The author takes readers behind the scenes of these experiments in some of the most inhospitable places in the world, leading the tour with wit and an eye for compelling detail. First is a pilgrimage to Mount Wilson Observatory, where astronomers first measured the expansion of the universe. Next we go 2,341 feet underground in a defunct Minnesota iron mine to search for particles that could reveal dark matter. Sensitive telescopes embedded in the thick ice of Siberia’s Lake Baikal and Antarctica search for neutrinos.

These experiments and others are heroic in every sense, and Ananthaswamy captures their excitement—and the personalities of the scientists behind them—with enthusiasm and insight.

letter ::

Hello,

I’m happy to recommend this new book by best-selling non-fiction author — and my friend — Chip Walter. The book is titled Immortality, Inc. He’s dedicated several years to investigating the global efforts to end human aging + disease. I fully believe in this multi-pronged research that crosses science, technology, policy, ethics, finance, and futurism.

This will be humanity’s next great step forward — the inevitable, necessary evolution of biology. It’s time for society to rise-up against the defeatist concept that disease, aging, and death are part of life. We can’t accept anything less than life-long health + immortality. I believe that today’s steady stream of new knowledge in medicine + physics will join hands with advanced medical tech — to finally win this battle.

This decade will see progress in wide-ranging fields that affect health + life-span:

• genetic engineering + protein studies
• food engineering + agriculture
• ecology + sustainability
• abundance + basic needs
• tele-medicine + robotics
• infectious disease + immunology

The next step on the map to immortality: is to live long enough — stay healthy enough — to get to this fast-approaching time in history when we end aging + disease. Chip Walter’s book is an excellent primer — a tour of the people, places, know-how, and ideas that will conquer death. I hope you’ll be intrigued by his well-researched book.

Below, I’ve included the dictionary’s definition of a watershed moment. I believe we have to look toward to the future, with the understanding that 1,000s of tiny steps in progress can quickly add-up to sudden, tremendous breakthrough — enabling a huge leap for humanity.

I hope you enjoy reading the many excerpts from the book, below.

— Ray Kurzweil

by definition | watershed

wa — ter — shed — noun

— A period in history marking a turning-point in a course of action, in a state of affairs, or in a range of possibility.
— An event marking a unique or important historical change of course, on which important developments depend.
— A tipping-point.

idiom: A watershed moment.

title: Immortality, Inc.
deck: Renegade science, Silicon Valley billions, and the quest to live forever.
author: by Chip Walter
date: 2020

This book is available at fine book-sellers.

Amazon   |   Barnes + Nobel   |   Books-a-Million   |   IndieBound

about | the book

The book Immortality, Inc. — by acclaimed science journalist Chip Walter — explores today’s scientific pursuit of immortality with exclusive visits inside labs. Plus in-depth interviews with visionaries who believe we’ll soon crack the aging process + cure death.

Billionaires are betting their fortunes on advances to prove aging is unnecessary + death is a disability that can be cured. Researchers are delving into the mysteries of biology to keep those processes from happening. The author weaves-in fascinating conversations about the future of humanity.

The book interviews notable anti-aging champions.

• molecular biologist — Arthur Levinson PhD
• genomics entrepreneur — Craig Venter PhD
• pioneering futurist — Ray Kurzweil
• cellular expert — Robert Hariri PhD, MD

about | the author

Chip Walter is a best-selling non-fiction author, journalist, and documentary film-maker. He’s also a National Geographic fellow and former bureau chief at CNN.

He’s written 5 mainstream non-fiction books on science + nature — available at all fine book-sellers.

name: Chip Walter
bio: non-fiction author + journalist
web: home ~ books ~ channel

image | above

A portrait of Chip Walter.

an EXCERPT
from the book

section: epilogue

1. |

Any problem can be solved.

Ray Kurzweil is an inventor, entrepreneur, futurist, author — and a director of engineering at Google. I was sitting with Ray one afternoon when I asked him how he felt about the passage of time — and the idea of running out of it.

He didn’t like to talk about it, but in year 2008 he made a pilgrimage to the hospital to have his mitral heart valve repaired. It was a life-long, genetic shortcoming — and it needed to be taken care of. A leaky heart valve is never a recipe for immortality.

The procedure didn’t require new valves from pigs, only some suturing. So when I brought up the question of mortality, he just grinned. He said: ‘I worry about that a lot less, now that I know I’m not going to die.’

And why should he think otherwise? The ‘bridges’ were advancing, nano-tech was evolving, and artificially intelligent algorithms were undoing the mysteries of humanity’s demise every day. For Kurzweil it was only a matter of time, and time’s acceleration.

After all these years, he had accomplished the promise he’d made during his childhood. He changed the world — with his inventions and his ideas. Others may have explored the notion of living forever, but no one has driven the message into the mainstream with his fervor.

And no one hammers away harder at the importance of exponential growth than Kurzweil — science driven by the irresistible fusion of human + artificial intelligence. Kurzweil believes that any problem can be solved. Even the problem that — so far — has killed every living thing on Earth.

an EXCERPT
from the book

chapter: no. 26
title: The seed of the singularity.

1. |

The science to solve aging.

If the science necessary to solve aging was going to go anywhere, one last remarkable and ironic piece of the longevity puzzle would have to fall into place. Smart machines would need to arise in defense of the human race. Already machine learning was embedding itself in the medical arts, and digital technology had long ago become science’s handmaiden. Craig Venter’s work with the Human Genome Project had marked a milestone. But now — as the search for immortality deepened — much more digital muscle would be necessary.

Art Levinson himself had put the facts concisely: When it came to flipping the genetic switches needed to evade aging, there was no way any human at a lab bench — no matter how gifted, how insightful, or how hardworking — could possibly locate and comprehend their magical pathways. And without that, curing the Ultimate Problem was simply not going to happen.

Homo sapiens required a tool that was faster, smarter, and more tireless than humans themselves. The kind that Riccardo Sabatini used in the Face Project made a good example. ‘Machine learning’ was one term that Sabatini and other computer scientists used to describe this brand of work. But there was another more common name that nearly everyone had heard of — artificial intelligence (AI).

AI is different from other forms of computer code. It consists of legions of algorithms that are eerily similar to the human mind itself. AI can learn to solve problems without being explicitly told what to do ahead of time. It can — in some ways — think for itself, at high speed. It’s the stuff of countless dystopian futures. Ironic, then, that such capabilities should now emerge as our saviors.

It’s doubly ironic that those same tools have been the source of so much of Silicon Valley’s wealth. It’s almost as if evolution had anointed the Valley — with all its computing power and money — as the chosen instrument for immunizing death. In the machines and their algorithms, this created a symbiosis: digits, molecules, biology, tech — coming together in a strange and unexpected harmony.

2. |

Intelligent machines can solve problems.

Ray Kurzweil could have told you this was going to happen. More than 50 years ago, when he was 14 years old, he wrote a paper that outlined how a machine might somehow become as intelligent as a human. He hadn’t divined a direct connection between artificial intelligence and longevity just yet, but he always fervently believed that truly intelligent machines could solve nearly any problem.

The essentials of that thinking hadn’t really changed since Kurzweil’s paper. In fact, he used much of it as the basis for his best-selling 2012 book How to Create a Mind. The book argued that human-level intelligence could be created in computers by reverse-engineering the human brain. Figure out how the neo-cortex worked, employ pioneering software and hardware to do the same in a computer — and voilà — a fully human-like but entirely artificial machine.

Just after the book came out, Larry Page suggested that Kurzweil join Google to “bring natural language understanding” to the company — figure out how computers might someday talk and communicate like humans. Initially Kurzweil only planned to ask Page if Google — or Bill Maris at Google Ventures — might like to invest in the business he wanted to create based on the book. Instead, Page said just come into the Google fold.

This way, Kurzweil could work with the canny computer scientists at Google and tap into its bountiful digital resources — not to mention free office space and all the hardware and software cycles a big thinker could ask for.  So in December 2012, Kurzweil — for the first time in his life — joined a company that didn’t have his own name on the corporate logo. But that was ok. The dream of creating something as remarkable as a virtual mind — the holy grail of AI — was deep in the man’s DNA. If he had to become an employee to solve the world’s problems, including death, he could live with that.

The team’s first endeavor under Kurzweil’s tutelage as a director of engineering was to create machine-learning algorithms that could understand users’ e-mails — and then provide short, but sensible answers, all on their own. After 5 years of work with a group of 35 scientists, team Kurzweil created its first Google product: Smart Reply.

Launched in 2017, the initial version listened to the e-mail you received, and then Smart Reply provided 3 possible answers — short responses like “Let’s do Monday.” Smart Reply wasn’t going to solve aging — not immediately.

