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Nature and Science February 2019
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How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler
by Ryan North
What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat?
With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever. You're about to make history... better.
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Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World
by Maryanne Wolf
A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium.
Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums.
Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children—Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become, inevitably, increasingly dependent on screens.
Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, technology, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities—and what this could mean for our future.
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The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
by David E. Sanger
The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes—from crippling infrastructure to sowing discord and doubt—cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists.
Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution.
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21 Lessons for the 21st Century
by Yuval Noah Harari
How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children?
Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis?
Harari’s unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty.
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| The Inner Life of Cats: The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions by Thomas McNameeA guide to cats by nature writer (and Guggenheim Fellow) Thomas McNamee, who identifies best practices for cat care by consulting zoologists, animal behavior experts, and others.
Don't miss appearances by the author's feline companion, Augusta.
You might also like: John Bradshaw's Cat Sense or Abigail Tucker's The Lion in the Living Room. |
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| What It's Like to be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience by Gregory BernsHuman and canine brains show striking structural similarities, offering intriguing hints about dogs' emotional lives.
To study the canine brain, neuroscientist Gregory Berns trained dogs to climb into MRI machines. And his training regimen is almost as fascinating as his research findings.
For fans of: John Bradshaw's Dog Sense or Alexandra Horowitz's Inside of a Dog. |
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| The Animals Among Us: How Pets Make Us Human by John BradshawA look at the complex and ever-evolving relationships between humans and their companion animals, which shape human nature.
Contains evidence-based answers to such timeless questions as "Would my pet eat me if I died?"
Anthrozoologist John Bradshaw is the author of Cat Sense and Dog Sense, which reveal the secrets of pet behavior while debunking myths and misconceptions. |
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| The Intimate Bond: How Animals Shaped Human History by Brian FaganA thought-provoking history of the human-animal bond from prehistoric times to the present.
Anthropologist Brian Fagan examines the process of domestication in dogs, goats, sheep, pigs, cattle, donkeys, horses, and camels. (The not-quite-domesticated cat gets a mention, too.)
Don't miss discussions of the role of animal domestication in creating and maintaining social hierarchies. |
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