Best Biotechnology
**From the author of the phenomenal million copy bestseller Sapiens **. **The Sunday Times # 1 bestseller**. While Sapiens looked back at our evolutionary development, this new book examines where we might be headed ( Homo Deus is subtitled “A Brief History of Tomorrow”). His innovative new book blends science, history and philosophy to explore the future of humanity in the face of artificial intelligence and examine whether our species will be rendered completely redundant.” – Cambridge Network “Spellbinding. “ It’s a chilling prospect, but the AI we’ve created could transform human nature, argues this spellbinding new book by the author of Sapiens .” – The Guardian. “Nominally a historian, Harari is in fact an intellectual magpie who has plucked theories and data from many disciplines — including philosophy, theology, computer science and biology — to produce a brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading.” – Evening Standard. He’s opened a portal for us to contemplate on what kind of relationships we are forming with our data-crunching machines and whether ‘right’ must be determined by empirical evidence or good old ‘gut instinct.’” – The Hindu “[Harari’s] propositions are well-developed, drawing upon a combination of science, philosophy and history. While the book offers a rather pessimistic and even nihilistic view of man’s future, it is written with wit and style and makes compelling reading.” – iNews.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Yuval Noah Harari's "Homo Deus" continues the tradition introduced in his previous book "Sapiens": clever, clear and humorous writing, intelligent analogies and a remarkable sweep through human history, culture, intellect and technology. He starts with exploring the three main causes of human misery through the ages - disease, starvation and war - and talks extensively about how improved technological development, liberal political and cultural institutions and economic freedom have led to very significant declines in each of these maladies. Continuing his theme from "Sapiens", a major part of the discussion is devoted to shared zeitgeists like religion and other forms of belief that, notwithstanding some of their pernicious effects, can unify a remarkably large number of people across the world in striving together for humanity's betterment. As in "Sapiens", Mr. Harari enlivens his discussion with popular analogies from current culture ranging from McDonald's and modern marriage to American politics and pop music. Mr. Harari's basic take is that science and technology combined with a shared sense of morality have created a solid liberal framework around the world that puts individual rights front and center. Ranging from dating to medical diagnosis, from the care of the elderly to household work, entire industries now stand to both benefit and be complemented or even superseded by the march of the machines. For reading more about these aspects, I would recommend books like Nick Bostrom's "Superintelligence", Pedro Domingos's "The Master Algorithm" and John Markoff's "Machines of Loving Grace". As a proficient prognosticator Mr. Harari's crystal ball remains murky, but as a surveyor of past human accomplishments his robust and unique abilities are still impressive and worth admiring."
"And he claims that humanism believes that individuals always know best about their own needs (when in fact, many have emphasized the importance of education in our development--he does not even reference John Dewey). For most of the book, Harari appears to be adopting a materialistic perspective, and one which is also extremely unsentimental and discounts the significance of human morale and character. He also discusses how animals and people have consciousness and subjective experiences, and presumes that artificial intelligence will remain unconscious (the "weak AI" hypothesis of John Searle). And on the very last page, he makes us wonder if his hardcore materialistic perspective has just been a long, extended ruse: he asks us to question a worldview that would deny the significance of consciousness. So it seems likely that in a future book he will focus on the nature of consciousness, and argue for non-theistic Buddhism (an understated agenda in Harari's writing--perhaps he thinks that this is the way for humanity to avoid the grim fate predicted here?). The comment begins with "Harari indeed believes that developing an understanding of consciousness, a science of mind, or however else one wishes to phrase it is the best and perhaps the only way to avert the grim fate that threatens humanity in this century."
Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, Doudna shares the thrilling story of her discovery, and passionately argues that enormous responsibility comes with the ability to rewrite the code of life. One of Science News ' "Favorite Books of the Year" “The first book on CRISPR to present a powerful mix of science and ethics…This book is required reading for every concerned citizen—the material it covers should be discussed in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country.” —New York Review of Books. The authors describe the electrifying atmosphere of a laboratory at the front edge of discovery, while generously distributing credit to the legion of scientists who preceded Doudna and Chapentier or have carried their work forward...The book’s second half is an examination of CRISPR’s great potential to eliminate or cure disease and improve human existence in myriad ways, and of the perils it poses for humanity’s future." This book is a roadmap to our future.” —Arianna Huffington, bestselling author of Thrive and The Sleep Revolution “Jennifer Doudna is the true pioneer who built the bridge between the basic science of CRISPR and its diverse applications in agriculture and medicine. Describing the potential benefits of these tools as well as some of the risks and ethical issues they present to society, A Crack in. Creation is a scientific thriller and a gripping read, framed as a personal voyage by a brilliant scientist who played a major role in developing what is currently one of the most promising and powerful ways of editing our genomes.” —Venki Ramakrishnan, president of the Royal Society and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. "[ A Crack in Creation ] contribute[s] to a public understanding of CRISPR, explaining science in terms that are understandable for the general reader...Fascinating." " A Crack in Creation chronicles the origin and potential application of CRISPR, the powerful new gene-editing technique that established Doudna as a household name in scientific circles...The first section begins with a history of gene-editing technology and how these research endeavors were largely propelled by the quest to eradicate genetic diseases...Reviewing the fundamentals will enable your imagination to unspool . You'll find yourself pausing to plot your own CRISPR-inspired science project—or science fiction scenario...In the second half of the book, the authors outline the staggering potential applications of CRISPR technology ...
