“ On May 30, 1539, Hernando De Soto landed his private army near Tampa Bay in Florida. De Soto was a novel figure: half warrior, half venture capitalist. He grew very rich very young in Spanish America… Charles C. Mann
“ Smartphones can relay patients' data to hospital computers in a continuous stream. Doctors can alter treatment regimens remotely, instead of making patients come in for a visit. Charles C. Mann
“ A smartphone links patients' bodies and doctors' computers, which in turn are connected to the Internet, which in turn is connected to any smartphone anywhere. The new devices could put the management… Charles C. Mann
“ The fact is that what scientists call zoonotic disease was little known in the Americas. By contrast, swine, mainstays of European agriculture, transmit anthrax, brucellosis, leptospirosis, trichinosi… Charles C. Mann
“ Vogt sees the city reaching across the dry lake bed to engulf the last fields and streams and says: Hold it back! We cannot let our species overwhelm the natural systems on which we all depend! Borlau… Charles C. Mann
“ TAWANTINSUYU In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimb… Charles C. Mann
“ This symbiosis was fantastically improbable. In 3.5 billion years of history and trillions of trillions of interactions between protozoa and cyanobacteria it seems to have happened exactly once. But t… Charles C. Mann
“ Criminals beheaded in Palermo, heretics burned alive in Toledo, assassins drawn and quartered in Paris—Europeans flocked to every form of painful death imaginable, free entertainment that drew huge cr… Charles C. Mann
“ Voltaire, Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes never had a chance to speak with these men or even know of their existence—and here, at last, we begin to appreciate the enormity of the calamity, for the distint… Charles C. Mann
“ Vogt, Leopold, Murphy, and their associates were not truly in this elitist company; in fact, they helped begin the transformation in which environmental issues switched from being a cause of the right… Charles C. Mann
“ In Deloria's opinion, archaeology is mainly about easing white guilt. Determining that Indians superseded other people fits neatly into this plan. If we're only thieves who stole our land from someone… Charles C. Mann
“ The second myth is that in its appetite for death as spectacle the Triple Alliance was fundamentally different from Europe. Criminals beheaded in Palermo, heretics burned alive in Toledo, assassins dr… Charles C. Mann
“ The Olmec were but the first of many societies that arose in Mesoamerica in this epoch. Most had religions that focused on human sacrifice, dark by contemporary standards, but their economic and scien… Charles C. Mann
“ Solar research had been the product of anxiety about fossil fuels. When the anxiety faded, so did the interest. Charles C. Mann
“ Intuitively, I am hard-pressed to believe that most people would endorse the notion that the future of humankind is worth no more than a single apartment. Chichilnisky, a major figure in the IPCC, has… Charles C. Mann
“ Colón’s signal accomplishment was, in the phrase of historian Alfred W. Crosby, to reknit the seams of Pangaea. Charles C. Mann
“ These ideas might have been expected to draw fire from Hubbert’s employer—he had become second-in-command at a big Shell Oil research center in Houston. But they attracted little notice until 1956, Charles C. Mann
“ Sun power’s image as the province of baling-wire hippies was at odds with reality. Today’s multibillion-dollar photovoltaic industry owes its existence mainly to the Pentagon and Big Oil. The first wi… Charles C. Mann
