"Tiffany Shlain explores how turning off screens one day a week can work wonders on your brain, body, and soul." -- from book jacket flap.

"More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. In American Cosmic, D.W. Pasulka examines the mechanisms that foster a thriving belief in extraterrestrial life. Her work takes her from Silicon Valley to the Vatican Secret Archive and reveals how media has supplanted religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life"-- Provided by publisher.

"The Talmud and the Internet," in which Jonathan Rosen examines the contradictions of his inheritance as a modern American and a Jew, is a moving and exhilarating meditation on modern technology and ancient religious impulses. Blending memoir, religious history and literary reflection Rosen explores the remarkable parallels between a page of Talmud and the homepage of a web site, and reflects on the contrasting lives and deaths of his American and European grandmothers.

Religion and technology have always been at the heart of any civilization, says Newman, and the changing relations between them have and will continue to have a powerful influence on social and personal development. Newman begins with a look at religious criticism of technology, most specifically the view that technology undermines religious world views, religious practices, and spirituality in general. But what the religious antitechnologist might be misunderstanding, he argues, are the essence of technology, its relation to progress, and its significance as a religious endeavor. Indeed, religion may be a form of technology, or both may be the same as culture itself.

"Judaism and Jewish law are eternal and immutable. But the world changes and presents novel challenges. Modern science and developing technology create facts on the ground that raise relevant contemporary questions of which Halakhah must take cognizance. Fingerprint examination, blood typing and DNA matching were all unknown until recent decades. Jewish law posits strict laws of evidence and generally excludes circumstantial evidence for most purposes. Rabbi Bleich's comprehensive work explores the nature of DNA evidence in establishing paternity, the relief of agunot, mamzerut, inheritance, identity as a Jew and as a kohen, the so-called "Jewish" gene and the kohen gene." -- Publisher's description.

The International Society for Science and Religion has selected Matters of Life and Death as an element of the ISSR Library. The mission of the ISSR Library is "to provide a comprehensive resource for scholars, students, and interested lay readers in the area of science and the human spirit."The incredible medical breakthroughs of today, like genetic engineering, in-vitro fertilizations, and cloning have transformed long-held beliefs on the nature of both life and death, raising difficult moral and religious questions. In Matters of Life and Death Elliot Dorff thoroughly addresses this unavoidable confluence of medical technology and Jewish law and ethics. Elliot N. Dorff, Rabbi (Jewish Theological Seminary), PhD (Columbia University), is rector and Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in Los Angeles. Among the twelve books he has written are four award-winning books on Jewish ethics and law published by The Jewish Publication Society: Matters of Life and Death (1998) on Jewish medical ethics; To Do the Right and the Good (2002) on Jewish social ethics; Love Your Neighbor and Yourself on Jewish personal ethics; and For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law (2007). He has also edited 10 books, including Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality (Oxford, 1995) and Contemporary Jewish Theology (Oxford, 1999), co-edited by Louis Newman, who also co-edited with Dorff the first three volumes of the Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series. Since 1984, Rabbi Dorff has served on the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, and has served as its Chair since 2007. He has also served on several federal advisory commissions dealing with the ethics of health care, sexual responsibility, and research on human subjects. He is a member of the State of California's Ethics Committee on embryonic stem cell research. He is married to Marlynn, and they have four children and seven grandchildren.