But in Kurzweil’s view, it made a good first example of artificially intelligent software comprehending a human thought and then providing a response that made sense. On the surface, it might appear trivial, but it really wasn’t. And in the end it would lead to life everlasting. How?

Building on Smart Reply, Kurzweil planned to ratchet-up his project to the point where machines could — on the fly and in context — speak as fluently in any language as he could. The new version would be able to pull all the right words, in all the right order, out of thin air — and carry on an entirely sensible, human-like conversation.

Once that was possible, he figured the machines would be pretty much as smart as we are — which also made them the seed of the singularity he felt would arrive in the mid-21st century.

3. |

A more powerful version of the human body + mind.

The seminal concept behind Ray Kurzweil’s work was something he called “intelligent pattern recognizers” — layers and layers of them that reside in the brain. In his view, these modules are what made the Homo sapiens neo-cortex — the most recently evolved sector of the human brain — such a ringing success. Kurzweil estimated the cerebral cortex houses about 300 million of them, each consisting of clusters of neurons.

Placed in context, he held that these modules rapidly bootstrap simple concepts in an increasingly complex human hierarchy that — layer-by-layer — deliver remarkable insights like art, math, and language. The modules manage this by quickly identifying a few low-level cues, then sensibly pulling in more modules — to generate still more bootstrapped knowledge.

For example, a module that sees the visual image of a horizontal bar, and then sees 2 sides of a pyramid would — in the context of a sentence — immediately recognize it as letter A. Other related modules would see additional letters related to A, to piece together the word ‘apple’ — rather than “pear.”

More modules would attach additional words and then tastes: maybe the smell of pies, memories, a location that the modules then figure out is a kitchen — until the next thing you know, you’re craving a piece of your grandmother’s apple pie. This might trigger other thoughts, feelings, memories, and insights. All of this happens in a blink — powered by the brain’s 100 billion inter-connected neurons.

This might seem a simple example, and a long way from Shakespeare’s: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow — creeps in this petty pace from day to day” — a line from his classic play Macbeth. But the point was that this network of inter-woven, highly flexible modules was the wellspring of human intelligence. And Kurzweil’s goal was to develop the artificially intelligent software that would reverse-engineer this unique human trait. If such an advance were possible, it might not be immediately obvious how AI would lead to immortality.

But to Kurzweil, it was all of a piece. With the advent of AI, he foresaw the evolution of a newer, more powerful version of the human body + mind. One that wasn’t strictly biological, but instead employed nano-tech — cell-size nano-bots that could clean arteries, strengthen muscle, and boost organs. While simultaneously allowing the brains of mere mortals to access the vast cerebral spaces of the cloud.

But not in the way we do now, with clunky phones and iPads from Apple — instead with invisible, cell-size machines injected like serums into the cerebral cortex. Essentially becoming enhanced, artificial brain cells — something I found myself calling neuro-bots.

4. |

Physically invincible, augmented people.

Ray Kurzweil predicts that within decades millions of people will be physically invincible, supplied with trillions of neuro-bots capable of linking directly to the ubiquitous cloud. Anyone thus augmented will not require stem cell rejuvenation, or even revamped genetics. They wouldn’t need to ask Google questions — the answer would simply be there, available like every other memory. The average human would not watch a movie. She’d be immersed, imagining it more completely than our own recollections currently do.

One would not hum a song. The music would come into the mind, full-blown, in the highest possible fidelity. In a blink, neuro-bots will even be able to shift your reality from wherever your body is currently located into any other place you might like: Kathmandu in Nepal, ancient Rome, or a beach in the Seychelles. Complete with warm sun and crystal clear water lapping your toes, every sensation as real as real. It wouldn’t be real, but it would feel that way — thanks to a seamless, sensory melding of the neuro-bots re-arranging the chemistry in your brain.

Best of all, this new human hybrid could be digitally backed-up and then downloaded — to create a cloned copy containing all of the information in your mind + body. So that even if your “self” suddenly died, you’d have a perfect back-up available to resume life, as if nothing at all had happened. True immortality that would, once and for all, absolutely obliterate Gompertz’s beta.

Kurzweil considered this a 4th and final bridge. With it, his ultimate view of everlasting life would at last emerge at a time + place that didn’t simply upgrade old-fashioned biology — the kind Calico and Human Longevity were working on — but upgraded it with nano-tech that made you immortal and incredibly intelligent, almost god-like.

Of course, Kurzweil would never use the term god-like. To him, entwining humans and machines so thoroughly that they became indistinguishable was simply the next natural course of human evolution.

One might feel that Kurzweil’s bridge 4 thinking was just a touch outside the views of the average Homo sapiens. Some, however, felt it was a very real threat. Elon Musk and — prior to his death in 2018 — Stephen Hawking had warned that super-intelligent AIs could take over the planet. Partly thanks to the work Musk’s friend Larry Page was supporting. Musk said in July 2017: “I have exposure to very cutting-edge AI. And I think people should be really concerned about it.”

Hawking had written in an open letter with Musk — and a few dozen AI experts — that the emergence of AI would lead to creatures so smart and swift they’d leave us looking like the cerebral equivalent of an amoeba. He said it could become the “worst event in the history of our civilization.”

Remarks like these aggravated the Kurzweilian brain. More and more, he grew peevish with media cries that repeatedly told the world that in no time we’d all be living in a dystopian future where our overlords transformed Siri into a menacing version of George Orwell’s novel 1984. But look how tech had advanced the human race.

Despite the horrors of the last century, the rate of death caused by war over the past 600 years had dropped several hundred fold. Murder rates were rapidly declining. FBI statistics showed that — between years 1993 to 2015 — the US murder rate had plummeted 50%. The same was true of property crime. Despite media reports of our collective demise, Kurzweil believed the world was a better, safer, happier, and smarter place — thanks to the advances that the keepers of science and innovation made possible.

For Kurzweil, the smart thing was to let tech march ahead — Tom Swift style — because that was where we were headed. Yes, one had to be vigilant and control the power of smart machines. He had been saying that for years. But no need to hit the panic button.

Machines wouldn’t match human intelligence for another 10 years, and the singularity itself wouldn’t arrive until year 2045 — a date with destiny that he planned to keep, when he celebrated his 97th birthday. The best approach would be to put safety measures into place along the lines of 3 laws of robotics by Isaac Asimov.

Like the first stone knives, created over 2 million years ago, all tech could be used for good or ill. But if properly managed, AI would surely be our saviors, not our terminators — our partners, not our competitors. Just watch: AI was going to save our skins. Kurzweil could see it. Levinson and Venter saw it too, each in their own way. There could be no doubt that smart machines was where the end of The End lay.

— end —

reading

Set of best-selling science books by author Chip Walter.

1. |

title: Last Ape Standing
deck: The 7-million-tear story of how we survived.
author: by Chip Walter
date: 2013

explore this book | click

2. |

title: Thumbs, Toes, and Tears
deck: And other traits that make us human.
author: by Chip Walter
date: 2006

explore this book | click

3. |

title: I’m Working on That
deck: A trek from science fiction to science fact.
author: by Chip Walter + William Shatner
date: 2002

explore this book | click

— notes  —

AI = artificial intelligence
CNN = Cable News Network
DNA = deoxy-ribo-nucleic acid
FBI = the Federal Bureau of Investigation | US
HLI = Human Longevity, Inc.

— contents —

~ book
~ description
~ quote
~ about | the author

book title: the Social Singularity
deck: How de-centralization will allow us to transcend politics and create global prosperity.
author: by Max Borders
date: 2018

This book is available at fine book-sellers.

Amazon   |   Barnes + Nobel   |   Books-a-Million   |   IndieBound

— description –

The world is rapidly de-centralizing.

• what if politics as we know it is about to end?
• what if humanity soon organizes itself not in hierarchies, but in hive minds?
• what if society’s structures — education, media, and financial institutions — soon become transformed?

Welcome to the social singularity.

In this book, futurist Max Borders shows that humanity is already building systems that will ‘underthrow’ great centers of power. Exploring the promise of a de-centralized world, he says civilization will:

• re-organize to collaborate + compete with AI
• operate within networks of superior collective intelligence
• re-discover + embrace values that foster an age of connection

Borders takes the reader on a tour of: modern pagan festivals, cities of the future, and radically new ways to organize society. He examines trends likely to revolutionize the way we live + work.

Although the technological singularity fast approaches — Borders explains that a parallel process of human re-organization will allow us to gain enormous benefits.

