Languages of science must be learned to stay ahead
934958
With a blend of lightweight prose, interesting statistics, and the ability to draw important conclusions from our current state of technology and science, Juan Enriquez delivers a book that you'll read in one sitting.  As part of a team of scientists and software engineers that is building a genomic knowledge base, I completely agree that the unraveling of DNA sequences and the functions that each of the genes and proteins are coded for will forever change our future.
The author illustrates key changes in human history as being brought on by the introduction of a new language and makes the point the digital technology is really the language of zeros and ones and that our life sciences will be written in a language of 4 characters.
I was happy to see the author tackle the social impacts brought on by the rapid march of technology.  He's keenly aware of the digital divide in the standard of living between countries that are harnessing and growing their technology skills and those that are not.  The point is clearly hammered home when you see the large gap in the number of patents issues by a country like Mexico versus the United States.  The situation is not being helped by many of the brightest minds leaving their lesser-developed homelands for greater financial rewards in the United States.  The book offers up some obvious solutions for addressing the global divide in technology, but not at length.  In all, the book serves as an excellent appetizer for getting a taste of our future direction.
1704951
This book does a fine job of explaining the grammar and basic vocabulary of an artificial language designed to test the "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis"--that the functioning of the human mind is very strongly influenced by the language in which one thinks.  Loglan goes well beyond a more conventional artificial language like Esperanto--which was mostly designed just to be easy to learn so as to become a quasi-universal European language.  Logan, however, was designed with a much greater ambition--that of building a language upon the foundation of symbolic logic.  It is interesting to note that the single-sylable Loglan word "o" corresponds to the English mouthful "logically equivalent".  In constructing the vocabulary of Logan James Cook Brown has worked to reach beyond the languages of Western Europe.  English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, French, Japanese, and German were used in formulating the vocabulary of Loglan.
978680
Language texts have come a long way since `hey, there---where's the library?', and this text (along with its superb predecessor) exemplify this  new generation of language books that teach by means of intelligent dialogs, relevant drill material, and lots of audio material.  There's a lot of material in each unit, and you or your students will need to work diligently to master everything.  But everything in the text is put together with serious thought, and this program is well worth your time and effort!  (Native) Chinese friends of mine tell me that I'll be as fluent as a native if I master this material.  This series enhances rather than smothers the excitement and challenge of studying a language so different from English.
3071890
This is one long sweeping account of how human languages might have originated from and built upon more primitive forms.  The author presents a load of convincing evidence that animals harbor "abstract concepts" even though they do not possess any language.  If a group of objects or events consistently produce a fixed type of neurological activity, then conceivably concepts can form.  Animals do have concepts pertaining to "permanance" of objects; memories of things and past events; ability to perform logical procedures; and capability to handle several (viz. around four) concepts at the same time.  These are elements needed for language to originate, develop, and evolve.

Meanwhile, co-operation is likely to confer benefits to individuals, particularly pertaining to their survival and reproduction.  If co-operation is mandatory, then it becomes useful and advantageous for individuals to communicate amongst each other, because communication is essentially a form of co-operation.  Speculatively, this probably is the basis for the origin of language.

A lot of topics are covered, involving linguistics, neuroscience, zoology, game theory and evolutionary theory - rendering the book truly inter-disciplinary as promised.

