Science + Psychology
PLANTA SAPIENS: THE NEW SCIENCE OF PLANT INTELLIGENCE
Written by Calvo, Paco
Decades of research document plants' impressive abilities: they communicate with one another, manipulate other species, and move in sophisticated ways. Lesser known, however, is the new evidence that plants may actually be sentient. Although plants may not have brains, their microscopic commerce exposes a system not unlike the neuronal networks running through our own bodies.
HOW DATA HAPPENED: A HISTORY FROM THE AGE OF REASON TO THE AGE OF ALGORITHMS
Written by Jones, Matthew L
From facial recognition--capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents--to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms.
DEVIL'S ELEMENT: PHOSPHORUS AND A WORLD OUT OF BALANCE
Written by Egan, Dan
Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it's also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people.
HACKER?S MIND: HOW THE POWERFUL BEND SOCIETY'S RULES, AND HOW TO BEND THEM BACK
Written by Schneier, Bruce
A hack is any means of subverting a system's rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn't computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them "loopholes." We call exploits "tax avoidance strategies." And there is an entire industry of "black hat" hackers intent on finding exploitable loopholes in the tax code. We call them accountants and tax attorneys.
PARROT AND THE IGLOO: CLIMATE AND THE SCIENCE OF DENIAL
Written by Lipsky, David
In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had control of the climate story, Senator James Inhofe and his family built an igloo on the Washington Mall and plunked a sign on top: AL GORE'S NEW HOME: HONK IF YOU LOVE CLIMATE CHANGE.
GÖDEL'S THEOREM: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
Written by Moore, A W
Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Kurt Gödel first published his celebrated theorem, showing that no axiomatization can determine the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning arithmetic, nearly a century ago.
DIALOGUE ON THE TWO CHIEF WORLD SYSTEMS
Written by Shea, William R
'The truth which we arrive at by means of mathematical proofs is the same truth that is known to divine wisdom.' Galileo's Dialogue on the Two Greatest World Systems, the most brilliant and persuasive defence of the Copernican theory that the Earth goes around the Sun to have been written in the seventeenth century, is one of the foundation texts of modern science.
STRANGERS TO OURSELVES: UNSETTLED MINDS AND THE STORIES THAT MAKE US
Written by Aviv, Rachel
The acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv offers a groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind, and illuminates the startling connections between diagnosis and identity. In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress.
STARRY MESSENGER: COSMIC PERSPECTIVES ON CIVILIZATION
Written by Tyson, Neil Degrasse
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
THINKING 101: HOW TO REASON BETTER TO LIVE BETTER
Written by Ahn, Woo-Kyoung
"An INVALUABLE RESOURCE to anyone who wants to think better." --Gretchen Rubin Award-winning YALE PROFESSOR Woo-kyoung Ahn delivers "A MUST-READ--a smart and compellingly readable guide to cutting-edge research into how people think." (Paul Bloom) "A FUN exploration." --Dax Shepard Psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn devised a course at Yale call
New Arrivals