The paradox: global citizens’ billion little acts of subversion will help us lead richer, healthier lives. We must master the technological tools taking us into the tomorrow: automation, artificial intelligence, bio-tech, agro-tech, factory-tech, clean energy, and the smart-city of the future.

source: publisher

— quote —

De-centralization is not a choice, it’s an inevitability. Thankfully, the process can liberate people from poverty, end acrimonious politics, and help humanity avoid technological + civil collapse.

— Max Borders

about | the author

Author Max Borders is co-founder of the Future Frontiers conference + festival.

He’s also founder of Social Evolution, a non-profit organization dedicated to building mutual aid societies + solving social problems through innovation.

He lectures widely about the future of humanity. He was the former Editor + Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education.

image | above

A portrait of Max Borders.

webpages

name: Max Borders
bio: non-fiction author + futurist
bio: event producer
web: home ~ blog ~ books

Future Frontiers | home ~ channel
tag line: A gathering of visionaries creating the future of self, culture, and society.

Social Evolution | home
tag line: Innovating around power.

the Foundation for Economic Education | home ~ channel
tag line: Set your path, change the world.

— notes —

AI = artificial intelligence

— contents —

~ book
~ summary
~ author profile
~ listening
~ reference

— book —

book title: Troublemakers
deck: Silicon Valley’s coming of age.
author: by Leslie Berlin PhD
date: 2018

This book is available at fine book-sellers.

Amazon | book
Barnes + Noble | book
Books-a-Million | book
IndieBound | book

— summary —

The story of 7 high-tech pioneers. This is a richly told narrative of the Silicon Valley generation that launched 5 major tech industries in 7 years, laying the foundation for today’s world.

Written by journalist Leslie Berlin PhD, project historian at the Silicon Valley Archives of Stanford Univ.

At a time when the 5 most valuable companies on the planet are high-tech firms — Troublemakers is the story of how we got here. This is the gripping history of 7 pioneers of Silicon Valley in the 1970s + early 1980s. Together, they worked across industries to bring tech from deep inside government offices and university labs — to mainstream life.

Meet the people and their stories.

In her book Troublemakers respected author Leslie Berlin PhD introduces the people + stories behind the birth of the web and the micro-processor — plus these famous companies:

• Apple — personal computing software company
• Atari — video game software company
• Genentech — bio-medical research + pharmaceuticals company
• Xerox — print + digital documents company
• ROLM — computer hardware + telephone systems company
• ASK Group — business + manufacturing software company
• Sequoia Capital — start-up investment firm
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield + Byers — start-up investment firm

In 7 years — 5 major industries were born: personal computing, video games, bio-technology, modern start-up investment, and enterprise data-base systems. Stanford University began licensing faculty innovations to business, and the Silicon Valley tech community began to have influence in modern US politics.

The mavericks who invented our future.

Together, these troublemakers re-wrote the rules and invented our future. Featured are well-known Silicon Valley trailblazers including these legendary people:

name: Steve Jobs — co-founder of Apple
bio: Visionary leader who began the personal digital device revolution.

name: Regis McKenna — marketing guru
bio: Instrumental in launching the most innovative products of the computer age.

name: Don Valentine — early investor
bio: Called the grand-father of Silicon Valley venture capital.

name: Al Alcorn — engineer at Atari
bio: Pioneer of the first successful video game.

name: Sandra Kurtzig — founder of ASK Group
bio: One of the first female software entrepreneurs.

name: Bob Taylor — inventor at Xerox
bio: An internet genius who innovated the personal computer.

name: Fawn Alvarez — Chief of Staff at ROLM
bio: Progressed from a factory assembler to an executive.

name: Robert Swanson — co-founder of Genentech
bio: A leading bio-tech investor.

name: Larry Ellison — co-founder of Oracle
bio: Software business magnate.

name: Mike Markkula — CEO at Apple
bio: Early investor in personal computing.

name: Niels Reimers — founder of the Office of Tech Licensing • Stanford Univ.
bio: A transformative business thinker.

— author profile —

name: Leslie Berlin PhD
web: home

1. |

bio: project historian
school: Stanford Univ.
motto: The winds of freedom blow.
web: home ~ channel

group: Silicon Valley Archives
web: home

2. |

bio: fellow
school: Stanford Univ.
motto: The winds of freedom blow.
web: home ~ channel

project: the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences
tag line: A leading incubator of human-centered knowledge, to collectively design a better future.
web: home

3. |

bio: advisor
group: the Smithsonian Institution
tag line: The world’s largest museum + research complex.
web: home ~ channel

group: the National Museum of American History
tag line: Empowering people to create a just + compassionate future by exploring, preserving, and sharing our past.
web: home ~ channel

group: Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention + Innovation
tag line: Exploring invention + innovation through stories, activities, and research.
web: home ~ channel

image | left

The historian, journalist, and book author Leslie Berlin PhD. She’s best-known for her subject matter expertise on the rise of the age of computing.

She follows the evolution of digital tech that’s become key to everyday life.

credit: Leslie Berlin • PhD

IMAGE

listening

1. |

series: History in 5
tag line: A weekly dose of history.
web: home • channel

featurette title: 5 character traits that made Silicon Valley what it is today
hostess: Leslie Berlin • PhD

— summary —

In the space of only 7 years and 35 miles, 5 major industries — personal computing, video games, bio-tech, venture capital, and advanced micro-electronic semi-conductor logic — were born. Stanford University historian Leslie Berlin PhD introduces the people + discusses the pervasive character traits behind the success.

presented by

group: Simon + Schuster
tag line: Find your next great read.
web: home • channel

reference

Apple | home • channel
Oracle | home • channel

Roche | home • channel
Genentech • by Roche | home • channel

Xerox | home • channel
PARC • by Xerox | home • channel

Stanford Univ. | home • channel
Stanford Univ. • Office of Tech Licensing | home • channel

Kleiner Perkins | home • channel
Sequoia Capital | home • channel
Ellison Foundation | home

— notes —

* Silicon Valley is colloquial for the San Francisco, CA bay area • United States

ASK Group = founders names — Ari + Sandra Kurtzig
ROLM = founders names — Richeson, Oshman, Loewenstern, Maxfield
PARC = Palo Alto Research Center • by Xerox

— contents —

~ letter | from Ray Kurzweil
~ the book

~ about | the book — by publisher
~ about | the author — by publisher

~ author’s writings

— letter —

Dear readers,

I enjoyed the book the Secret Language of Cells by author Jon Lieff MD — it takes us on an exciting journey into a world where we can visualize elaborate conversations among immune cells, brain cells, gut cells, bacteria, and even viruses.

Lieff gives a wealth of examples for his thesis that this cellular signaling is the basis of life. It’s a must-read for anyone seeking to understand modern biology and advanced medical science. It’s equally important for those of us who wonder — as I do — how this ubiquitous information transfer in the form of cellular conversations might be related to the emergence of intelligence + consciousness.

— Ray Kurzweil

book title: the Secret Language of Cells
deck: What biological conversations tell us — about the brain-body connection, the future of medicine, and life itself.
author: by Jon Lieff MD
date: 2020

presented by

Jon Lieff MD | home ~ channel
tag line: Searching for the mind.

visit | blog
visit | resources

This book is available at fine book-sellers.

Amazon   |   Barnes + Nobel   |   Books-a-Million   |   IndieBound

about | the book
by publisher

An introduction.

Your cells are talking about you. Right now, both your inner and outer worlds are abuzz with chatter among living cells of every possible kind — from those in your body and brain to those in the environment around you. From electrical alerts to chemical codes, the greatest secret of modern biology, hiding in plain sight, is that all of life’s activity boils down to one thing: information transfer in the form of cellular conversations.

While cells are commonly considered the building block of living things, it’s communication between cells that brings us to life — controlling our bodies and brains, determining whether we are healthy or sick, and influencing how we think, feel, and behave. This conversation has determined all of biology, evolution, and the emergence of intelligence.

Different cells speaking the same language.

In the Secret Language of Cells, doctor and neuroscientist Jon Lieff MD lets us listen-in on these conversations. And reveals their significance for everything from mental health to cancer. He explains the surprising science of how very different cells — bacteria and brain cells, blood cells and viruses — all speak the same language. This has long been over-looked: because scientific journals use jargon that’s hard to understood across disciplines, much less by the general public.

Lieff presents a fascinating, accessible look into cellular communication science — a ground-breaking and comprehensive exploration of this biological phenomenon. Discover the intriguing lives of cells as they ask questions, get answers, give feedback, gather information, call for each other, and make complex decisions.

Understanding life.

