Recent progress in genetic manipulations and calorie-restricted diets in laboratory animals hold forth the promise that someday science will enable us to exert total control over our own biological aging.Nearly all scientists who study the biology of aging agree that we will someday be able to substantially slow down the aging process, extending our productive, youthful lives. Dr. Aubrey de Grey is perhaps the most bullish of all such researchers. As has been reported in media outlets ranging from 60 Minutes to The New York Times, Dr. de Grey believes that the key biomedical technology required to eliminate aging-derived debilitation and death entirely--technology that would not only slow but periodically reverse age-related physiological decay, leaving us biologically young into an indefinite future--is now within reach.In Ending Aging, Dr. de Grey and his research assistant Michael Rae describe the details of this biotechnology. They explain that the aging of the human body, just like the aging of man-made machines, results from an accumulation of various types of damage.  As with man-made machines, this damage can periodically be repaired, leading to indefinite extension of the machine's fully functional lifetime, just as is routinely done with classic cars.  We already know what types of damage accumulate in the human body, and we are moving rapidly toward the comprehensive development of technologies to remove that damage.  By demystifying aging and its postponement for the nonspecialist reader, de Grey and Rae systematically dismantle the fatalist presumption that aging will forever defeat the efforts of medical science.

    In Maneater, Nagami discusses the shocking and amazing cases of bacterial and viral infections she has encountered in her career as an infectious disease specialist. Through personal accounts, she reveals the facts about some of the deadliest diseases: the warning signs, treatments, and most compellingly, what it feels like to make the medical and ethical decisions that can mean the difference between life and death.

    With case studies and advice for a fitter life, this is an intriguing and thought-provoking book, one which should be read by anyone who cares about their wellbeing.

    get this book now!*** Do you wonder about the future... what things will be like some day, how long it might take, and what we can do about it? Substantive yet imaginative, readable, occasionally humorous, and science oriented, this book proposes possible future scenarios spanning from the current century to nearly eternity. Most chapters offer a concluding section with recommendations and often, agree or disagree, the author's occasionally inimitable opinions. Some of the recommended actions can be done by individuals, others by nations or other groups, and still others by the entire world. Over 300 references. Discover "What it Means That an Hour’s Work Yields a Week’s Food" (chapter 1). Foresee the "Teeming Cities of Mars" (chap. 21). Learn why it’s "Keyboards Yesterday, Mind Reading Tomorrow" (chap. 3). Have you ever wondered — "Will Artificial Intelligence Threaten Civilization?" (See chap. 12.) Find out what happens "When Genomes Get Cheap" (chap. 6). Prepare for an "Asteroid Apocalypse" (chap. 25). Explore why you would benefit from "Wiki-Wiki-Wikipedia" (chap. 4). How we will "Live Anywhere, Work Anywhere Else" (chap. 2). Realize how the future "Tastes Like the Singularity" (chap. 15). Get smarter with "Smart Pills’n Such" (chap. 5). Experience a "Soylent Spring" (chap. 9). Understand nukes better by "Deconstructing Nonproliferation" (chap. 13). Get ready for a "Space Empire" (chap. 14). What is "Sic Transit Humanitas: The Transcent of Man" (chap. 26)? There’s global warming, and there’s "Warm, Poison Planet" (chap. 17). But let’s not forget about "Big Ice" (chap. 22). Things may really grow on trees with "New Plant Paradigms" (chap. 24). We all have "Questions" (chap. 31). And much more! This book is aimed at the reader who is interested in the future, and intrigued by science and technology.

    One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer’s vision in a single, accessible volume.A must-read for graduates, students, and everyone seeking to help bend the arc of history toward justice, To Repair the World:-Challenges readers to counter failures of imagination that keep billions of people without access to health care, safe drinking water, decent schools, and other basic human rights;-Champions the power of partnership against global poverty, climate change, and other pressing problems today;-Overturns common assumptions about health disparities around the globe by considering the large-scale social forces that determine who gets sick and who has access to health care;-Discusses how hope, solidarity, faith, and hardbitten analysis have animated Farmer’s service to the poor in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda, Russia, and elsewhere;-Leaves the reader with an uplifting vision: that with creativity, passion, teamwork, and determination, the next generations can make the world a safer and more humane place.

