many adventures!

Marzena Sowa's memoir of a childhood shaped by politics as told from a young girl's perspective. Structured as a series of vignettes that build on one another, MARZI is a coming-of-age story that portrays the harsh realities of life behind the Iron Curtain while maintaining the everyday wonders and curiosity of childhood.

Why sex matters Among human and nonhuman animals, the prevalence and intensity of infection typically is higher in males than females and may reflect differences in exposure as well as susceptibility to pathogens. Elevated immunity among females is a double-edged sword in which it is beneficial against infectious diseases but is detrimental in terms of increased development of autoimmune diseases. The present book critically reviews the evolutionary origin and the functional mechanisms responsible for sexual dimorphism in response to infection. It emphasizes the value of examining responses in both males and females to improve our understanding about host-pathogen interactions in both sexes. The contributors are experts in their specific disciplines which range from microbiology and immunology to genetics, pathology, and evolutionary biology. The book aims at bringing insight to the treatment and management of infectious diseases; it delineates areas where knowledge is lacking and highlights future avenues of research.

This story takes place on a tiny, far-flung island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, whose nearest neighbor is Madagascar, 500 kilometers away... In 1760, the Utile, a ship carrying black slaves from Africa, was shipwrecked here and abandoned by her crew. The surviving slaves had to struggle to stay alive in this desolate land for fifteen years... When this tale got back to France, it became the cornerstone of the battle of Enlightenment to outlaw slavery. More than two hundred years later, the artist Sylvain Savoia accompanied the first archeological mission in search of understanding how these men and women, who had come from the high mountains of Madagascar, had survived alone in the middle of the ocean. This is the story of that mission, through which we're exposed to the extraordinary story of the slaves themselves.

Nino would rather be outside playing than stuck inside doing homework—especially science homework. Then he discovers that one of the greatest scientists ever started out feeling the same way: Albert Einstein—the guy who invented that famous formula: E=mc2. And, as Ariane explains, there was a lot more to Einstein than just formulas. Thanks to him, we have GPS devices and electric gates, nuclear energy and ... well, yes, also nuclear bombs. Einstein did everything he could to make the world a better place—but after all, he was only human!