How Singular? How singular is the Singularity? Will it happen in an instant? Lets consider again the derivation of the word. In mathematics a singularity is a value that is beyond any limit - in essence, infinity. The Singularity as we have discussed it in this book, does not achieve infinite levels of computation, memory, as any other other measurable attribute. But it certainly achieves vast levels of all these qualities, including intelligence. With the reverse engineering of the human brain we will be able to apply the parallel, self-organizing, chaotic, algorithms of human intelligence to enormously powerful computational substrates. This intelligence will then be in a position to improve its own design, both hardware and software, in a rapidly accelerating iterative process.

Worms, protozoa, and other terrifying parasites, capable even of mind control. Author calls them the real drivers of evolution.

A detailed monograph on the language of bees - their ability to communicate through "dance" as well as bees' methods of orientation by use of landmarks and polarized light. From the Dust Jacket: Bees are unique in the whole animal kingdom in the extent of their ability to communicate with one another. Karl von Frisch, probably the world's most renowned authority on bees, has devoted more than fifty years of his life to research into their language, their methods of orientation, and their sensory faculties. This book describes in detail, in clear, nontechnical prose, what the author and his collaborators have discovered over the years, how he learned to understand the language of the honeybees, and the numerous experiments he conducted to implement his understanding. Through years of patient observation and research, Professor von Frisch learned to understand the communication dances of the bees so well that he could find a food source or new nesting site solely by observing a scout bee's dance int he hives. This book makes fascinating reading for anyone, scientist or layman, interested in these most sophisticated of insects.

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize From the man who Oliver Sacks hailed as “one of the best scientist/writers of our time,” a collection of sharply observed, uproariously funny essays on the biology of human culture and behavior. In the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould and Oliver Sacks, Robert Sapolsky offers a sparkling and erudite collection of essays about science, the world, and our relation to both. “The Trouble with Testosterone” explores the influence of that notorious hormone on male aggression. “Curious George’s Pharmacy” reexamines recent exciting claims that wild primates know how to medicate themselves with forest plants. “Junk Food Monkeys” relates the adventures of a troop of baboons who stumble upon a tourist garbage dump. And “Circling the Blanket for God” examines the neurobiological roots underlying religious belief. Drawing on his career as an evolutionary biologist and neurobiologist, Robert Sapolsky writes about the natural world vividly and insightfully. With candor, humor, and rich observations, these essays marry cutting-edge science with humanity, illuminating the interconnectedness of the world’s inhabitants with skill and flair.

Based on the thirteen-part BBC-TV series, this illustrated overview of modern biology and modern medicine examines the unprecedented advances that have been made in the past twenty-five years.

How do we understand the world? While some look to the heavens for intelligent design, others argue that it is determined by information encoded in DNA. Science serves as an important activity for uncovering the processes and operations of nature, but it is also immersed in a social context where ideology influences the questions we ask and how we approach the material world. Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on the Coevolution of Nature and Society breaks from the confirms of determinism, offering a dialectical analysis for comprehending a dynamic social and natural world. In Biology Under the Influence , Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins provide a devastating critique of genetic determinism and reductionism within science while exploring a broad range of issues including the nature of science, biology, evolution, the environment, pubic health, and dialectics, They dismantle the ideology that attempts to naturalize social inequalities, unveil the alienation of science and nature, and illustrate how a dialectical position serves as a basis for grappling with historical developments and a world characterized by change. Biology Under the Influence brings together the illuminating essays of two prominent scientists who work to demystify and empower the public's understanding of science and nature.