    The novel debuts a challenging original philosophy, which rebuffs modern civilization by inviting the end of the human species—and declaring the onset of something greater.Set in the present day, the novel tells the story of transhumanist Jethro Knights and his unwavering quest for immortality via science and technology. Fighting against him are fanatical religious groups, economically depressed governments, and mystic Zoe Bach: a dazzling trauma surgeon and the love of his life, whose belief in spirituality and the afterlife is absolute. Exiled from America and reeling from personal tragedy, Knights forges a new nation of willing scientists on the world's largest seastead, Transhumania. When the world declares war against the floating libertarian city, demanding an end to its renegade and godless transhuman experiments and ambitions, Knights strikes back, leaving the planet forever changed.

    Together these twenty-one articles on a wide range of today's most leading topics in science, from Dennis Overbye, Jonathan Weiner, and Richard Preston, among others, represent the full spectrum of scientific inquiry, proving once again that "good science writing is evidently plentiful" (American Scientist).

    David B. Agus shared what he has learned from his work as a pioneering cancer doctor, revealing the innovative steps he takes to prolong the lives of not only cancer patients, but all those who want to enjoy a vigorous, lengthy life. Now Dr. Agus has turned his research into a practical and concise illustrated handbook for everyday living. A Short Guide to a Long Life is divided into three sections (What to Do, What to Avoid, and Doctor's Orders) that provide the definitive answers to many common and not-so-common questions: Who should take a baby aspirin daily? Are flu shots safe? What constitutes "healthy" foods? Are airport scanners hazardous? Dr. Agus believes optimal health begins with our daily routines. His book will help you develop new patterns of personal health care, using inexpensive and widely available tools that are based on the latest and most reliable science.

    Too bad. Because medicine isn't an industry, it's practically witchcraft. Despite the growth of big pharma, HMOs, and hospital chains, medicine remains the isolated work of individual doctors—and the system is going broke fast.So why is Andy Kessler—the man who told you outrageous stories of Wall Street analysts gone bad in Wall Street Meat and tales from inside a hedge fund in Running Money—poking around medicine for the next big wave of technology?It's because he smells change coming. Heart attacks, strokes, and cancer are a huge chunk of medical spending, yet there's surprisingly little effort to detect disease before it's life threatening. How lame is that—especially since the technology exists today to create computer-generated maps of your heart and colon?Because it's too expensive—for now. But Silicon Valley has turned computing, telecom, finance, music, and media upside down by taking expensive new technologies and making them ridiculously cheap. So why not the $1.8 trillion health care business, where the easiest way to save money is to stop folks from getting sick in the first place?Join Kessler's bizarre search for the next big breakthrough as he tries to keep from passing out while following cardiologists around, cracks jokes while reading mammograms, and watches twitching mice get injected with radioactive probes. Looking for a breakthrough, Kessler even selflessly pokes, scans, and prods himself.CT scans of your heart will identify problems before you have a heart attack or stroke; a nanochip will search your blood for cancer cells--five years before they grow uncontrollably and kill you; and baby boomers can breathe a little easier because it's all starting to happen now.Your doctor can't be certain what's going on inside your body, but technology will. Embedding the knowledge of doctors in silicon will bring a breakout technology to health care, and we will soon see an end of medicine as we know it.

    How to approach complex normal and abnormal behaviors through biology. How to integrate disciplines including sociobiology, ethology, neuroscience, and endocrinology to examine behaviors such as aggression, sexual behavior, language use, and mental illness.36 hours lectures

    Fuller expresses what may well be his penultimate view of the human condition. Here, in a mood at once philosophical and involved, Mr. Fuller traces man's intellectual evolution and weighs his capability for survival on this magnificent craft, this Spaceship Earth, this superbly designed sphere of almost negligible dimension in the great vastness of space.Mr. Fuller is optimistic that man will survive and, through research and development and increased industrialization, generate wealth so rapidly that he can do very great things. But, he notes, there must be an enormous educational task successfully accomplished right now to convert man's tendency toward oblivion into a realization of his potential, to a universe-exploring advantage from this Spaceship Earth.It has been noted that Mr. Fuller spins ideas in clusters, and clusters of his ideas generate still other clusters. The concept spaceship earth is Mr. Fuller's, and though used by Barbara Ward as the title of a work of her own the idea was acknowledged by her there as deriving from Mr. Fuller. The brilliant syntheses of some fundamental Fuller principles given here makes of this book a microcosm of the Fuller system.

