What's Next? Dispatches on the Future of Science: Original Essays from a New Generation of Scientists

This short book is a collection of essays about the future of science and was a nice illuminating read. Oddly enough, much of the material was already familiar to a dilettante like myself which I guess shows the efficacy of listening to podcasts of Radiolab and Scientific American. The title is a little misleading as the majority of this book is "what's now" with the authors not speculating much about the future, which is good science. Popular topics among the essays are climate change, neurology as it relates to memory, language, and morality, and human evolution. Favorite essays include Lera Boroditsky: "How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think?", Nathan Wolfe: "The Aliens Among Us" (about viruses), and Katerina Harvarti: show more "Extinction and the Evolution of Humankind." This is a good book to pick up if you're interested in a quick overview of contemporary scientific research. show less

18 essays, averaging 13 pages each, on topics ranging from psychology to cosmology, the former being rather overrepresented.

Sean Carroll's article is the best. ( I hope they'll find the Higgs boson, so everything'll change and I don't have to read his big book about spacetime geometery ) ~

Sean Carroll's article is the best. ( I hope they'll find the Higgs boson, so everything'll change and I don't have to read his big book about spacetime geometery ) ~

NEUROSCIENCE AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY TO CLIMATE SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

About 20 short stories with surprising findings. Most out of the area medicine and psychology. The bes was about our time feeling, look into a mirror, focus on one eye, than to the other, you don't recognize the movement of your eyeballs, this time is wiped out by your brain.