During infections, immune T-cells tell brain cells that we should “feel sick” and lie down. Cancer cells warn their community about immune and microbe attacks. Gut cells talk with microbes to determine which are friends — and which are enemies. And microbes talk with each other — and with much more complicated human cells — in ways that determine which medicines work, and which will fail.

With applications for immunity, chronic pain, weight loss, depression, cancer treatment, and virtually every aspect of health + biology — cellular communication is revolutionizing our understanding not just of disease, but of life itself.

author’s writings

1. |

publication: Scientific American
read | stories by Jon Lieff MD

presented by

Scientific American | home ~ channel
tag line: Expertise, insights, and illumination.
banner: Celebrating 175 years of discovery.

Springer Nature | home ~ channel
tag line: We’re a world-leading research, educational, and professional publisher.
banner: 180 years of progress + 180 years of discovery

2. |

platform: Science 2.0
read | stories by Jon Lieff MD

presented by

Science 2.0 | web ~ channel
tag line: the world’s best scientists + the internet’s smartest readers

about | Jon Lieff MD
by publisher

Jon Lieff MD is a neuro-psychiatrist who earned his medical degree from Harvard Univ. Known as an innovator in several medical fields, he pioneered the creation of integrated treatment units that focus on complex patients with combined medical, psychiatric, and neurological problems.

He built some of the first geriatric medical + psychiatry hospital units, and the largest geriatric treatment network in New England, which he directed for 25 years. He’s innovating specialized treatment programs for brain-injured patients.

Jon Lieff MD is an expert in the field of geriatric psychiatry — and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Assoc. While he was president of the American Assoc. for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP), he helped found the major journal in that field — the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry — and was its consulting editor for 10 years.

He helped found the Geriatric Psychiatry Committee and the High Technology Committee for the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. He’s a member of several American Psychiatric Assoc. committees — plus chaired their committee on tele-medicine. Lieff has been studying the question: where can the mind be found in nature?

At first, his inquiry related to neuroscience and the interactions of psychiatric, neurological, and medical conditions. Then he expanded to include intelligence in a wide range of animals — and eventually individual cells, microbes, and viruses.

To share his extensive research, Jon Lieff developed his website — Searching for the Mind — where he posts weekly notes on neuroscience, molecular biology, microbiology, immunology, cancer, and related fields. His blog has a solid following in both the scientific + lay communities. His readers include: physicians, scientists, professors, authors, journal editors, and spiritualists.

Lieff has been featured on the television show 20 / 20 — and the magazines Newsweek and People. He wrote 2 of the first books on high-tech in psychiatry for the American Psychiatric Press. He’s published 20+ professional articles — and lectures widely on: neuro-psychiatry, neuroscience, psycho-pharmacology, dementia, depression, and medical tech.

His latest book is the Secret Language of Cells — synthesizing 12 years of analysis of scientific literature in a clear and understandable way — for both general science readers + scientific experts. He blogs about cellular biology, neuroscience, and microbiology — with special emphasis on conversation between cells.

— notes —

NPR = National Public Radio

Uses science fiction to address a series of classic and contemporary philosophical issues, including many raised by recent scientific developments.

Explores questions relating to transhumanism, brain enhancement, time travel, the nature of the self, and the ethics of artificial intelligence.

Features numerous updates to the popular and highly acclaimed first edition, including new chapters addressing the cutting-edge topic of the technological Singularity.

Draws on a broad range of science fiction’s more familiar novels, films, and TV series, including “I, Robot,” “The Hunger Games,” “The Matrix,” “Star Trek,” “Blade Runner,” and “Brave New World.”

Provides a gateway into classic philosophical puzzles and topics informed by the latest technology.

Susan Schneider is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Connecticut and a faculty member in the technology and ethics group at Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. Her work is on the nature of the self, which she examines from the vantage point of issues in philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence (A.I.), metaphysics, astrobiology, epistemology, and neuroscience. The topics she has written about most recently include the software approach to the mind, A.I. ethics, and the nature of the person. She is also a fellow with the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton. Schneider is also a blogger for The Huffington Post.

—Publisher

— book —

book title: the Square and the Tower
deck: Networks + Power: from the Freemasons to Facebook

author: by Niall Ferguson
year: 2018

this book on Good Reads | visit

— summary —

A re-casting of the turning points in world history, including the one we’re living through, as a collision between old power hierarchies and new social networks.

Most history is hierarchical: it’s about emperors, presidents, prime ministers and field marshals. It’s about states, armies and corporations. It’s about orders from on high. Even history “from below” is often about trade unions and workers’ parties. But what if that’s simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?

The 21st century has been hailed as the Age of Networks. However, in the Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry. Throughout history, hierarchies housed in high towers have claimed to rule, but often real power has resided in the networks in the town square below. For it is networks that tend to innovate. And it is through networks that revolutionary ideas can contagiously spread. Just because conspiracy theorists like to fantasize about such networks doesn’t mean they are not real.

From the cults of ancient Rome to the dynasties of the Renaissance, from the founding fathers to Facebook, the Square and the Tower tells the story of the rise, fall and rise of networks, and shows how network theory–concepts such as clustering, degrees of separation, weak ties, contagions and phase transitions–can transform our understanding of both the past and the present.

Just as The Ascent of Money put Wall Street into historical perspective, so The Square and the Tower does the same for Silicon Valley. And it offers a bold prediction about which hierarchies will withstand this latest wave of network disruption–and which will be toppled.

on the web | pages

Niall Ferguson | home

image | above
A 3-D globe of the moon.

credit: by BellaLuLu

book title: the Stars
deck: A new way to see them.
author: by Hans Augusto Rey
year: 2016

this book on Good Reads | visit

— summary —

This famous educational classic — written by acclaimed children’s author Hans Augusto Rey, brings the stars to life with vivid text, charts, and maps showing the positions of the constellations year-round. First printed in year 1952, this book has been updated + re-printed almost every decade — there are several modern versions to choose from.

book title: Sustainability
deck: A history.
author: by Jeremy Caradonna PhD
published in year: 2016

this book on GoodReads | visit

— book description —

The word is nearly ubiquitous: at the grocery store we shop for “sustainable foods” that were produced from “sustainable agriculture.” Groups ranging from small advocacy organizations, city + state governments, and the United Nations — tout “sustainable development” as a strategy for local + global stability. And city-dwellers aim for a “sustainable lifestyle.”

The concept of sustainable resource management for human civilization — and green living — dominates today’s zeitgeist: perma-culture, renewable energy, the local food movement. But the ideas behind sustainability can be traced-back 100s of years.

In his fascinating primer, author Jeremy Caradonna PhD approaches sustainability from a historical perspective. He explores the conditions that gave it shape. He locates the under-pinnings of the movement in the 1660s, and explains its international origins.

He takes us on a journey from the emergence of:

• sustainable yield forestry in the late 17th + 18th centuries
• the challenges of the Industrial Revolution
• the birth of the environmental movement
• the balanced development effort in late 20th century

He shows how sustainability progressed to an ideal that shapes modern civilization:

• individual lifestyles
• government + corporate strategies
• national + international policy

He says that while sustainability draws on ideas such as: social justice, ecological economics, and environmental conservation — it’s more than the sum of its parts. Sustainability is a way of life — plus a dynamic philosophy. This book is the history of people striving to make the world a better place to live. Caradonna helps us to deeply understand what “sustainability” means.

watch | book video

on the web | pages

Jeremy Caradonna PhD | home

— notes —

* Jeremy Caradonna is Jeremy L. Caradonna PhD

book title: Innovating Minds
deck: Re-thinking creativity to inspire change.
author: by Wilma Koutstaal PhD + Jonathan Binks
published in year: 2015

this book on Good Reads | visit

— book description —

A ground-breaking, scientific approach to creative thinking.

From entrepreneurs to teachers, engineers to artists, almost everyone stands to benefit from becoming more creative. New ways of thinking, making, and imagining can upgrade our personal lives and society.

But the science of creativity is a mystery. Few people know how to optimize our clever ideas. Innovating Minds offers a point-of-view grounded in science — to achieve your creative goals. Book authors Wilma Koutstaal PhD and Jonathan Binks explore research from brain, behavioral, and organizational sciences. They present a 5 part thinking frame-work — where ideas get developed +  refined.

Beyond scientific research, the book takes us on a tour of the everyday, creative challenges of people from all walks of life. From dancers, scientists, engineers, designers, and architects. The book shows that our creativity is filled with with emotion + motivation — flowing between our mind, body, and environment. The authors include practical work-sheets for mindful creation.

