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Nature and Science August 2020
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A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold through Our Genes
by Adam Rutherford; foreword by Siddhartha Mukherjee
What it's about: "Geneticists have suddenly become historians," observes author Adam Rutherford, citing discoveries that have transformed our understanding of human evolution.
Contains: the (roughly) 2 million year history of the Homo genus, an accessible primer on genomics, and a discussion of what DNA can (and can't) tell us about ourselves.
About the author: Geneticist and journalist Adam Rutherford is the author of Humanimal: How Homo Sapiens Became Nature's Most Paradoxical Creature.
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Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
by Bruce Schneier
Contains: everything you should know about data, metadata, and surveillance (both government and corporate).
About the author: Self-described "public-interest technologist" Bruce Schneier is the creator of the popular website Schneier on Security.
Did you know? In a 2012 study, researchers were able to use cell phone data to predict where individuals would be 24 hours later, within a radius of 20 meters.
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Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon
by Jeffrey Kluger
What it is: an exciting account of the Apollo 8 mission that blends technical details of the mission with profiles of its participants.
Why you might like it: Science writer Jeffrey Kluger draws on interviews with crew members Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, as well as materials from the NASA Oral History Project, to recreate the mission.
You might also like: Robert Poole's Earthrise, which examines the creation of the iconic photograph of Earth as seen from space.
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DNA is Not Destiny: the Remarkable, Completely Misunderstood Relationship...
by Steven J. Heine
What it's about: Cultural psychologist Steven Heine discusses the genomics revolution, reflecting on how ill-equipped we are to handle its revelations.
Read it for: the author's insightful discussion of the cognitive biases that make us susceptible to essentialist thinking, the oversimplification of complex concepts, and the lofty promises of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services.
Food for thought: "Yet we persist in this belief that our genes control our lives. We are genetic fatalists."
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The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
by Margaret O'Mara
What it is: an "accessible yet sophisticated chronicle" (New York Times) of Silicon Valley that spans seven decades and includes the U.S. military-industrial complex, Stanford University, the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, and a sprawling cast of interesting characters.
Did you know? The name "Silicon Valley" was coined in 1971 by Electronic News writer Don Hoefler.
Try this next: Leslie Berlin's Troublemakers, another well-researched nonfiction account of the region's transformation into a tech hub.
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Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
by Cathy O'Neil
What it's about: Big Data's capacity for reinforcing and exacerbating existing social inequalities, due to its scale and lack of transparency.
About the author: Mathematician Cathy O'Neil was a professor and a Wall Street quantitative analyst before becoming a blogger and activist.
You might also like: Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality, or John Cheney-Lippold's We Are Data.
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Weird Math: A Teenage Genius & His Teacher Reveal the Strange Connections Between... by David Darling and Agnijo Banerjee What it's about: a science writer and his protégé, a teen prodigy, discuss their favorite mathematical concepts in a style that's accessible without being over-simplistic.
Topics include: the fourth dimension, topology, prime numbers, Turing machines, and infinity.
For fans of: Alex Bellos' Here's Looking at Euclid, Ian Stewart's Visions of Infinity, or Steven Strogatz's The Joy of X. | | Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe by Steven Strogatz What it is: an applied mathematician's surprisingly accessible guide to calculus, which outlines its basic concepts while recounting its history.
Food for thought: "If anything deserves to be called the secret of the universe, calculus is it."
You might also like: mathematician Amir Alexander's similarly engaging Infinitesimal, which also explores a world-changing concept. | | The Math of Life & Death: 7 Mathematical Principles that Shape Our Lives by Kit Yates What it's about: Applied mathematician Kit Yates examines seven mathematical principles (including exponential growth, probability, and algorithms) and demonstrates how these can be applied to areas such as law, medicine, the media, and more.
Don't miss: the rather timely chapter "Susceptible, Infective, Removed: How to Stop an Epidemic." | |
Contact your librarian for more great books!
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