Lehrbuch

Methods in Neuronal Modeling is the first technical handbook on computational neuroscience. Written for researchers and theoreticians alike, it outlines methods and techniques used for simulating on digital computers the functional properties of single neurons from synapses, dendrites, single cells; and small invertebrate networks to large scale neural networks in the mammalian nervous system. The use of new experimental tools such as selective staining methods, membrane patch electrodes, voltage and calcium-dependent dyes, and multielectrode recordings, together with the, advent of universally available powerful computing, makes it possible to construct detailed and realistic models of neuronal systems. Methods in Neuronal Modeling addresses such questions as what can and should be simulated and what techniques should be used; what experimental parameters are crucial for such simulations, and whether these models may be verified experimentally. Chapters cover simulation of passive dendritic trees, compartmental models of single cells including neurons with a number of different ionic channels, calcium current dynamics, simulations of small invertebrate networks, simulations of the mammalian cortex, connectionists' models, and the use of parallel computers in modeling neural networks. Although the chapters were written by several authors, they are uniform in structure and notation. Detailed examples are given to clarify the different approaches. Each chapter concludes with a description of the model discussed and the details of its implementation on the computer. Christof Koch is an Assistant Professor of Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. Idan Segev is a Lecturer in Neurobiology at the Institute of Life Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Methods in Neuronal Modeling inaugurates the new series in Computational Neuroscience, edited by Terrence J. Sejnowski and Tomaso Poggio. A Bradford Book.

This enticing collection is as devoted to the profound power of figures of speech as any oration of old Hellas. Metaphor reigns as we encounter the identification of our Earth as a Single, integrative organism, a tale told in image and passion. The discoveries and conjectures upon which this grand view rest are here as well. I have enjoyed these two dozen pieces hugely. No family tree of animal life but must somewhere disclose a cousinly infolding. We are compact of life past, and the looped handing down is more complex than the Mendel-Morgan dance of chromosomes and genes. That dance is essential, certainly, but it is the vital editing of an epic and many-rooted work, a book more like the Bible than like one great artists Remembrance of Things Past. We follow a few old shelves of bound DNA, not just a single book. Our major biochemical package for oxidative metabolism was de scribed in a small DNA manual, somehow engulfed to become an or ganelle within a lucky ancient ancestral anaerobe, and passed ever since viii FOREWORD from mother to offspring outside of the chromosome shuffie. The sperm do carry half the compact genetic message of the human DNA, but they are too small to transfer this equally essential symbiotic one that comes down from the mothers, within roomy egg after roomy egg.

The Advances in Cancer Research series provides invaluable information on the exciting and fast-moving field of cancer research. This volume presents outstanding and original reviews on a variety of topics.

The subtitle of this volume is exact, for Leo Szilard's work ranged from physics to biology; he crossed over with ease from the world of neutrons to that of neurons, from the nuclei of atoms to the nuclei of cells. At a deeper level, all of these research activities converge, unified as they are by Szilard's interest in the fundamental ideas of order and organization that underlie them all. It is no accident, as Jacques Monod notes in this foreword, that this interest should appear explicitly as the subject of one of his very first papers, and of his last. In the former, concerning the operations of an intelligent being on a thermodynamic system, Szilard anticipated by many years the entropic formulation of information theory, while the latter, "On Memory and Recall," is concerned with the organization of the central nervous system. Szilard's spontaneous, unrepressed flow of ideas was followed by a critical process of selection and refinement, which may account for the relatively small number of published papers—under thirty—found in this collection. The papers are arranged chronologically, and their ordering comprises a resume of Szilard's scientific life. The first group of papers, 1925-1939, all deal with various aspects of physics—thermodynamics, x-ray crystallography, and nuclear physics. The work in this last area includes studies of neutron bombardment and of the possibilities of nuclear fission and chain reactions, which Szilard was among the first to envision. The second group, 1940-1945, comprises the first publication of documents relating to the Manhattan Project, and reflect Szilard's part in it. Most of these documents were previously classified. There are no scientific papers from the years 1946-1948. These were years when Szilard was intensely active in the political and social arena, attempting to bring the atomic bomb under international control. Documents relating to this struggle, and to his earlier leadership in efforts both to undertake the atomic project and to prevent the bomb's use without warning against Japan, will be collected in another volume. It was also during these critical years that Szilard's interest decisively turned from physics to biology. The third group covers the years 1949-1964, when Szilard's interest centered around biological problems. Among these are the regulation of cellular metabolism, antibody formation, the aging process, and the functioning of the central nervous system. A final section of the book reproduces patents and patent applications of historic importance dating from 1923 to 1959, and ranging from the invention of a refrigerator, jointly with Albert Einstein; an application anticipating the cyclotron in 1928; and the general concepts of a nuclear chain reaction in 1934 to the first patent on the nuclear reactor granted jointly to Fermi and Szilard.

