The implications of their discoveries form tomorrow's headlines, yet Angier writes about the scientists themselves and not merely theri successes. 4-page photo insert.

    Riding their bicycles through Philly’s Fairmount Park, Kareem’s brothers discover a barn full of horses. Noticing the brothers’ fascination with her misfit animals, Lezlie Hiner, founder of The Work to Ride stables, offers them their escape: an after school job in exchange for riding lessons.What starts as an accidental discovery turns into a love for horseback riding that leads the Rossers to discovering their passion for polo. Pursuing the sport with determination and discipline, Kareem earns his place among the typically exclusive players in college, becoming part of the first all-Black national interscholastic polo championship team—all while struggling to keep his family together.

    For years we have struggled to balance work and life, with most of us feeling overwhelmed and burned out because our relationship to work is broken. This "isn't just a book about remote work. It's a book that helps us imagine a future where our lives--at the office and home--are happier, more productive, and genuinely meaningful" (Charles Duhigg, best-selling author of The Power of Habit). Out of Office is a book for every office worker - from employees to managers - currently facing the decision about whether, and how, to return to the office. The past two years have shown us that there may be a new path forward, one that doesn't involve hellish daily commutes and the demands of jam-packed work schedules that no longer make sense. But how can we realize that future in a way that benefits workers and companies alike?Based on groundbreaking reporting and interviews with workers and managers around the world, Out of Office illuminates the key values and questions that should be driving this conversation: trust, fairness, flexibility, inclusive workplaces, equity, and work-life balance. Above all, they argue that companies need to listen to their employees - and that this will promote, rather than impede, productivity and profitability. As a society, we have talked for decades about flexible work arrangements; this book makes clear that we are at an inflection point where this is actually possible for many employees and their companies. Out of Office is about so much more than zoom meetings and hybrid schedules: it aims to reshape our entire relationship to the office.

    Shubin describes how over the last half-century, scientists have been able to explore how genetic recipes build bodies during embryological development--how these inventions and adaptations occur in a nonprogressive manner in different contexts, at different speeds. Paleontology has been transformed over the last 50 years by tools and techniques of molecular biology--and it is that revolution in our understanding of the evolution of life that Shubin traces here. Each of us is a mosaic of precursors that came about at different times and places, with deep rooted connections across species that Darwin, for all he understood, could never even have imagined.

    With all our media now traveling a single network, an unprecedented potential is building for centralized control over what Americans see and hear. Could history repeat itself with the next industrial consolidation? Could the Internet—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by one corporate leviathan in possession of “the master switch”? That is the big question of Tim Wu’s pathbreaking book.As Wu’s sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century—radio, telephone, television, and film—was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood . . . NBC’s founder, David Sarnoff, who, to save his broadcast empire from disruptive visionaries, bullied one inventor (of electronic television) into alcoholic despair and another (this one of FM radio, and his boyhood friend) into suicide . . . And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter.Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empire—a progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alike—Wu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of today’s great information powers: Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T. A battle royal looms for the Internet’s future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.Part industrial exposé, part meditation on what freedom requires in the information age, The Master Switch is a stirring illumination of a drama that has played out over decades in the shadows of our national life and now culminates with terrifying implications for our future.

    By weaving together their own research, interviews with pioneering scientists and Zach's trademark comics, the Weinersmiths investigate why these innovations are needed, how they would work, and what is standing in their way.

    Some businesses--like home exercise company Peloton, video conference software maker Zoom, and Amazon--woke up to find themselves crushed under an avalanche of consumer demand. Others--like the restaurant, travel, hospitality, and live entertainment industries--scrambled to escape obliteration.But as Scott Galloway argues, the pandemic has not been a change agent so much as an accelerant of trends already well underway. In Post Corona, he outlines the contours of the crisis and the opportunities that lie ahead. Some businesses, like the powerful tech monopolies, will thrive as a result of the disruption. Other industries, like higher education, will struggle to maintain a value proposition that no longer makes sense when we can't stand shoulder to shoulder. And the pandemic has accelerated deeper trends in government and society, exposing a widening gap between our vision of America as a land of opportunity, and the troubling realities of our declining wellbeing.Combining his signature humor and brash style with sharp business insights and the occasional dose of righteous anger, Galloway offers both warning and hope in equal measure. As he writes, Our commonwealth didn't just happen, it was shaped. We chose this path--no trend is permanent and can't be made worse or corrected.

