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"From the acclaimed author of Tubes, a lively and surprising tour of the infrastructure behind the weather forecast, the people who built it, and what it reveals about our climate and our planet. The weather is the foundation of our daily lives. It's a staple of small talk, the app on our smartphones, and often the first thing we check each morning. Yet behind these quotidian interactions is one of the most expansive machines human beings have ever...
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Half a century after Apollo 11 we have still not returned to the moon, but that is about to change. The thirteenth person to walk on the moon could soon be part of a crew establishing a base on the lip of a crater at the lunar south pole. The discovery of ice in the eternal shadows of the polar regions transforms our ability to live on the moon. From bases on the moon we can make the long, lonely and dangerous voyage to Mars, where there is also ice....
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"Most robots are glorified power tools, limited in scope and subject to constant human control... But not for long. As roboticists Laura Major and Julie Shah argue, tomorrow's robots will not be our tools but our collaborators. They'll operate on their own in busy, unpredictable pubic spaces, driving our trucks, doing our grocery shopping, patrolling our neighborhoods, and even managing our ER's... They'll be our first truly social machines.. [This...
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"A penetrating look at near-future disruption as truly autonomous vehicles arrive. For decades we have tried to build a car that will drive itself. Anthony M. Townsend's Ghost Road argues convincingly that the driverless car is a red herring. When self-driving technology infects buses, bikes, delivery vans, and even buildings, a wild, woollier, future awaits. Technology will transform life behind the wheel into a hi-def video game that makes our ride...
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Snow, beautiful and magical, is sometimes considered one of nature's blessings. It is also a nuisance needing to be managed and moved, and worse, a sometimes-crippling catastrophe to be battled. Wood looks at snow in all its delightful and fearsome manifestations as he delves into science, history, economics, and popular culture to examine snow's enduring hold on the imagination. He summarizes the current scientific understanding of major winter weather...
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The next frontier in space exploration is Mars, the red planet-and human habitation of Mars isn't much farther off. In October 2015, NASA declared Mars “an achievable goal;” that same season, Ridley Scott and Matt Damon's The Martian drew crowds into theaters, signaled by its nearly half-million-dollar gross in the first two months. Now the National Geographic Channel goes years fast-forward with “Mars,” a six-part series documenting and dramatizing...
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"At the dawn of a new decade, with temperatures increasing, alarming sea-level rise, and annual fire seasons threatening communities across continents, every decision we make will determine the fate of the planet and the promise of our existence. In this hope-filled exploration of the near future, leading climate advocate and journalist Eric Holthaus draws on the wisdom and work of climatologists, economists, futurists, and activists on the front...
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Today's unprecedented pace of change leaves many people wondering what new technologies are doing to our lives. Has social media robbed us of our privacy and fed us with false information? Are the decisions about our health, security, and finances made by computer programs inexplicable and biased? Will these algorithms become so complex that we can no longer control them? Are robots going to take our jobs? Will better health care lead to an aging...
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"An anthropologist visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: Whose values are guiding gene editing experiments? And what does this new era of scientific inquiry mean for the future of the human species? At a conference in Hong Kong in November 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced that he had created the first genetically modified babies--twin girls named Lulu and Nana--sending shockwaves around the world. A year later, a Chinese...
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Explores universal questions about humanity's capacity for living and thriving in the coming age of sentient machines and AI, examining debates from opposing perspectives while discussing emerging intellectual diversity and its potential role in enabling a positive life.
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The year is 2393, and a senior scholar of the Second People's Republic of China presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment, the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies, entered into a Penumbral period in the early decades of the twenty-first century, a time when sound science and rational discourse about global change were prohibited and clear warnings of climate...
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"This book presents a balanced and broad introduction to robotics and the current state of the field, analyzing where it has come from and where it might go in the future. Beginning with the history of robotics and its complex relationship with popular culture, it then moves on to discuss the technology underlying robots, exploring the limits of what robots can actually do now and what they might be able to do in the future. Naturally, these machines,...
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There are more rich people and more poor people in our country than ever before. That widening gap means dealing with one big, uncomfortable truth: the middle is growing thinner and thinner. Globally renowned economist Tyler Cowen explains how this happened: high earners are taking ever more advantage of computers and achieving ever-better results. Meanwhile, low earners who haven't committed to learning the new technologies have poor prospects. Nearly...
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"In Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, award-winning journalist and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on a journey into the world of the people who are changing what it means to be human. Focusing on the central pillars of the human experience-birth, food, sex, and death--Kleeman examines the people who are driving some truly amazing (and perhaps worrying) innovations. We are on the brink of seismic changes in the ways we live and die, from babies grown...
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What will the year 2084 hold for you--for your friends, for your family, and for our society? Are we doomed to the grim dystopia imagined in George Orwell's 1984? In 2084, scientist and philosopher John Lennox will introduce you to a kaleidoscope of ideas: the key developments in technological enhancement, bioengineering, and, in particular, artificial intelligence. You will discover the current capacity of AI, its advantages and disadvantages, the...
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