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As the authors write: “Many experts predicted that CRISPR would be a research biologist’s dream come true, enabling experiments that one could have only fantasized about doing before. …. “As I sat on the plane flying back to San Francisco after that first trip to Cambridge, I could already see a new era of genetic command and control on the horizon—an era in which CRISPR would transform biologists’ shared toolkit by endowing them with the power to rewrite the genome virtually any way they desired. Instead of remaining an unwieldy, uninterpretable document, the genome would become as malleable as a piece of literary prose at the mercy of an editor’s red pen.”. Doudna’s initial worries centered on whether scientists would prematurely use CRISPR without proper oversight or consideration of the risks and whether bad actors might use the technology for nefarious purposes. So she took the first halting steps to begin a public dialogue about the implications of CRISPR research, first by organizing a roundtable of 17 scientists in January 2015 and then a larger gathering later that year to discuss gene therapy and germline enhancement. The reader roots along with the authors in cheering on what amounts to the beginning of what might be called “the precision genetic medicine revolution.”. It’s helpful that the authors translate scientific arcana into everyday language, as when they mention that a snippet of DNA being modified by CRISPR is “roughly one one-thousandth the width of a human hair” or that a molecule “acted like a set of GPS coordinates” to guide the replacement DNA to the right spot or when referring to an enzyme as a “motorized hedge clipper.”. Many readers will be interested in not today’s practical applications in the lab but in what tomorrow may herald. The list of known associations between certain gene variants and a diverse list of traits continues to grow, and as the PGD technology improves further, what’s to stop fertility clinics from consulting this genetic information so they can offer their consumers even more choices when it comes to selecting the most desirable or ‘best’ embryos?”. Entire conferences and mountains of newsprint will be devoted to dissecting the implications of CRISPR usage on early stage human embryos in the decades ahead."
"This is a terrific book about a fascinating topic."
"I got this for my husband for Christmas and he is really enjoying it!"
"This book helps you understand the science and contemplates the ethics."
"A text for your basic library."
"This is a very important book which is challenging reading but well worth the effort."
"The author deftly depicts great capabilities and risks associated with CRISPR, the gene editing driver."
"The topic Was fascinating."
Best Biotechnology
**From the author of the phenomenal million copy bestseller Sapiens **. **The Sunday Times # 1 bestseller**. While Sapiens looked back at our evolutionary development, this new book examines where we might be headed ( Homo Deus is subtitled “A Brief History of Tomorrow”). His innovative new book blends science, history and philosophy to explore the future of humanity in the face of artificial intelligence and examine whether our species will be rendered completely redundant.” – Cambridge Network “Spellbinding. “ It’s a chilling prospect, but the AI we’ve created could transform human nature, argues this spellbinding new book by the author of Sapiens .” – The Guardian. “Nominally a historian, Harari is in fact an intellectual magpie who has plucked theories and data from many disciplines — including philosophy, theology, computer science and biology — to produce a brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading.” – Evening Standard. He’s opened a portal for us to contemplate on what kind of relationships we are forming with our data-crunching machines and whether ‘right’ must be determined by empirical evidence or good old ‘gut instinct.’” – The Hindu “[Harari’s] propositions are well-developed, drawing upon a combination of science, philosophy and history. While the book offers a rather pessimistic and even nihilistic view of man’s future, it is written with wit and style and makes compelling reading.” – iNews.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Yuval Noah Harari's "Homo Deus" continues the tradition introduced in his previous book "Sapiens": clever, clear and humorous writing, intelligent analogies and a remarkable sweep through human history, culture, intellect and technology. He starts with exploring the three main causes of human misery through the ages - disease, starvation and war - and talks extensively about how improved technological development, liberal political and cultural institutions and economic freedom have led to very significant declines in each of these maladies. Continuing his theme from "Sapiens", a major part of the discussion is devoted to shared zeitgeists like religion and other forms of belief that, notwithstanding some of their pernicious effects, can unify a remarkably large number of people across the world in striving together for humanity's betterment. As in "Sapiens", Mr. Harari enlivens his discussion with popular analogies from current culture ranging from McDonald's and modern marriage to American politics and pop music. Mr. Harari's basic take is that science and technology combined with a shared sense of morality have created a solid liberal framework around the world that puts individual rights front and center. Ranging from dating to medical diagnosis, from the care of the elderly to household work, entire industries now stand to both benefit and be complemented or even superseded by the march of the machines. For reading more about these aspects, I would recommend books like Nick Bostrom's "Superintelligence", Pedro Domingos's "The Master Algorithm" and John Markoff's "Machines of Loving Grace". As a proficient prognosticator Mr. Harari's crystal ball remains murky, but as a surveyor of past human accomplishments his robust and unique abilities are still impressive and worth admiring."
