Janine McGonigal
There is an undeniable power in games for harnessing the best attributes of humanity – and a great potential in directing those attributes towards improving the quality of our work, our lives, and our environment.
Topic: "Science"
The most important, groundbreaking advances in physics, cosmology, systems, and neuroscience, this material offers hope and solutions for true comprehension of the issues that face our society. Topics like the universe, systems complexity, logic, neuroscience, and the technological impacts on human nature are of paramount importance.
The most important, groundbreaking advances in physics, cosmology, systems, and neuroscience, this material offers hope and solutions for true comprehension of the issues that face our society. Topics like the universe, systems complexity, logic, neuroscience, and the technological impacts on human nature are of paramount importance.
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
IBM’s new Neurosynaptic Chips – Technology Inspired by the Brain
Called cognitive computers, systems built with these chips won’t be programmed the same way traditional computers are today. Rather, cognitive computers are expected to learn through experiences, find correlations, create hypotheses, and remember – and learn from – the outcomes, mimicking the brains structural and synaptic plasticity.
Neil deGrasse Tyson at UB: What NASA Means to America’s Future
Far more than landing men on the moon and other planets, NASA provides a vital role in shaping the dreams and futures of American youth.
Journey of the Universe
Swimme expertly guides us on an exhilarating trek through time and space, sharing a wondrous view of cosmic evolution as a process based on immense creativity, connection, and interdependence. He and co-producer Mary Evelyn Tucker weave a tapestry that draws together scientific discoveries in astronomy, geology, biology, ecology, and biodiversity with humanistic insights concerning the nature of the universe.
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
by Janine M. Benyus
If chaos theory transformed our view of the universe, biomimicry is transforming our life on Earth. Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature – taking advantage of evolution’s 3.8 billion years of R&D since the first bacteria [...]
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
by Jaron Lanier
Informed by Lanier’s experience and expertise as a computer scientist, You Are Not a Gadget discusses the technical and cultural problems that have unwittingly risen from programming choices—such as the nature of user identity [...]
How We Decide
Jonah Lehrer
Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate or we “blink” and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind’s black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they’re discovering [...]
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Leonard Mlodinow
A drunkard’s walk is a type of random statistical distribution with important applications in scientific studies ranging from biology to astronomy. Mlodinow, a visiting lecturer at Caltech and coauthor with Stephen Hawking of A Brief History of Time […]
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Dan Ariely
Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?
Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
Antonio R. Damasio
Since Descartes famously proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am,” science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions [...]
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
Daniel J. Siegal
From a pioneer in the field of mental health comes a groundbreaking book on the healing power of “mindsight,” the potent skill that is the basis for both emotional and social intelligence. Mindsight allows you to make positive changes in your brain–and in your life.
The Grand Design
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow Random House; First Edition edition (September 7, 2010) Amazon.com Book Description: The first major work in nearly a decade by one of the world’s great thinkers—a marvelously concise book with new answers to the ultimate questions of life: When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? Why [...]
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
Brian Greene
From Brian Greene, one of the world’s leading physicists, comes a grand tour of the universe that makes us look at reality in a completely different way. Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past?
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