Innovating Minds is engaging, with a unique approach to harnessing creative ideas and putting them into action. It offers a fascinating exploration of the science of creativity along with new and valuable resources for becoming more innovative thinkers and doers.

What is creative thinking all about? How do we make, imagine, and move forward with new plans? How can we work in teams while sharing our personal creations with other people?

The book explores social science research:

• how does our mind connects-the-dots
• how do different personalities get along in groups
• how do large organizations successfully span continents

Good resources for thinking + doing.

We discover that creativity and innovation happen in cycles. Ideas may seem to pop-out of nowhere — but actually our thoughts are deeply rooted in emotion and motivation. The book Innovating Minds explores creativity cross-checks, questions, and thought boxes. With good resources for becoming more innovative thinkers and doers.

The thinking frame-work asks:

• What ideas are competing for your attention and awareness?
• How are you helping to form and re-form them?
• Are you aptly zooming in and zooming out?
• Do you give room for spontaneity and deliberateness in your thinking?
• Are you thinking using the full power of concepts: with sensing, feeling, and action goals?
• How do you ask your environments to creatively partner with you?
• How do you ask your thinking tools to creatively partner with you?

on the web | pages

Wilma Koutstaal PhD | home
Jonathan Binks | home

book title: Autonomy
deck: The quest to build the self-driving car.
deck: And how it will re-shape our world.
author: by Lawrence D. Burns + Christopher Shulgan
published year: 2018

this book on Good Reads | visit

— book description —

Your guide to the automated vehicle revolution.

An automotive technology insider investigates the quest to develop and perfect the driver-less car: the innovation that promises to be the most disruptive change to our way of life since the smart-phone.

We stand on the brink of a tech revolution. Soon, few of us will own our own automobiles. Instead we’ll get-around in driver-less electric vehicles that we summon with the touch of an app. We’ll be liberated from driving, prevent over 90% of car crashes, give mobility freedom to the elderly and disabled, and decrease our dependence on fossil fuels.

Autonomy is the story of the maverick engineers and computer nerds who are creating the driver-less vehicle revolution. A long-time advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car team and former General Motors co. research and development chief: author Lawrence D. Burns provides the well organized history of how we arrived at this point, in a character-driven and heavily reported account of the unlikely thinkers who accomplished what billion-dollar automakers never dared.

Beginning with the way 9/11 spurred the US government to set a million-dollar prize for a series of off-road robot races in the Mojave Desert — up to the early 2016 stampede to develop driver-less technology — the book Autonomy is a page-turner. The book is a chronicle of the past, a diagnosis of the present, and prediction of the future — the ultimate guide to understanding the driver-less car and navigating the transportation revolution.

on the web | pages

Lawrence D. Burns | home
Chrstopher Shulgan | home

— about the author —

Lawrence D. Burns was corporate Vice President of research, development and planning at General Motors co. He oversaw the company’s advanced tech + innovation programs, and corporate strategy. He was a member of General Motors Automotive Strategy Board and Automotive Product Board. He personally championed vehicle electrification, wirelessly connected vehicles, fuel cells, bio-fuels, advanced batteries, autonomous driving, and a series of innovative concept vehicles.

He’s been a leading advocate for design and tech innovation — focused on the total customer experience and the application of operations research.

He was a professor of engineering practice at the Univ. of Michigan and led the Program for Sustainable Mobility at Columbia Univ. He was as an adviser to the Google self-driving car project — now called Waymo — since 2011. He’s a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Burns advises organizations on the future of mobility, logistics, manufacturing, energy, and innovation. His clients are Peloton Technology co. and Kitson & Partners.

Peloton Technology co. is an automated vehicle + connected vehicle tech company: developing a vehicle platooning system that enables pairs of trucks to operate at close following distances to improve safety + fuel efficiency. Peloton Technology was the first company to test a non-research, commercial truck platooning system on public roads in the US. In 2016 it publicly stated it would be the first company to offer a commercial platooning system for use by truck fleets in 2017.[2][3] By mid-2018 that deadline had slipped to by the end of year 2018.

on the web | reading

Waymo by Aphabet | home
Waymo | YouTube channel
Waymo | video: introducing Waymo driver-less cars

on the web | reading

Peloton Technology | home
Peloton Technology | Vimeo channel
Peloton Technology | video: how automated truck platooning functions

— notes —

* Larry Burns is Lawrence D. Burns

— to post —

book: Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century
co-author: Lawrence D. Burns

book title: Driverless
deck: Intelligent Cars: and the road ahead.
label: New York Times best seller
author: by Hod Lipson PhD + Melba Kurman
published year: 2016

this book on Good Reads | visit

— book description —

Automation is transforming transportation.

The book Driverless is an informative + entertaining exploration of self-driving cars. After decades of failed experiments: recent, rapid advances in the computer software field of artificial intelligence + data management, and sensors — combined with Google’s tenacious, high-profile experiments — transform cars + trucks into mobile transportation robots.

The good news — driverless cars will:

• save millions of lives lost to traffic accidents
• ease air pollution
• make parking lots obsolete

Society’s next great revolution.

Long-suffering commuters can finally breathe a sigh of relief and live wherever they wish.  The bad news is that 100,000s of jobs are at risk — and passenger privacy will become a thing of the past.

Authors robotics engineer Hod Lipson PhD and analyst Melba Kurman provide an engaging introduction to the software and sensors that guide driver-less cars.

They make a compelling case for why government, industry, and consumers need to work together to make the deployment of self-driving vehicles everywhere — civilization’s next Apollo moment.

Automated technologies are almost ready — and market-place data shows consumers are eager to give-up driving — car companies and policy-makers are struggling to re-think current strategies, insurance, and laws for the roadway Driverless is comprehensive + readable.

For example: the driver-less car by Google — called Waymo — has no steering wheel and also no brakes.

No human drivers.

The message is clear: cars of the future will be born fully autonomous, with no human driver needed. Soon self-driving cars will hit the streets:

• changing long-established industries
• re-shaping modern cities
• giving people new choices in where we live
• giving people new choices in how we work
• giving people new choices in how we play

Launching a cascade of social and economic change.

Book authors Hod Lipson PhD + Melba Kurman list the risks — vs. — benefits of driver-less cars with a lucid, engaging explanation of the enabling technology. Progress in software + robotics are toppling long-standing tech barriers that — for decades — have made self-driving cars only a fantasy.

A new kind of computer software technique — called artificial intelligence: deep learning — gives cars rapid, accurate visuals. Human drivers can relax and take their eyes off the road. When human drivers let smart software take the wheel, driver-less cars will give billions of people safer, cleaner, convenient transportation.

So self-driving vehicles are almost here — but automobile companies and policy-makers struggle to catch-up. The authors explain how government, industry, and consumers need to co-operate.

• how do driver-less cars work?
• why has it taken 100 years to create a functioning driver-less vehicle?
• what are the mechanical + social challenges?
• how do robotics engineers create artificial perception?
• how will self-driving vehicles change our lives, our businesses, and our cities?
• can we see new opportunities?

Few inventions have changed life as much as the automobile. These large hunks of steel are everywhere — mixed-up with our lives, jobs, and families. Your car is about to become the ultimate mobile device. Vehicles will morph into the first mainstream autonomous robots that we will trust with our lives — launching a cascade of social and economic change.

on the web | reading

Waymo by Aphabet | home
Waymo | YouTube channel
Waymo | video: introducing Waymo driver-less cars

on the web | pages

Hod Lipson PhD | home
Melba Kurman | home

— notes —

* Apollo stands for the NASA space-flight Apollo Program that landed human astronauts on the moon
* NASA stands for the National Aeronautics + Space Administration • US

book title: In the Company of Women
deck: Inspiration + Advice: from over 100 makers, artists, and entrepreneurs.
label: New York Times best seller.
author: by Grace Bonney
published year: 2016

this book on Good Reads | visit

IMAGE

— book description —

A global movement of creativity + entrepreneurship.

Over 100 exceptional and influential women describe how they embraced their creative spirit, overcame adversity, and sparked a global movement of entrepreneurship. Stories from media titans and ceramics sculptors, hoteliers and tattoo artists, comedians and architects — taken together, these profiles paint a beautiful picture of what happens when we pursue our passions and dreams.