"And he claims that humanism believes that individuals always know best about their own needs (when in fact, many have emphasized the importance of education in our development--he does not even reference John Dewey). For most of the book, Harari appears to be adopting a materialistic perspective, and one which is also extremely unsentimental and discounts the significance of human morale and character. He also discusses how animals and people have consciousness and subjective experiences, and presumes that artificial intelligence will remain unconscious (the "weak AI" hypothesis of John Searle). And on the very last page, he makes us wonder if his hardcore materialistic perspective has just been a long, extended ruse: he asks us to question a worldview that would deny the significance of consciousness. So it seems likely that in a future book he will focus on the nature of consciousness, and argue for non-theistic Buddhism (an understated agenda in Harari's writing--perhaps he thinks that this is the way for humanity to avoid the grim fate predicted here?). The comment begins with "Harari indeed believes that developing an understanding of consciousness, a science of mind, or however else one wishes to phrase it is the best and perhaps the only way to avert the grim fate that threatens humanity in this century."
Best Biochemistry
And its profound scientific understanding of the nature and experience of the female brain continues to guide women as they pass through life stages, to help men better understand the girls and women in their lives, and to illuminate the delicate emotional machinery of a love relationship. In The Female Brain , Dr. Brizendine distills all her findings and the latest information from the scientific community in a highly accessible book that educates women about their unique brain/body/behavior. Critics debate the author's presentation and research; some extol her many and varied sources and the book's accessibility, while others take her to task for relying too heavily on anecdotal evidence and "dumbing down" the text (Robin Marantz Henig cites the author's repeated use of "cutesy language" and slang).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"old time classic, really good and informative."
"This was a book club choice & I didn't know what to expect."
"Very insightful information to the complexity of not only the female brain, but educating the masses in how hormones directly affect one's moods and resulting thought processes."
"I ended up purchasing a Kindle version for my smart phone so I can quote her exactly on the spot!"
"I feel smarter about woman after I read this book."
"Now I can sit back and patiently wait for reason to truipmh the temporal affects of the wonderfull design of the female brain."
Best Biomedical Engineering
In her six years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Adele Levine rehabilitated soldiers admitted in worse and worse shape. Reading this book brought me right back to the hours I spent on a treatment table surrounded by my fellow Wounded Warriors as we pushed each other, using grit, gallows humor and even bribes of cookies in order to face yet another day of pain on our road back to our new futures. —Josh Hanagarne, author of The World’s Strongest Librarian “An amputee rehabilitation center is a crucible of emotion, and this book throbs with the pulse of a human heart. A master of understatement, she paints a picture of what it's like to work at this strange job, patching up broken soldiers only to be sent back to war— and tells her own story, setting her own sorrows and struggles beside the pain of her amputee patients.”. —Lydia Netzer, author of Shine Shine Shine.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'm a Critical Care Air Transport Team physician and an ICU doc. When I'm in charge of the ICU, I see my patients leave with 2 women wearing big belts and wheeling a walker and a patient."
"Adele Levine's stories of her work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a physical therapist during the height of the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan give us a poignant, at times sobering, but at more times touching and humorous account of her daily experiences there."
"It gets gritty as Levine honestly describes the burnout of the second hand smoke of war and dealing with an extremely difficult (and famous) patient population."
"Having spent a lot of time as a Marine w/ recovering wounded from Vietnam in 67 and the last 10+ years, I can not recommend this book enough."
"I can't tell you how disappointed I was when years later I finally forced myself to go to Bethesda to "give it a chance" and had to ask about ten people how and where to find that bust. There was something SO special about being even a minuscule piece of the jigsaw puzzle of history and accomplishment and service and legend that was Walter Reed - I will ALWAYS treasure the blessing of having been a part of that. I was able to tour the MATC in 2010 during a reunion of the Army Nurse Corps Association - so it was easy for me to visualize everything Adele described, just like watching a movie!"
"You might think reading about wounded warriors would be depressing, but Levine manages to reveal the heartache with humor and a dose of humanity. Wounded vets walk our streets, are interviewed on news channels and populate television commercials, but what we see is far different from what Ms. Levine beheld in the amputee clinic."