A genuinely riveting treatise - four stars.
3147368
If you are concerned about having a healthy life longer than your grandparents or your parents You have to learn something different than what current science understands. You need to be at the cutting edge of science. Unfortunately most doctors are trained with information that is up to decades old. Later they can expand upon that, but they are probably too busy to learn the newer information. This book contains information based on scientific study of longevity in all living animals. Understand, every living thing on this earth has 50% of the genetics of every other living thing on this earth. So we all have common ancestry. Medication that can be given to a human can very often be given to other animals.
  This book is a look at what cutting edge science is finding out. Eat fewer calories but increase the nutrient load to your body. The result is a healthier life. If everyone in this country were to eat according to this understanding we could reduce the current death rate up to 42% by my reckoning of current death rates in the US. Heart disease would be virtually eliminated as well as stroke and diabetes. Many cancers would be eliminated to the same extent. This is not to say that we won't die, but I would rather put it off a while as my father did when he changed his ways after having a stroke in the 60's. He lived another 25 years which he should not have done given his previous history. He went against the then current medical doctrine. So listen to your doctor because they really do want to help. But you have to learn to fill in the gaps in medical doctrine. You have to heal yourself.
3314937
Pretty good for a usual translation but it lacks many words when it is about science and technology. Four stars.
487644
The book 'Bankrupting Physics' is a badly needed review of the many unscientific ideas that permeate today the world of physics. The book helps to signal the lack of observations both in the laboratory and in nature that can be used to test the trending theories in mode today about nature's laws. Science was able to progress, and bring progress to the human society, by adhering to a strong code: Any theory has to be tested many times by truly independent laboratories and scientists. This procedure was able to debunk errors like the N-Rays, the high temperature superconductivity, the faster-tan-light neutrinos and similar ones.  Authors Unzicker and Jones, in a very entertaining and readable book, criticize the lack of validation or falsation and the inflation of free parameters in  modern cosmology, high energy physics,  the standard model and superstring theory. A part of science is going down the road of mysticism, the way of thinking that creates centauri and syrens in the mind. The book should be read by any person (it is written in day-to-day language) curious about modern science developments.
1905419
50 years has passed, C.P. Snow's lecture is still shining and sending out warning fires to professionals in science and engineering groups about their half-blindness about culture, history and aesthetics. In a small book that says so much about the basical challenges between different knowledge groups and economical powers, that has not only surprised me, and might surprised Snow himself !

It's funny to notice that C.P. Snow's other big books are almost forgotten in the libraries around the world, but his lecture on Two Cultures is still a hot topic on internet and quoted in any serious writings about human societies in the modern world.
1951514
Many similes have been used to introduce us to our genome; our DNA.  It's a plan.  It's a recipe.  It's a blueprint.  It's a code.  Ridley shows how these metaphors miss the point - they're all too fixed to compare with the dynamics of the fundamental molecule of life.  He shows how our genome, indeed, the genome common to all life, uses the same elements to say many things.  Instead of terms identifying fixed elements, he suggests the image of language.  The genome has a limited lexicon of phrases with which to build bodies and personalities, yet manages an immense variation in the results.  How like a chimpanzee are you?, he asks.  Depending on how you make the comparison - very little or very much.  If you count the entire number of "base pairs" making up chimpanzees and humans, the difference is minimal - perhaps 30 thousand out of 3 billion.  If, instead, you visit the zoo [or, better, Gombe] the differences are striking.

In Ridley's view, the striking differences are due to "word order" contained in the genome.  All the words are essentially the same, but different locations and different interactions produce different characteristics.  Including behaviour.  In the six or seven million years since the chimpanzee-human line diverged, lifestyles, diet, social structure and living environment have helped guide how the genome produces a body and how that body will likely act in a given situation.  Environment and the genome, then, are in a constant interactive flux.  They feed signals through the organism to determine whether the organism will survive and reproduce.  Nature isn't in the driver's seat, and if we fail to learn or adapt to the vagaries of environment, we won't survive to have descendants.  Nature, then, is achieved via nurture.

All this should seem self-evident in today's world, but Ridley shows we have yet to fully understand and accept our role in Nature.  There are few writers as articulate and expressive in dealing with these issues as Ridley.  His grasp of the science involved is firm, yet he maintains a conversational tone throughout the narrative.  While you will encounter much that is new to you in this book, you may close it [the first time], confident that his explanations have neither overwhelmed you nor left you unsatisfied.  Of course, as Ridley points out, there is much work remaining in understanding the genome's impact on life.  With luck, this book may impel others to follow his lead and uncover more of life's mysteries. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
4793270
The works of Hall, Hofstede, GLOBE, and others have laid an excellent groundwork in the field of intercultural communication. However, their frameworks of viewing culture had limitations, as they were somewhat reductionistic. Gannon and Pillai recognize this and seek to help learners move beyond these limitations. They created a heuristic framework for viewing cultures based upon a action, institution or phenomenon within a number of cultures that are especially rich and representative of each culture. These then become metaphors through which the authors try to unpack key aspects of each culture. What is especially helpful is the authors recognize that even these metaphors are limited in function. Their value is that they provide a lens through which learners can begin a journey of discovery, and the authors encourage learners to move beyond the metaphors as they experience the diversity within these cultures.
4155927
When we learn a foreign language (for reading knowledge), or attempt to maintain it over the years, two kinds of texts are needed:

1) challenging texts from which we learn new grammar and new vocabulary, and, if it's within our ability and scope, sociolinguistic and literary knowledge,

and

2) easy texts which build confidence and pleasure in reading the language, and, as it were, solidify the knowledge we may have gained from texts in the (1) class.

