A postmodern crime thriller from one of Ireland's best crime fiction writers

Winner of the Crimefest 2012 Goldsboro Last Laugh Award Billy Karlsson needs to get real. Literally. A hospital porter with a sideline in euthanasia, Billy is a character trapped in the purgatory of an abandoned novel. Deranged by logic, driven beyond sanity, Billy makes his final stand: if killing old people won't cut the mustard, the whole hospital will have to go up in flames. Only his creator can stop him now, the author who abandoned Billy to his half-life limbo, in which Billy schemes to do whatever it takes to get himself published, or be damned . . .

“A lovely, fascinating book, which brings science to life.” —Alan Lightman Combining science, history, and adventure, Tom Shachtman “holds the reader’s attention with the skill of a novelist” as he chronicles the story of humans’ four-centuries-long quest to master the secrets of cold (Scientific American). “A disarming portrait of an exquisite, ferocious, world-ending extreme,” Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold demonstrates how temperature science produced astonishing scientific insights and applications that have revolutionized civilization (Kirkus Reviews). It also illustrates how scientific advancement, fueled by fortuitous discoveries and the efforts of determined individuals, has allowed people to adapt to—and change—the environments in which they live and work, shaping man’s very understanding of, and relationship, with the world. This “truly wonderful book” was adapted into an acclaimed documentary underwritten by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, directed by British Emmy Award winner David Dugan, and aired on the BBC and PBS’s Nova in 2008 (Library Journal). “An absorbing account to chill out with.” —Booklist

In 1967, American radiologist Peter Ross takes a vacation to the south of Spain, where he meets a beautiful woman on a beach and finds himself swept up in a gang war over a precious artifact.

Recent years have seen tremendous progress in research on cold and controlled molecular collisions, both in theory and in experiment. The advent of techniques to prepare cold and ultracold molecules and ions, to store them in optical lattices or in charged quasicristalline structures, and to use them in crossed or merged beam experiments have opened many new possibilities to study the most fundamental aspects of molecular interactions. At the same time, theoretical work has made progress in tackling these problems and accurately describing quantum effects in complex systems, and in proposing viable options to control chemical reactions at ultralow energies. Through tutorials on both the theoretical and experimental aspects of research in cold and ultracold molecular collisions, this book provides advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and researchers with the foundations needed to understand this exciting field.

As part of the Physics 2010 decadal survey project, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation requested that the National Research Council assess the opportunities, over roughly the next decade, in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) science and technology. In particular, the National Research Council was asked to cover the state of AMO science, emphasizing recent accomplishments and identifying new and compelling scientific questions. Controlling the Quantum World, discusses both the roles and challenges for AMO science in instrumentation; scientific research near absolute zero; development of extremely intense x-ray and laser sources; exploration and control of molecular processes; photonics at the nanoscale level; and development of quantum information technology. This book also offers an assessment of and recommendations about critical issues concerning maintaining U.S. leadership in AMO science and technology.