Science & Technology Leisure Reading: Physical Collection

Science fiction TV and the American psyche. From "The Next Generation" and "The X-Files" to "Farscape" and "Enterprise," science fiction television shows have millions of devoted fans.

In this chronological survey, author M. Keith Booker examines this phenomenon and provides in-depth studies of the most important of these series. Science Fiction Television traces the development of the genre as a distinct cultural phenomenon within the context of broader developments in American culture as a whole.

The literature of science fiction packs up the facts and discoveries of science and runs off to futures filled with both wonders and warnings. Kids love to take the journeys it offers for the thrill of the ride, but they can learn as they travel, too.

This volume explores the science fiction/world politics intertext. Through detailed analyses of such texts as Blade Runner, Stalker, Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the chapters in this volume examine the complex and sometimes contradictory relations between world politics, both as discipline and as practice, and discourses of science fiction.

The life of trailblazing physicist Mildred Dresselhaus, who expanded our understanding of the physical world. As a girl in New York City in the 1940s, Mildred "Millie" Dresselhaus was taught that there were only three career options open to women- secretary, nurse, or teacher. But sneaking into museums, purchasing three-cent copies of National Geographic, and devouring books on the history of science ignited in Dresselhaus (1930-2017) a passion for inquiry. In Carbon Queen, science writer Maia Weinstock describes how, with curiosity and drive, Dresselhaus defied expectations and forged a career as a pioneering scientist and engineer.

Igor Aleksander heads a major British team that has applied engineering principles to the understanding of the human brain and has built several pioneering machines, culminating in MAGNUS, which he calls a machine with imagination. When he asks it (in words) to produce an image of a banana that is blue with red spots, the image appears on the screen in seconds.

NAMED A BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE "Comic book fans will fall hard for this delightfully daffy guidebook. . . . Exuberant, optimistic, and just plain fun, How to Take Over the World will both surprise and delight." --Esquire A book this informative should be a crime! Taking over the world is a lot of work. Any supervillain is bound to have questions: What's the perfect location for a floating secret base? What zany heist will fund my wildly ambitious plans? How do I control the weather, destroy the internet, and never, ever die? Bestselling author and award-winning comics writer Ryan North has the answers. In this introduction to the science of comic-book supervillainy, he details a number of outlandish villainous schemes that harness the potential of today's most advanced technologies. Picking up where How to Invent Everything left off, his explanations are as fun and elucidating as they are completely absurd.

One of the most persistent concerns about the future is whether it will be dominated by the predictive algorithms of AI - and, if so, what this will mean for our behaviour, for our institutions and for what it means to be human. AI changes our experience of time and the future and challenges our identities, yet we are blinded by its efficiency and fail to understand how it affects us.

The term "Metaverse" is suddenly everywhere, from the front pages of national newspapers and the latest fashion trends to the plans of the most powerful companies in history. It is already shaping the policy platforms of the US government, the European Union, and the Chinese Communist Party. But what, exactly, is the Metaverse? As pioneering theorist and venture capitalist Matthew Ball explains, it is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences, and also underpin much of the physical world. For decades, these ideas have been limited to science fiction and video games, but they are now poised to revolutionize every industry and function, from finance and healthcare to education, consumer products, city planning, dating, and well beyond.

A rich and surprising exploration of the intelligence of bees Most of us are aware of the hive mind--the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others.

The New York Times bestselling tour of the cosmos from three of today's leading astrophysicists Welcome to the Universe is a personal guided tour of the cosmos by three of today's leading astrophysicists. Inspired by the enormously popular introductory astronomy course that Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott taught together at Princeton...