Across the globe, women are embracing the entrepreneurial spirit and starting creative businesses. The book In the Company of Women by author Grace Bonney profiles women from all ages, races, backgrounds, and industries. Chock-full of practical, inspirational advice for those looking to forge their own paths — these interviews detail the keys to success.

for example:

— go with your instinct + intuition
— maintain meaningful and lasting relationships
— highlight the importance of everyday rituals
— meditate for peace + clarity
— create a helpful daily to-do list
— stay true to what you believe in
— have calm + patience

The book reminds us to share advice with others, for the next generation of women entrepreneurs and makers. The book is rounded out with lush, original photographs of the women in their work spaces.

description: by publisher

on the web | pages

Design Sponge | book: In the Company of Women
Design Sponge | Grace Bonney
Wikipedia | Grace Bonney

on the web | learning

Wikipedia | maker culture
Wikipedia | start-up company
Wikipedia | entrepreneurship

image | below
Portrait of designer and writer Grace Bonney.

image | below
Portrait of economist and writer Daniel Kahneman PhD.

book title: Thinking
deck: Fast and Slow
author: by Daniel Kahneman PhD
year: 2011

this book on Good Reads | visit

— book description —

Exploring what influences our thinking.

The best selling book Thinking: Fast and Slow is written by Daniel Kahneman PhD — a well known researcher in the fields of behavioral economics + psychology and winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

The book takes readers on a journey of exploration: what influences human thinking and our choices? Kahneman says that people have too much confidence in their ability to have good judgment. So we need to understand what hidden human behaviors affect our decision-making.

Kahneman’s theory of two types of human thinking are called:

system 1 — fast thinking
system 2 — slow thinking

He explains the psychology behind things people imagine that we understand, but we really don’t — like the concept of intuition.

The book’s careful research into the science of how people think helps explain how we make choices in life. Thinking: Fast and Slow gives deep insight into: the psychology of our reactions, judgment, recognition, decisions, conclusions.

The book is a summary of Kahneman’s landmark research — that he did over decades — in collaboration with his colleague Amos Tversky PhD. The book also covers the 3 phases of Kahneman’s long career:

— his research on cognitive bias
— his research on prospect theory
— his research on happiness

about | 2 systems of human thinking
Theory by Daniel Kahneman PhD from his book.

In his book, Daniel Kahneman PhD explores his theory of 2 different ways people think. He calls this system 1 + system 2. He covers a number of experiments in his book that claim to show the differences between these 2 systems, but the experiments get different results — even w. the same inputs.

The concepts are: attention, laziness, association, jumping to conclusions, choices, and WYSIATI — what you see is all there is. The system 1 vs. system 2 debate explores how people make decisions, with big impact for fields like law and advertising.

— system of human thinking: no 1 —

description: frequent — fast, automatic, emotional, stereotypes, unconscious
examples: of things system 1 can do

• see that an object is at a greater distance than another
• localize the source of a specific sound
• show upset feeling when seeing a graphic image
• read the words on a billboard
• drive your automobile on an empty road
• imagine a good movie in the game of chess
• understand simple sentences
• understand what a job description is looking for in a person
• solve the math question — 2+2 = ?

— system of human thinking: no. 2 —

description: infrequent — slow, effort, logical, calculates, conscious
examples: of things system 2 can do

• brace your body before the start of a sprint
• put your attention on the clowns at the circusput
• your attention towards someone at a
• loud partylook out for the lady with grey hair
• dig into your memory to recognize a sound
• walk fast for a long time
• understand how to behave in a social setting
• count the number of A’s in a book
• give someone your telephone number
• park your automobile in a tight parking space
• assess the price/quality ratio of a variety of washing machines
• evaluate if a complex reason is correct
• solve the math question —  17 x 24 = ?

on the web | pages

Princeton Univ. | Daniel Kahneman PhD

Nobel Prize | Daniel Kahneman PhD • profile
Nobel Prize | Daniel Kahneman PhD • biography

Wikipedia | Daniel Kahneman PhD
Wikipedia | Amos Tverysky PhD
Wikipedia | behavioral economics
Wikipedia | book • Thinking: Fast and Slow

author: Michael Martinez
year published: 2013

Ever since Alfred Binet invented the first IQ test more than a century ago, we have thought of intelligence as fixed from birth and unalterable-as genetically programmed and immutable as eye color. If our IQ was 115 at the age of eighteen, it would be 115 at age thirty-two and at age seventy-two.

But as Michael Martinez reveals in Future Bright, human intelligence is not at all a static quality. Drawing on cutting-edge research, Martinez shows that not only can we improve our IQ scores — with the right approach, we can improve intelligence itself.

Future Bright introduces the radical view that intelligence can be learned. Ranging from the search for Einstein’s brain to the curious case of a railroad worker whose frontal lobe was pierced by a tamping iron, Martinez looks at some of the most fascinating stories in the history of cognitive science, revealing how researchers have sought insight into intelligence by understanding more about the brain.

We see how the physical structures of the brain relate to how we think, discover how memories are made, and examine the several kinds of intelligence. Martinez then explores the astonishing evidence from recent cognitive science that intelligence can be learned.

Equally important, he concludes with ten strategies for enhancing our intelligence, beginning with the all-important idea of making improved intelligence a conscious goal, and including such ideas as reading books, learning to be an expert, finding where our talents lie and, not least, eating well and exercising, both of which improve brain function significantly.

Genetics is only one of the factors that shape our intelligence. Future Bright highlights the many ways that the environment and education can increase our brain power, promoting the growth of a more intelligent society–one that will lead us into a brighter future.

description: by author

The problem of how the brain produces consciousness, subjectivity and “something it is like to be” remains one of the greatest challenges to a complete science of the natural world. While various scientists and philosophers approach the problem from their own unique perspectives and in the terms of their own respective fields, Biophysics of Consciousness: A Foundational Approach attempts a consilience across disparate disciplines to explain how it is possible that an objective brain produces subjective experience.

This volume unites the creme de la creme of physicists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists in the attempt to understand consciousness through a foundational approach encompassing ontological, evolutionary, neurobiological, and Freudian interpretations with the focus on conscious phenomena occurring in the brain. By integrating the perspectives of these diverse disciplines with the latest research and theories on the biophysics of the brain, the book tries to explain how consciousness can be an adaptive and causal element in the natural world.

Readership: Researchers in neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, biophysics and quantum physics investigating conscious phenomena occurring in the brain.

— publisher

A guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology and why we should never assume that computers always get it right.

In Artificial Unintelligence, Meredith Broussard argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. We are so eager to do everything digitally―hiring, driving, paying bills, even choosing romantic partners―that we have stopped demanding that our technology actually work. Broussard, a software developer and journalist, reminds us that there are fundamental limits to what we can (and should) do with technology. With this book, she offers a guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology―and issues a warning that we should never assume that computers always get things right.

Making a case against technochauvinism―the belief that technology is always the solution―Broussard argues that it’s just not true that social problems would inevitably retreat before a digitally enabled Utopia. To prove her point, she undertakes a series of adventures in computer programming. She goes for an alarming ride in a driverless car, concluding “the cyborg future is not coming any time soon”; uses artificial intelligence to investigate why students can’t pass standardized tests; deploys machine learning to predict which passengers survived the Titanic disaster; and attempts to repair the U.S. campaign finance system by building AI software. If we understand the limits of what we can do with technology, Broussard tells us, we can make better choices about what we should do with it to make the world better for everyone.

—Publisher

The future is now. Acclaimed technologist and inventor Amir Husain explains how we can live amidst the coming age of sentient machines and artificial intelligence—and not only survive, but thrive.

Artificial “machine” intelligence is playing an ever-greater role in our society. We are already using cruise control in our cars, automatic checkout at the drugstore, and are unable to live without our smartphones. The discussion around AI is polarized; people think either machines will solve all problems for everyone, or they will lead us down a dark, dystopian path into total human irrelevance. Regardless of what you believe, the idea that we might bring forth intelligent creation can be intrinsically frightening. But what if our greatest role as humans so far is that of creators?

Amir Husain, a brilliant inventor and computer scientist, argues that we are on the cusp of writing our next, and greatest, creation myth. It is the dawn of a new form of intellectual diversity, one that we need to embrace in order to advance the state of the art in many critical fields, including security, resource management, finance, and energy. “In The Sentient Machine, Husain prepares us for a brighter future; not with hyperbole about right and wrong, but with serious arguments about risk and potential” (Dr. Greg Hyslop, Chief Technology Officer, The Boeing Company). He addresses broad existential questions surrounding the coming of AI: Why are we valuable? What can we create in this world? How are we intelligent? What constitutes progress for us? And how might we fail to progress? Husain boils down complex computer science and AI concepts into clear, plainspoken language and draws from a wide variety of cultural and historical references to illustrate his points. Ultimately, Husain challenges many of our societal norms and upends assumptions we hold about “the good life.”