""How many creatures walking on this earth / Have their first being in another form?" the Roman poet Ovid asked two thousand years ago. He could not have known the full extent of the truth: Today, biologists estimate a stunning three-quarters of all animal species on earth undergo some form of metamorphosis. But why do tadpoles transform into frogs, caterpillars into butterflies, elvers into eels, immortal jellyfish from sea sprigs to medusae and back again, growing younger and younger in frigid ocean depths? Why must creatures go through massive destruction and remodeling to become who they are? Tracing a path from Aristotle--who rejected the possibility of metamorphosis--to Darwin to today, historian of science Oren Harman explores that central mystery. Metamorphosis, however, isn't just a biological puzzle: It takes us to the very heart of questions of being and identity, whatever kind of change we may undergo. Metamorphosis is a new classic of natural history: a book that, by unveiling a mystery of nature, causes us to relearn ourselves"--Publisher's description.

This easy-to-read handbook provides a comprehensive review of the current knowledge on lichens. The structure of lichens and their dual nature is explained, as well as the physiology of interaction of the symbionts. The way lichens reproduce and their ecology is included, with methods for cultivating them and their isolated symbionts. Extremely useful as a text of lichenology, this handbook will benefit students of lichenology and allied fields, those interested in symbiotic associations and ecology, and teachers of biology, botany, and ecology courses.

One of The New York Times Critics' Picks of the Year From acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, a meditation on what we must give up to feel more alive. To give up or not to give up? The question can feel inescapable but the answer is never simple. Giving up our supposed vices is one thing; giving up on life itself is quite another. One form of self-sacrifice feels positive, something to admire and aspire to, while the other is profoundly unsettling, if not actively undesirable. There are always, it turns out, both good and bad sacrifices, but it is not always clear beforehand which is which. We give something up because we believe we can no longer go on as we are. In this sense, giving up is a critical moment—an attempt to make a different future. In On Giving Up , the acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up and helps us to address the central question: What must we give up in order to feel more alive?

Hanski, a leading thinker in metapopulation ecology, studies checkerspot butterfly populations in Finland. Ehrlich, one of the leading ecologists and conservation biologist, investigates checkerspot butterfly populations in California. This book reports on and synthsizes the major long-term research of both workers' careers on the population biology of checkerspot butterflies.

Excerpt from A Statistical Study of the Rattlesnakes It is well known that the active fangs of the rat tlesnakes are changed or replaced periodically, such renewal occurring whether the discarded member has been damaged or is still intact. Whether replacement is hastened, if a functional fang has been broken out entirely, prior to the normal time of change, is not known. The delicacy and fra gility of the fangs, particularly in the smaller snakes, makes such a provision for replacement imperative, as does likewise the necessity for providing larger fangs as a snake grows. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A neuroscientist demystifies the subject of consciousness in this up-to-date discussion of mind-body connections. How does the firing of neurons give rise to subjective sensations, thoughts, and emotions? How can the disparate domains of mind and body be reconciled? The quest for a scientifically based understanding of consciousness has attracted study and speculation across the ages. In this direct and non-technical discussion of consciousness, Dr. Gerald M. Edelman draws on a lifetime of scientific inquiry into the workings of the brain to formulate answers to the mind-body questions that intrigue every thinking person. Concise and understandable, the book explains pertinent findings of modern neuroscience and describes how consciousness arises in complex brains. Edelman explores the relation of consciousness to causation, to evolution, to the development of the self, and to the origins of feelings, learning, and memory. His analysis of the brain activities underlying consciousness is based on recent remarkable advances in biochemistry, immunology, medical imaging, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, yet the implications of his book extend farther--beyond the worlds of science and medicine into virtually every area of human inquiry.