Today's featured article
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| The World Without Us is a non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze statues, plastics, and Mount Rushmore will be among the longest lasting evidence of human presence on Earth. The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman traveled around the world to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotes from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the New York Times Best Seller list. It ranked #1 on Time and Entertainment Weekly's top 10 non-fiction books of 2007. The book has received largely positive reviews, specifically for Weisman's journalistic and scientific writing style, but some have questioned the relevance of its subject matter. (more...)
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On this day...
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June 15: Pentecost in Eastern Christianity (2008); Father's Day in several countries (2008)
- 1667 – French physician Jean-Baptiste Denys administered the first fully-documented human blood transfusion, giving the blood of a sheep to a 15-year old boy.
- 1846 – To settle the Oregon boundary dispute, the United Kingdom and the United States signed the Oregon Treaty, extending the United States – British North America border west along the 49th parallel north that was first established by the Treaty of 1818.
- 1978 – King Hussein of Jordan married American Lisa Halaby (pictured), who takes the name Queen Noor of Jordan.
- 1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb in the commercial centre of Manchester, England, injuring over 200 people and causing widespread damage to buildings.
- 2001 – Leaders of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
More events: June 14 – June 15 – June 16
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