— publisher

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

‘A dazzling book . . . the new Stephen Hawking’ Sunday Times
‘A joy to read. . . Rovelli writes easily, vividly and brilliantly’Guardian

The bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics takes us on an enchanting, consoling journey to discover the meaning of time

‘We are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come.’

Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe.

With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy and art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery. Enlightening and consoling, The Order of Time shows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time — and to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves.

book title: Calling All Minds
book deck: How to think like an inventor.
author: by Temple Grandin
published year: 2018

From world-renowned autism spokesperson, scientist, and inventor Temple Grandin — a book of personal stories, inventions, and facts that will blow young inventors’ minds and make them soar.

Have you ever wondered what makes a kite fly or a boat float? Have you ever thought about why snowflakes are symmetrical, or why golf balls have dimples? Have you ever tried to make a kaleidoscope or build a pair of stilts?

In Calling All Minds, Temple Grandin explores the ideas behind all of those questions and more. She delves into the science behind inventions, the steps various people took to create and improve upon ideas as they evolved, and the ways in which young inventors can continue to think about and understand what it means to tinker, to fiddle, and to innovate. And laced throughout it all, Temple gives us glimpses into her own childhood tinkering, building, and inventing.

More than a blueprint for how to build things, in Calling All Minds Temple Grandin creates a blueprint for different ways to look at the world. And more than a call to action, she gives a call to imagination, and shows readers that there is truly no single way to approach any given problem–but that an open and inquisitive mind is always key.

A Turing Prize-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence

“Correlation is not causation.” This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality–the study of cause and effect–on a firm scientific basis.

His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl’s work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.

author: by Byron Reese
year: 2018

In his book The Fourth Age author Byron Reese says technology has changed humanity 3 times in history:

1. we harnessed fire, led to language.
2. we developed agriculture, led to cities + warfare.
3. We invented the wheel + writing, led to the nation state.

We are now on the doorstep of a 4th change brought by two technologies: AI and robotics. The Fourth Age explores this sea change.

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity
Gigaom publisher Byron Reese

It addresses the big issues of our day. Reese is an optimist says we can build technology to make a better world.

How could artificial intelligence change the world?
Will automation make human workers obsolete?

Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores:

what’s coming: computer artificial intelligence
what’s coming: super intelligence
what’s coming: robots
human: consciousness
what’s coming: computer creativity

the future of: automation
the future of: employment
the end of: work

the end of: poverty

the future of: warfare

human: immortality
global: ethics
the posssibility of: new synthetic life

the possibility of: new civilzation

global: abundance
global: prosperity

The Fourth Age | http://byronree.se/4age

Why is the book called The Fourth Age?

Byron Reese makes the case that technology has reshaped humanity just three times in history:

– 100,000 years ago, we harnessed fire, which led to language.
– 10,000 years ago, we developed agriculture, which led to cities and warfare.
– 5,000 years ago, we invented the wheel and writing, which lead to the nation state.

We are now on the doorstep of a fourth change from 2 key technologies: AI + robotics. How did we get to this point?

By asking questions like “Are you a machine?” and “Could a computer feel anything?”, Reese leads you through a discussion along the cutting edge in robotics and AI, and provides a framework by which we can all understand, discuss, and act on the issues of the Fourth Age, and how they’ll transform humanity.

Read the preface to The Fourth Age here: http://gigaom.com/2018/04/24/fourth-age-preface/

Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence.

Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialize on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection—a world without mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being coopted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success.

Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science—from Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stuart Brand and the hippie origins of today’s Silicon Valley—Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide.

At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. There have been monopolists in the past but today’s corporate giants have far more nefarious aims. They’re monopolists who want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our decision-making. Until now few have grasped the sheer scale of the threat. Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance.

Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times • L.A. Times • NPR 

—Publisher

—Publisher

An in-depth look at virtual reality and how it can be harnessed to improve our everyday lives.

Virtual reality is able to effectively blur the line between reality and illusion, pushing the limits of our imagination and granting us access to any experience imaginable. With well-crafted simulations, these experiences, which are so immersive that the brain believes they’re real, are already widely available with a VR headset and will only become more accessible and commonplace. But how does this new medium affect its users, and does it have a future beyond fantasy and escapism?

In Experience on Demand, Jeremy Bailenson draws on two decades spent researching the psychological effects of VR and other mass media to help readers understand this powerful new tool. He offers expert guidelines for interacting with VR and describes the profound ways this technology can be put to use―not to distance ourselves from reality, but to enrich our lives and influence us to treat others, the environment, and even ourselves better. In the world of VR, a football quarterback plays a game against a competing team hundreds of times before even stepping onto the field; members of the United Nations embody a young girl in a refugee camp going through her day-to-day life; and veterans once again walk through the streets where they had experienced trauma.

There are dangers and many unknowns in using VR, but it also can help us hone our performance, recover from trauma, improve our learning and communication abilities, and enhance our empathic and imaginative capacities. Like any new technology, its most incredible uses might be waiting just around the corner. Experience on Demand is the definitive look at the risks and potential of VR―a must-read for navigating both the virtual and the physical worlds ahead.

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—Publisher

How the future has been imagined and made, through the work of writers, artists, inventors, and designers.

The future is like an unwritten book. It is not something we see in a crystal ball, or can only hope to predict, like the weather. In this volume of the MIT Press’s Essential Knowledge series, Nick Montfort argues that the future is something to be made, not predicted. Montfort offers what he considers essential knowledge about the future, as seen in the work of writers, artists, inventors, and designers (mainly in Western culture) who developed and described the core components of the futures they envisioned. Montfort’s approach is not that of futurology or scenario planning; instead, he reports on the work of making the future — the thinkers who devoted themselves to writing pages in the unwritten book. Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, and Ted Nelson didn’t predict the future of computing, for instance. They were three of the people who made it.

Montfort focuses on how the development of technologies — with an emphasis on digital technologies — has been bound up with ideas about the future. Readers learn about kitchens of the future and the vision behind them; literary utopias, from Plato’s Republic to Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland; the Futurama exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair; and what led up to Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web. Montfort describes the notebook computer as a human-centered alterative to the idea of the computer as a room-sized “giant brain”; speculative practice in design and science fiction; and, throughout, the best ways to imagine and build the future.

—Publisher

—Publishers Weekly

book title: Enlightenment Now
book deck: The case for reason, science, humanism and progress.
author: by Steven Pinker PhD
book year: 2018

on the web | essentials

Wikipedia | Steven Pinker PhD
Steven Pinker PhD | main

this book on Good Reads: visit

on the web | special features
For this book.

Bill Gates: The Gates Notes | YouTube channel: main
Bill Gates: The Gates Notes | YouTube channel: Bill Gates + Steven Pinker, PhD discuss Enlightenment Now

image | above
Portrait of Steven Pinker PhD.

Shortlisted for the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Here, for the first time, former high-level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking firsthand account of America’s nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization–and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration–threatens our very survival. No other insider with high-level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era.

Framed as a memoir–a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating–this gripping exposé reads like a thriller and offers feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing “doomsday machine” and avoid nuclear catastrophe, returning Ellsberg to his role as whistle-blower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful–and powerfully important–book about not just our country, but the future of the world.

—Publisher

—Publishers Weekly

Designing for mixed reality is a completely new experience for everyone involved, and takes some experimentation to get right. You won’t nail your first mixed reality project by relying upon your previous mobile or web design expertise as a guide. Mixed reality requires a different kind of design thinking for its unique challenges.

Breakthrough holographic design starts with envisioning—the act of visualizing what could be. By rapidly depicting a desired experience and trying out its real-world interactions, you can quickly turn your initial vision into a tangible example of innovative design. Envisioning Holograms digs into why holographic computing is the future, takes you through the mixed reality design process, and gets you ready to take advantage of its endless opportunities.

Praise for the Book

“Envisioning Holograms is a guidebook for designing our holographic future. You’ll find the processes, techniques, and production tools needed to design immersive products that will change how we work, play and communicate.”

– Tony Parisi, Global Head of AR/VR for Unity. Industry legend.

“Just as the pioneering work of E.S. Porter helped define a new language for cinematic storytelling at the dawn of motion pictures, Envisioning Holograms provides us with the missing vocabulary and grammar to help define a new design language for this world-changing medium of Mixed Reality.”
– Ori Inbar, Founder and Managing Partner for Super Ventures, an AR/VR fund.

“An exceptional introduction to a new way of thinking about software. Envisioning Holograms is approachable to people just starting out, and also provides some excellent bits of insight to veterans that can help influence their creative process.”
– Lucas Rizzotto, award-winning creator of Mixed Reality experiences.

