logo
Wrong email address or username
Wrong email address or username
Incorrect verification code
back to top
Search tags: humans-who-are-not-humans
Load new posts () and activity
Like Reblog Comment
url 2020-12-30 12:44
What Will You Require for Survival in Space

Have you ever wondered what you will need for survival in space? Watch the video to know what you need to survive there.

Like Reblog Comment
url 2020-05-27 11:50
Will AI replace Humans - Artificial Intelligence vs Human Intelligence - DataFlair

Will AI replace humans - Will human intelligence win the battle against Artificial intelligence or will AI lead the man power. Impact of AI on human.

Like Reblog Comment
show activity (+)
review 2020-02-19 06:40
Adapt by Amina Khan
Adapt: How Humans Are Tapping into Nature's Secrets to Design and Build a Better Future - Amina Khan

TITLE:  Adapt: How Humans Are Tapping into Nature's Secrets to Design and Build a Better Future

 

TITLE:  Amina Khan

 

FORMAT:  Hardcover

 

ISBN-13:  9781250060402

____________________________

DESCRIPTION:

"Amina Khan believes that nature does it best. In Adapt, she presents fascinating examples of how nature effortlessly solves the problems that humans attempt to solve with decades worth of the latest and greatest technologies, time, and money. Humans are animals too, and animals are incredibly good at doing more with less.

If a fly’s eye can see without hundreds of fancy lenses, and termite mounds can stay cool in the desert without air conditioning, it stands to reason that nature can teach us a thing or two about sustainable technology and innovation. In Khan’s accessible voice, these complex concepts are made simple. There is so much we humans can learn from nature’s billions of years of productive and efficient evolutionary experience. This field is growing rapidly and everyone from architects to biologists to nano-technicians to engineers are paying attention. Results from the simplest tasks, creating velcro to mimic the sticking power of a burr, to the more complex like maximizing wind power by arranging farms to imitate schools of fish can make a difference and inspire future technological breakthroughs.

Adapt shares the weird and wonderful ways that nature has been working smarter and not harder, and how we can too to make billion dollar cross-industrial advances in the very near future.
"

_____________________________

REVIEW:

 

An interesting, but brief, popular overview of some new and/or improved technologies that resulted (or are in development) from studying nature (usually animals).  Topics include material science, mechanics of movement, architecture of systems, and sustainability.  Any scientific or engineering concepts that crop up are nicely and simply explained.  An easy and informative read, though I have come across some of the examples covered in other books.  Some diagrams/photographs/illustrations would really be useful in books like this.

Like Reblog Comment
review 2019-10-21 01:48
Behave by Robert Sapolsky
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst - Robert M. Sapolsky

This brick of a book purports to be an interdisciplinary explanation of human behavior, drawing from biology, psychology, and sociology, and everything from primate studies to well-known works in various fields. It’s big, at 717 pages of actual text followed by references; it’s broad; and as such it’s a little bit simplistic. Even at this size, there’s not quite room to develop all of the material. The first half or so of the book is more focused on the “hard” science, beginning with how neurons communicate with each other, and working its way up through hormones, genes, brain development through childhood and adulthood and how this is affected by trauma, and the evolution of species. The second half is more focused on psychology: us vs. them dichotomies, moral decisionmaking, the causes of violence, and whether the criminal justice system really makes sense when all human behavior is ultimately driven by biology. (Sapolsky argues no, but I’m not so sure. Where would we be as a species, or as individuals, if we all just shrugged our shoulders and gave in to ideas of biological determinism?)

I certainly learned a lot from this book, which contains a ton of information presented in a way that is understandable to a non-scientist – though I struggled a bit with some of the early chapters. It provides a strong synthesis and framework for understanding information from biology and social sciences. That said, on the subjects that I did know something about, it seemed a little simplified. Fair enough; entire books have been written on subjects that comprise a single chapter here. As other reviewers have suggested, Sapolsky perhaps accepts too many psychological studies uncritically, without discussing psychology’s replication crisis, in which dozens of famous studies, when run again using the exact same methods and parameters, failed to produce the same headline-worthy results. That said, in general Sapolsky seems to take a fair approach to his material, presenting and evaluating multiple viewpoints in areas that have generated controversy. His writing is readable given the subject matter, and there’s a goofy-professor personality behind it that occasionally shines through. I wouldn’t take everything here as gospel – and I suppose we never should, since new scientific discoveries regularly require us to reevaluate what we thought was true – but the book did leave me a little more educated than I was before.

Like Reblog Comment
text 2019-08-29 17:04
Charles River Freebies Round Up
The Khmer Empire: The History and Legacy of One of Southeast Asia’s Most Influential Empire - Charles River Editors
Sinn Féin: The History and Legacy of the Irish Republican Political Party - Charles River Editors
Werewolves: The Legends and Folk Tales about Humans Shapeshifting into Wolves - Charles River Editors
Fort Astoria: The History and Legacy of the First American Settlement on the Pacific Coast - Charles River Editors
The Catacombs of Paris: The History of the City’s Underground Ossuaries and Burial Network - Charles River Editors

These were all gotten as kindle freebies.

 

The best two are the one about Werewolves and the Catacombs because they offer the must in the terms of facts, and move beyond the general.

 

The other three aren't bad, but short, simple, and general.

 

More posts
Your Dashboard view:
Need help?