Aelian's  "Poikile Historia" is of the second class.

These are brief prose texts, mostly short paragraphs, but a few of as many as ten pages. They cover all sorts of subjects, from animals through historical commonplaces to mythological stuff. Their order is rather haphazard, merely by rough groups.

We hear, for example,

1) how octopuses catch their prey,

2) that the tyrant Gelon of Syracuse dreamed he was struck by lightning and was awakened from his terror by a faithful dog,

3) that the Athenians passed some very savage laws,

4) how long some philosophers thought human beings should live,

5) who the first woman to be admitted to the Olympics as a spectator was,

and other unclassifiable stuff. The only plausible classification would be "what was popular among those literate in Greek (in Rome? Aelian was a Roman, in some sense)  in the early Third Century AD."

Most of us would spurn such a book (or TV program now), but since the selection reflects somebody's taste in this now remote time and place, it has its antiquarian interest. And it's surprising entertaining. Aelian is not the greatest anecdotalist I've run across, but he's good. And he projects a reasonable intelligence; I was surprised, for instance, by how plausible many of his snippets about animals were; most might possibly be true, and he even projected a certain skepticism:

"[swans'] love of song has long been notorious. But I have not heard a swan sing, nor perhaps has anyone else. There is a belief that it sings, and people say that its voice is best and most tuneful at the time when it is about to end its life."

(This is the translation provided by the editor N.G. Wilson in this Loeb edition.) I have generally had the impression that the Greeks and Romans knew nothing about the natural world, or at least the educated classes who presumed to be able to write about it did not.

It's in the nature of a book such as this that virtually all of it is second hand. But that's all right; most of us get most of our knowledge through several removes and, as I say, part of the interest here is getting some insight into the state of popular lore in Rome at the time. No one would ever have taken this as seriously as some would have taken Aristotle at one time, or worse, Pliny the Elder.

The Greek is surprisingly pleasant Atticizing for the most part. The best late writer in that respect is probably Lucian; Aelian is nowhere near that good. But once you have a good grip on 5th & 4th C Attic you'll have no problem with this (other than a bit of odd vocabulary now and then), nor will you have reason to fear that your Attic is being much corrupted.

The usual Loeb facing page translation is better than most, to may taste, and editor Wilson's introduction was no longer or shorter than it needs to be, and answered most of the questions I might have had. There is a limited textual apparatus (Latin of course) and well-considered notes (in English)
4346459
The work in genomics is changing so rapidly that any book is outdated before it is published. That as a given, the book is a very nice discussion of the topic. It is not so technical that a non-biologist would struggle.
2605687
Martin Rees takes a careful look at the political and scientific influences of bureaucratic and individual thinkers and the wisdom they might yield.  He warns us about the pitfalls of science and technology if it falls into the wrong hands and whether we can survive the century.

His book is based on a series of BBC Reith Lectures, which were given in Britain in 2010.  A member of the House of Lords and former president of the Royal Society, Martin Rees delivers an important message to the world.  With a wide range of endorsements, including such distinguished thinkers as Stewart Brand and BBC Focus, Rees has assembled an urgent message for all of mankind.

His discussions are peppered with both optimism and pessimism.  Science is a part of our culture, he contends.  As such, the public eye has a responsibility to temper technological advances with common sense.  He explores the vast number of ways this important message penetrates the media.  He points out our vulnerability with the hand of a nurturing Nostradamus, placating our concerns with a warning.  Every step the author takes releases a deeper sense of what's at stake.  If you want to see how it all fits together, read the book.
3248341
The main lesson I learned from this book is that as educators and academics, we have skills that much of our population takes for granted.  We certainly do not have an excuse for students being bored and unengaged with schoolwork.  Part of our job is to help students learn the language of academia.
625269
Practicing scientists explaining, in laymen language, the complex concepts of what we recognize as life, as it might appear and be recognized on other worlds.
46830
Many of today's leading lights in medical research cite this book as a major influence.  The language is a bit stilted by today's less literate standards but do not let that dissuade from reading it (yes, out loud if  needs be) to your children.  It communicates the romance of science and  thrill of discovery far better than many a new work.  An antidote to the  lethargic pablum that is today's school texts.
662946
This book makes me want to start learning the new language. Today language is very important and second and third language are around us. You will not be afraid any more when you speak to foreigners or when you get a career that has to work with internationals.