“Envisioning Holograms is the perfect book for VR/AR/MR studios that are struggling with application design. It is filled with strategies to acquire ideas, develop and iterate through scenes, and find the best fit. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to create solid user experiences using 3D interfaces and spatial computing.”
– Rick King, authority on the latest trends in AR, VR, and MR development.

What You’ll Learn

• Understand what makes mixed reality a challenging design space
• See how envisioning quickly and persuasively brings ideas to life
• Get to know your audience, medium, and palette
• Explore several innovative rapid envisioning techniques
• Identify the key elements of your own holographic experience
• Design an engaging holographic experience from start to finish

Who This Book Is For

While aimed at those designing for Microsoft HoloLens and the Windows Holographic tool kit, the techniques in the book are equally applicable to those designing for other holographic hardware. This book is for the designer who is new to thinking in 3D and wants to quickly learn best practices, and the developer who needs to do design work while building exciting new products for Microsoft HoloLens, and the marketer who has a great story to tell in this exciting new medium of mixed reality.

—Publisher

Garry Kasparov’s 1997 chess match against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue was a watershed moment in the history of technology. It was the dawn of a new era in artificial intelligence: a machine capable of beating the reigning human champion at this most cerebral game.

That moment was more than a century in the making, and in this breakthrough book, Kasparov reveals his astonishing side of the story for the first time. He describes how it felt to strategize against an implacable, untiring opponent with the whole world watching, and recounts the history of machine intelligence through the microcosm of chess, considered by generations of scientific pioneers to be a key to unlocking the secrets of human and machine cognition. Kasparov uses his unrivaled experience to look into the future of intelligent machines and sees it bright with possibility. As many critics decry artificial intelligence as a menace, particularly to human jobs, Kasparov shows how humanity can rise to new heights with the help of our most extraordinary creations, rather than fear them. Deep Thinking is a tightly argued case for technological progress, from the man who stood at its precipice with his own career at stake.

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From the best-selling author of The Director and Body of Lies comes a thrilling tale of global espionage, state-of-the-art technology, and unthinkable betrayal.

A hyper-fast quantum computer is the digital equivalent of a nuclear bomb; whoever possesses one will be able to shred any encryption and break any code in existence. The winner of the race to build the world’s first quantum machine will attain global dominance for generations to come. The question is, who will cross the finish line first: the U.S. or China?

In this gripping cyber thriller, the United States’ top-secret quantum research labs are compromised by a suspected Chinese informant, inciting a mole hunt of history-altering proportions. CIA officer Harris Chang leads the charge, pursuing his target from the towering cityscape of Singapore to the lush hills of the Pacific Northwest, the mountains of Mexico, and beyond. The investigation is obsessive, destructive, and―above all―uncertain. Do the leaks expose real secrets, or are they false trails meant to deceive the Chinese? The answer forces Chang to question everything he thought he knew about loyalty, morality, and the primacy of truth.

Grounded in the real-world technological arms race, The Quantum Spy presents a sophisticated game of cat and mouse cloaked in an exhilarating and visionary thriller.

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— Publisher

In Disconnected, renowned psychotherapist and longtime school counselor Tom Kersting explores the device-dependent world our children live in and how it is impacting their mental and emotional well-being. Research shows that too much time in the cyber world is re-wiring kids’ brains, affecting their ability to flourish in the real world as anxiety, depression, and attention issues soar.

Thankfully, it is not too late to save our children. Kersting provides simple strategies to help reduce screen time as well as a host of meditative and mindfulness techniques to help our kids reclaim their brains, and their lives.

Tom Kersting is a nationally renowned psychotherapist, and school counselor. He appears regularly on the most popular talk shows and news shows and has hosted television series’ and shows for A&E Network, National Geographic Channel, Food Network and Oprah’s Wellness Network.

—Publisher

—Publisher

“One of the most mesmerizing and important books I’ve read in quite some time. Alter brilliantly illuminates the new obsessions that are controlling our lives and offers the tools we need to rescue our businesses, our families, and our sanity.” 

Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction—an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans.

In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today’s products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist.

By reverse engineering behavioral addiction, Alter explains how we can harness addictive products for the good—to improve how we communicate with each other, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play—and how we can mitigate their most damaging effects on our well-being, and the health and happiness of our children.

Adam Alter’s previous book, Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave is available in paperback from Penguin.

—Publisher

The story of the unlikely friendship between the two physicists who fundamentally recast the notion of time and history

In 1939, Richard Feynman, a brilliant graduate of MIT, arrived in John Wheeler’s Princeton office to report for duty as his teaching assistant. A lifelong friendship and enormously productive collaboration was born, despite sharp differences in personality. The soft-spoken Wheeler, though conservative in appearance, was a raging nonconformist full of wild ideas about the universe. The boisterous Feynman was a cautious physicist who believed only what could be tested. Yet they were complementary spirits. Their collaboration led to a complete rethinking of the nature of time and reality. It enabled Feynman to show how quantum reality is a combination of alternative, contradictory possibilities, and inspired Wheeler to develop his landmark concept of wormholes, portals to the future and past. Together, Feynman and Wheeler made sure that quantum physics would never be the same again.

—Publisher

With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults. Born in the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s and later, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person—perhaps why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality. iGen is also growing up more slowly than previous generations: eighteen-year-olds look and act like fifteen-year-olds used to.

As this new group of young people grows into adulthood, we all need to understand them: Friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation—and the world.

—Publisher

—Publisher

With far-reaching implications, this urgent treatise promises to revolutionize our understanding of what it means to be human in the digital age.

We used to say “seeing is believing”; now googling is believing. With 24/7 access to nearly all of the world’s information at our fingertips, we no longer trek to the library or the encyclopedia shelf in search of answers. We just open our browsers, type in a few keywords and wait for the information to come to us. Indeed, the Internet has revolutionized the way we learn and know, as well as how we interact with each other. And yet this explosion of technological innovation has also produced a curious paradox: even as we know more, we seem to understand less.

While a wealth of literature has been devoted to life with the Internet, the deep philosophical implications of this seismic shift have not been properly explored until now. Demonstrating that knowledge based on reason plays an essential role in society and that there is much more to “knowing” than just acquiring information, leading philosopher Michael Patrick Lynch shows how our digital way of life makes us overvalue some ways of processing information over others, and thus risks distorting what it means to be human.

With far-reaching implications, Lynch’s argument charts a path from Plato’s cave to Shannon’s mathematical theory of information to Google Glass, illustrating that technology itself isn’t the problem, nor is it the solution. Instead, it will be the way in which we adapt our minds to these new tools that will ultimately decide whether or not the “Internet of Things”―all those gadgets on our wrists, in our pockets and on our laps―will be a net gain for humanity. Along the way, Lynch uses a philosopher’s lens to examine some of the most urgent issues facing digital life today, including how social media is revolutionizing the way we think about privacy; why a greater reliance on Wikipedia and Google doesn’t necessarily make knowledge “more democratic”; and the perils of using “big data” alone to predict cultural trends.

Promising to modernize our understanding of what it means to be human in the digital age, The Internet of Us builds on previous works by Nicholas Carr, James Gleick and Jaron Lanier to give us a necessary guide on how to navigate the philosophical quagmire that is the Information Age.

—Publisher

—Publisher

Unifying Applications and Analytics with In-Memory Architectures

You’ll Learn:

How to use Apache Kafka and Spark to build real-time data pipelines

How to use in-memory database management systems for real-time analytics

Top architectures for transitioning from data silos to real-time processing

Steps for getting to real-time operational systems

Considerations for choosing the best deployment option

—Publishers Weekly

New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist David Eagleman teams up with composer Anthony Brandt in this powerful, wide-ranging exploration of human creativity. Together, they incisively explore how individuals, organizations, and educational institutions can benefit from fostering creativity, while celebrating humanity’s unique ability to remake the world.

The Runaway Species is a deep-dive into the creative mind, a celebration of the human spirit, and a vision of how we can improve our future by understanding and embracing our ability to innovate. Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman seek to answer the question: what lies at the heart of humanity’s ability―and drive―to create?

Our ability to remake our world is unique among all living things. But where does our creativity come from, how does it work, and how can we harness it to improve our lives, schools, businesses, and institutions?

Brandt and Eagleman examine hundreds of examples of human creativity through dramatic storytelling and stunning images in this beautiful, full-color volume. By drawing out what creative acts have in common and viewing them through the lens of cutting-edge neuroscience, they uncover the essential elements of this critical human ability, and encourage a more creative future for all of us.

—Publisher

How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today’s kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle?

What sort of future do you want? This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn’t shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues—from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos.

— Publisher