    The mind-body problem cannot be confined to the relation between animal minds and animal bodies. If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. No such explanation is available, and the physical sciences, including molecular biology, cannot be expected to provide one. The book explores these problems through a general treatment of the obstacles to reductionism, with more specific application to the phenomena of consciousness, cognition, and value. The conclusion is that physics cannot be the theory of everything.

    Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable.In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage.If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial.In a 2014 editorial co-authored with Stephen Hawking, Russell wrote, "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last." Solving the problem of control over AI is not just possible; it is the key that unlocks a future of unlimited promise.

    This means that we have made it easy for you to navigate the various chapters of this book. Some other versions of this book may not have the DirectLink technology built into them. We can guarantee that if you buy this version of the book it will be formatted perfectly on your Kindle.

    Just ask biotechnologist Matti Leisola. It all started when a student loaned the Finnish scientist a book criticizing evolutionary theory. Leisola reacted angrily, and set out to defend evolution, but found his efforts raised more questions than they answered. He soon morphed into a full-on Darwin skeptic, even as he was on his way to becoming a leading bio-engineer.Heretic is the story of Leisola's adventures making waves-and many friends and enemies-at major research labs and universities across Europe. Tracing his investigative path, the book draws on Leisola's expertise in molecular biology to show how the evidence points more strongly than ever to the original biotechnologist-a designing intelligence whose skill and reach dwarf those of even our finest bioengineers, and leave blind evolution in the dust.Endorsements "Award-winning Finnish biotechnologist Matti Leisola has written a fascinating account of what happens when a scientist follows the evidence wherever it leads. Leisola's account of how he succeeded should inspire up-and-coming scientists who face the same challenge." Biologist Jonathan Wells, PhD, author of Icons of Evolution and Zombie Science "Scientists, like all other intellectuals, have ideas about what constitutes and what does not constitute reality. However, they are often not aware-and sometimes not ready to admit-that such ideas represent the principles of their philosophy. Leisola and Witt's Heretic is a unique first-hand account of the life-long adventures of a scientist who dared to challenge philosophical principles of colleague scientists. In my opinion, the outcome shows that to many scientists their philosophy is dearer than their science." Biochemist and inventor Branko Kozulic, PhD "This book is an exciting story about how a scientist's relentless search for truth makes him a heretic in the eyes of a cultural community more concerned about prestige than principle." Tapio Puolimatka, PhD and EdD, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland "This book is a personal, strong, and motivated plea for intelligent design (ID) and 'swims against the current' of Darwinian evolution, now generally accepted in scientific circles and society. I personally do not endorse ID, but I am a good friend of the author, whom I also highly respect as a scientist active in academia and in the biotech industry over so many years. Heretic inspires readers to think critically and to open up a civilized discussion on neo-Darwinism versus ID. It covers the science and philosophical parts adequately; it is accessible to a large readership; and statements are underpinned by relevant research and literature data. Its value lies in the author's lifelong engagement and personal crusade to stimulate the public debate among scientists as well as laymen over Darwinism (chance/random mutation and natural selection) versus ID, a vision that Leisola strongly advocates." Dr. Erick J. Vandamme, Emeritus Professor of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium "Matti Leisola has written the exciting story of almost the entire spectrum of aberrant motives, absurd fears, and unreasonable reactions to intelligent design (ID) by evolutionary scientists, clergymen, and church institutions alike, notably during his career as a scientist over the last some forty years. I would add a word on the fears of so many critics that accepting ID also means accepting the dogmata of some 1700 years of church history. ID is thoroughly neutral concerning such topics. So, the reader is invited to carefully check the historical and, what is more, the enormous wealth of scientific data Matti Leisola has presented in the present book: Test them carefully with an open mind and form your own independent opinion!" Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig, geneticist, Cologne,