Archives de catégorie : Popular Science

GENIALE KINDSKÖPFE de Sebastian Berger

A new look at human learning

GENIALE KINDSKÖPFE
(Brilliant Baby Brain)
by Sebastian Berger
Kösel, April 2019

Babies truly are miracles in learning: Sebastian Berger introduces us to the fascinating world of early infant learning, describes the development in the brain areas that enable learning, and gives insights into the respective cognitive research. He shows that babies not only learn much faster than adults, but  similar to scientists  explore the world experimentally, draw their conclusions from statistical information and deduce generally valid regularities from it. From individual observations, the child gains clues to the physical laws of nature and acquires important skills such as trust and the ability to cooperate. Within only a few years, children are able to understand and navigate the physical, psychological and social world perfectly. The book opens our eyes to a new view of the fascinatin world of early infant learning, thus allowing us to better understand and appreciate children.
Professor Sebastian Berger gained his PhD in business and social psychology at the University of Cologne. This was followed by research projects at the universities in Cologne, Stanford and Lausanne, and since 2015 he has been assistant professor for organisation research at the University of Bern. His research work has been discussed globally in such media as the New York Times, Washington Post, FAZ, SZ and NZZ. The birth of his child brought the focus of his research interest to early infant development.

LIFESPAN by Dr. David Sinclair

From an acclaimed Harvard professor and one of Time’s most influential people, this paradigm-shifting book shows how almost everything we think we know about aging is wrong, offers a front-row seat to the amazing global effort to slow, stop, and reverse aging, and calls readers to consider a future where aging can be treated

LIFESPAN
The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age, and Why We Don’t Have To
by David Sinclair
Atria Books, September 2019

For decades, experts have believed that we are at the mercy of our genes, and that natural damage to our genes—the kind that inevitably happens as we get older—makes us become sick and grow old. But what if everything you think you know about aging is wrong? What if aging is a disease—and that disease is treatable? In LIFESPAN, one of the world’s foremost experts on aging and genetics reveals a groundbreaking new theory that will forever change the way we think about why we age and what we can do about it. Aging isn’t immutable; we can have far more control over it than we realize. This eye-opening and provocative work takes us to the frontlines of research that is pushing the boundaries on our perceived scientific limitations, revealing incredible breakthroughs—many from Dr. David Sinclair’s own lab—that demonstrate how we can slow down, or even reverse, the genetic clock. The key is activating newly discovered vitality genes—the decedents of an ancient survival circuit that is both the cause of aging and the key to reversing it. Dr. Sinclair shares the emerging technologies and simple lifestyle changes—such as intermittent fasting, cold exposure, and exercising with the right intensity—that have been shown to help lead to longer lives.

David Sinclair is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Founding Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard. One of the leading innovators of his generation, he is listed by Time magazine as “one of the 100 most influential people in the world” (2014) and top 50 most important influential people in healthcare (2018). Dr. Sinclair and his work have been featured on 60 Minutes, Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and Newsweek, among others.

Le retour de Randall Munroe avec HOW TO!

Après le succès international de WHAT IF? (« Et si…? », éditions Flammarion) et THINGS EXPLAINER, le créateur de XKCD revient avec un guide éminemment scientifique qui donne des conseils extravagants sur comment faire des choses simples… de manière absurde et compliquée!
Le livre sera publié simultanément le 3 septembre 2019 par Riverhead aux Etats-Unis, John Murray au Royaume Uni, Penguin Verlag en Allemagne et Spectrum aux Pays Bas.

Cliquez ici pour voir l’article publié par Entertainment Weekly

For any task you might want to do, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally bad that no one would ever try it. How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems is a guide to the third kind of approach. It’s the world’s least useful self-help book.

It describes how to cross a river by removing all the water, outlines some of the many uses for lava around the home, and teaches you how to use experimental military research to ensure that your friends will never again ask you to help them move.

With text, charts, and stick-figure illustrations, How To walks you through useless but entertaining approaches to common problems, using bad advice to explore some of the stranger and more interesting science and technology underlying the world around us.

SOONISH: 25 Technologies That Will Make the Future Awesome de Zach Weinersmith

The basic notion of a bunch of technologies that’ll shape the world in your lifetime

SOONISH:
25 Technologies That Will Make the Future Awesome
by Zach Weinersmith and Dr. Kelly Weinersmith
Penguin Press, tentative publication: Autumn 2016
Proposal available
Agent: The Gernert Company

In SMBC, Zach Weinersmith pours a ton of research into his web comics and would like to do a book where he can expand upon his ideas in a broader way. SOONISH focuses on twenty-five technologies that exist today, that have a shot at changing the future in amazing (and positive) ways. The book will be co-written with Zach’s wife, (doctor) Kelly Weinersmith who is on the Faculty in the BioSciences Department at Rice University in Texas. Kelly has been identified as an up-and-comer by popular science media such as BuzzFeed and The New Scientist and she will be conducting interviews with experts in various fields for the book.

Zach Weinersmith is the founder, brain and artist behind Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – a very popular web comic that explores all sorts of topics with a smart, funny voice. His work has been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, io9, NPR, the Freakonomics Blog, Entertainment Weekly, Mother Jones, CNN, Discovery Magazine and more. Zach’s last two books were launched on Kickstarter and raised over $700,000 combined in 30 days each. His most recent book is the most funded children’s book ever on Kickstarter. SMBC has an international following as well.

A TROUBLESOME INHERITANCE fait la couverture de The Spectator

Dans A TROUBLESOME INHERITANCE: GENES, RACE AND HUMAN HISTORY, Nicholas Wade énonce sa courageuse théorie sur les races et les différences génétiques.

Un ouvrage destiné à relancer un ancien débat, tout en évitant la dérive raciste : publié il y a une semaine, l’essai de ce journaliste du New York Times a déjà fait la couverture de The Spectator, le plus ancien magazine en langue anglais e, a reçu une longue et favorable critique du Wall Street Journal et a fait son début dans le Top 25 des livres scientifiques de la dernière New York Times Bestseller List.

Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story

A TROUBLESOME INHERITANCE: GENES, RACE AND HUMAN HISTORY
by Nicholas Wade
Penguin Press (USA & Canada), May 2014

“It is hard to convey how rich this book is….The book is a delight to read—conversational and lucid. And it will trigger an intellectual explosion the likes of which we haven’t seen for a few decades….At the heart of the book, stated quietly but with command of the technical literature, is a bombshell….So one way or another, A Troublesome Inheritance will be historic. Its proper reception would mean enduring fame. » —The Wall Street Journal

Few ideas have been more toxic or harmful, or have been used for worse ends, than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from each other. But Nicholas Wade, inconvenient as it may be, believes that there is truth in this view. Race is inherently not a bright-line distinction; by definition it means that the more human populations are kept apart from each other and for longer periods of time, the more they will evolve their own distinct, separate traits under the selective pressure known as Darwinian evolution. Wade’s most controversial claims involve the genetic basis of human social habits, such as the genetic basis for the tendency to be more or less violent. Inevitably such assertions get caught up in questions of “better” and “worse,” which are pernicious; Wade argues the more subtle point that some traits are more adaptive for some specific environments than others and that science needs to set its course for the truth, come what may, taboos or no. With brave, scrupulous care and lucidity, Wade forays into this scientific minefield and endeavors to arrive at a coherent summary of what the new genetic science does and does not tell us about race and human history. This will not be the final word on the subject, but it will begin a mighty and in some respects overdue conversation.