Bøker av Silvia Ferrara

In this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity and perseverance-published all around the world-a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts through our cultural and social behavior in search of the origins of our greatest invention: writing.The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair's oval backrest-all around us is an alphabet in things. But how did these shapes make it onto the page, never mind form complex structures such as this sentence? In The Greatest Invention, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how-and how many times-human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond.With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer's eye.A code-cracking tour around the globe, The Greatest Invention chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing's future.

This innovative collection offers a holistic portrait of the multimodal communication potential of images from the Upper Paleolithic times through to today, showcasing image-based creativity throughout the centuries. The volume seeks to extend the boundaries of our understanding of what language and writing can do to show how language can be understood as part of broader codes and how images and figural objects can contribution to meaning-making in communication. The book is divided into four parts, each exploring a different dimension of the interplay between representation, symbolic meaning, and perception in the study of images and drawing on case studies from around the world. The first section looks at cognitive approaches to the earliest symbol-making while the second considers the interaction between images and writing in early scripts. The third section addresses images outside their boxes, showcasing how ancient communication devices can be reinterpreted. A final section features chapters reflecting on embodied semiotic approaches to the representation of images. This book will be of interest to scholars in semiotics, archaeology, cognitive psychology, and linguistic and cultural anthropology.

This book aims to provide methods, protocols, and discussion topics for those who wish to examine in depth the molecular mechanisms of adaptation and versality of bacteria and would like to envisage their evolution responses in the fast changing Antropocene.Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Pseudomonas aeruginosa: Methods and Protocols aims to be a useful and practical guide to new researchers and experts looking to expand their knowledge.

In this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity and perseverance-published all around the world-a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts through our cultural and social behavior in search of the origins of our greatest invention: writing.The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair's oval backrest-all around us is an alphabet in things. But how did these shapes make it onto the page, never mind form complex structures such as this sentence? In The Greatest Invention, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how-and how many times-human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond.With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer's eye.A code-cracking tour around the globe, The Greatest Invention chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing's future.