"A lively and endlessly fascinating deep-dive into nature and the many groundbreaking human inventions inspired by the wild. When astronomers wanted a telescope that could capture X-rays from celestial bodies, they looked to the lobster. When doctors wanted a medication that could stabilize Type II diabetic patients, they found their muse in a lizard. When scientists wanted to drastically reduce emissions in cement manufacturing, they observed how...

"Accompanying a new series of the hit BBC podcast, a fascinating exploration of how the animal world has inspired human progress via new inventions and solutions that impact our daily lives. Did you know that mosquitoes' mouthparts are helping to develop pain-free surgical needles? Who'd have thought that the humble mussel could inspire so many useful things, from plywood production to a 'glue' that cements the crowns on teeth and saves unborn babies...

"A trade book based on the final report of MIT's Work of the Future Task Force"--

Do our digital habits kill our attention span or alter the nature of focus? Is social media driving us apart or changing the meaning of social relationships? How we answer these questions will hinge on what we value. This wide-ranging account of our emotional responses to new technologies, from the telegraph to the smart phone, argues that we are profoundly changed by them. Today, for example, we are increasingly distrustful of social media, yet we...

Appointed as ethicist to Project Trinity, Dr. David Tennant finds himself in a pressure cooker of groundbreaking science and colossal ambition. When a fellow scientist is murdered, David turns to Rachel Weiss, the psychiatrist probing the nightmares that have plagued him during his work at Trinity.

Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or "ems." Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human. Train an em to do some job and copy it a million times: an army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply, within perhaps a century, ems will displace...

"A smart, lively history of the world economy, seen through the crucial inventions that shaped it. Who thought up paper money? What was the secret element that made the Gutenberg printing press possible? What is the connection between The Da Vinci Code and the collapse of Lehman Brothers? In [this book], author and economist Tim Harford paints an epic yet intimate picture of economic change by telling the stories of the ideas, people, and tools that...

"Did you know that advancements in robotics could soon make super-powered suits a reality? Or that some people have a rare gene that gives them superstrong bones? Hold onto your cape, you're about to become an expert on the high-flying science behind super powers!"--

A brief examination of how new and advanced technologies can change the world of medicine for the better. Future care is virtual care: sensor-aided, digitally enabled, and powered by predictive analytics. Like most facets of modern life, human organs, too, are being digitally monitored. Sensors are well on their way to helping us proactively capture the information needed to predict and prevent disease. Paired with the medical world's growing emphasis...

An FBI futurist and senior advisor to Interpol analyzes the digital underground to reveal the alarming ways criminals, corporations and countries are using emerging technologies to target individuals and wage war.