    The controversial book linking intelligence to class and race in modern society, and what public policy can do to mitigate socioeconomic differences in IQ, birth rate, crime, fertility, welfare, and poverty.

    Mt. Lockley, who observed rabbits in Wales over a 5 year period, shows that they have a complex community life little understood by the world in general. These vegetarian creatures posses both dignity and 'animality'; psychological factors play as large a part in shaping their lives as they do in ours. One finds, too, that their reputation for promiscuity and wanton reproduction is really undeserved. Lockley built an artificial warren with glass sides and several tracts of natural habitat-an open plain, a woodlot, a lushly vegetated savannah were enclosed and arranged for maximum ease of observation with minimum interference. This controlled rabbit colony was observed every day and night in every season and in all kinds of weather. In Lockley's account, rabbits emerge with characteristics and personalities of their own. The nicknames he gives them (Weary Willie, Timid Timothy, Bold Benjamin, for example) in no way lessen the objective and scientific accuracy of his findings. In fact, this touch of individuality reinforces the observation that rabbits are creatures with interests, wills, and preferences of their own. Female conservatism, scent setting or 'chinning' by dominant males, the ability of the female to absorb her fertilized embryo, the stress of subordinate status...and more, are revealed here.

    The Safety Trap is the best book on personal safety that I’ve read in the last decade." ―Vincent O'Neill, Chief, Headquarters Security for the International Monetary Fund, retired Secret Service agent and founding member of the elite Counter Assault Team

    

    But what can this Christmas classic teach us about our everyday lives?52 Little Lessons from It's a Wonderful Life will change the way you think about this holiday staple, from the lightheartedness of George and Mary's floor-parting dance to the poignancy of a community that rallies to save a desperate man, Bob Welch's 52 Little Lessons from It's a Wonderful Life will inspire you to live for the things that matter most.Welch invites us to revisit the defining lessons in Frank Capra's 1946 classic and discover new dimensions of the film you've seen time and again, including:What can we all learn from Mary's quiet contentedness?Can George's selflessness make you rethink your own priorities?What impact do we have on the people around us?Join Welch for a close-up of the characters and themes that shape this timeless story of resilience and redemption. You'll be reminded that life's most important work is often the work we never planned to do, that God can use the most unlikely among us to get the job done, and that grace is the greatest gift we can possibly give.Discover why It's a Wonderful Life is more than just a holiday tradition--it's an inspiration for us to lead better lives, to become people of honor and integrity, and to recognize what really matters.

    As society stands on the cusp of unprecedented change, Jerry Kaplan unpacks the latest advances in robotics, machine learning, and perception powering systems that rival or exceed human capabilities. Driverless cars, robotic helpers, and intelligent agents that promote our interests have the potential to usher in a new age of affluence and leisure — but as Kaplan warns, the transition may be protracted and brutal unless we address the two great scourges of the modern developed world: volatile labor markets and income inequality. He proposes innovative, free-market adjustments to our economic system and social policies to avoid an extended period of social turmoil. His timely and accessible analysis of the promise and perils of artificial intelligence is a must-read for business leaders and policy makers on both sides of the aisle.

    The self-driving car has been one of the most vaunted technological breakthroughs of recent years. But early promises that these autonomous vehicles would soon be on the roads have proven premature. Alex Davies follows the twists and turns of this story from its origins to today. The story starts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which was charged with developing a land-based equivalent to the drone, a vehicle that could operate in war zones without risking human lives. DARPA issued a series of three “Grand Challenges” that attracted visionaries, many of them students and amateurs, who took the technology from Jetsons-style fantasy to near-reality. The young stars of the Challenges soon connected with Silicon Valley giants Google and Uber, intent on delivering a new way of driving to the civilian world. Soon the automakers joined the quest, some on their own, others in partnership with the tech titans. But as road testing progressed, it became clear that the challenges of driving a car without human assistance were more formidable than anticipated. Davies profiles the industry’s key players from the early enthusiasm of the DARPA days to their growing awareness that while this spin on artificial intelligence isn’t yet ready for rush-hour traffic, driverless cars are poised to remake how the world moves. Driven explores this exciting quest to transform transportation and change our lives.

    A team of journalists with unparalleled inside access provides the first full, in-depth account of WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange, and the ethical, legal, and political controversies it has both uncovered and provoked.