MIT Press Ltd

A renowned engineer and ornithologist reveals the marvel of how birds work from the tips of their beaks to the sheen of their tailfeathers. With over 150 full-color illustrations, a unique gift book for everyone from the avid birder to the bird beginner. Consider feathers: They define birds wings, enabling flight. They insulate against cold. They repel water. They even control sound. And how feathers work is just one aspect of the wonders of birds explained by pathbreaking researcher and lifelong birder Lorna Gibson in Birds Up Close. Feathers, bones, bills, eggs, flight: all come in for scrutiny in this engaging book. What produces the iridescence of plumage? How does the internal structure of a bird s bones make them lightweight? How do different birds use their bills and tongues from woodpeckers penetrating the holes they drill to hummingbirds imbibing nectar, to sandpipers needling the sand, and to phalaropes drawing water droplets containing plankton into their mouths without sucking (no lips!)? Drawing on her expertise and personal experience in both engineering and ornithology, the author explores the hidden microscopic structures and engineering principles that keep birds aloft and alive how an egg is formed, how a bird generates lift; how raptors soar and glide, albatrosses fly thousands of miles, hummingbirds hover, puffins and penguins fly underwater. She also considers the longer view of birds in their habitats and natural history. Her up-close look at avian mysteries provides a perspective like no other for the expert ornithologist and curious observer alike.

A pioneering feminist adventure in an alternate world before the concept of gender. Introduced by Lucy Sante, author of the acclaimed memoir of transition I Heard Her Call My Name, this pioneering 1909 feminist utopia is productively discombobulating. When Mary Hatherley, an intrepid British explorer, is kicked in the head by the camel she was riding through the Arabian desert, she finds herself transported to what seems to be an alternate version of Earth. Arriving in Armeria, she discovers a society in which the very concept of gender is unknown. Like Mary, the reader will become disoriented, enjoyably so: By avoiding the use of gendered pronouns, the story s author (herself a gender-fluid activist) challenges our assumptions about gendered social paradigms.

The weird and weirdly delightful adventures of fiction s first occult detective. Flaxman Low, literature s first professional, full-time 'occult detective,' i.e., an intrepid investigator who deploys the scientific method when tackling paranormal phenomena, appeared in a dozen stories first published from 1898 99. His creators, the mother-and-son team Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard and Kate O Brien Ryall Prichard (who published as 'E. and H. Heron'), endowed the Oxford-trained psychologist with the bravery and acumen to tackle every sort of adversary from ghosts, mummies, and vampires to a mushroom mannequin. Both less credulous and less cynical than earlier fictional investigators of the spirit world, Low always triumphs in the end but not before scientifically demonstrating that even the most outre incidents and situations can t hold a candle to the bizarre capacities of the human mind.

The brainy young heroes of the Curie Society discover a mind-bending plot that will test the limits of their abilities, and of science itself, to save the world from another scientist s megalomania. Our heroic teen science prodigies are back for a new mission with the Curie Society, an elite secret organization within which brilliant women can pursue the furthest reaches of their intellect. This time, Eris has returned as well, with startling new tech to wield in its sinister plans! There s a world of possibilities awaiting the brilliant young scientists of the Curie Society but what if the designs of their criminally brilliant one-time partner threaten that world? Taj, Maya, and Simone are off to Madrid to help the local Curie Society chapter at a big technology conference, and this sunny working vacation is about to go haywire! Taj's high school friends are also in town for an international E-sports tournament, and she is torn between work and play. With a key member of the team distracted, the nefarious Eris organization sees a golden opportunity to step in and seize the advantage. They re using an AI translator to stoke tensions at the conference, but to what end? When the plot is uncovered, the Curie Society must use every weapon in their intellectual arsenal and every member will need to be in play to defuse a global catastrophe!

How a lifelong engagement with experimental art informed the brilliant Czech-Brazilian philosopher Vilem Flusser s early vision of a world dominated by glowing screens. Predicting the importance of technology and images in the twenty-first century as early as the 1970s, Vilem Flusser warned, the basic structure of our thinking is about to experience a mutation. The bewitching images and screens that surround us could lead toward a centrally programmed, totalitarian society or another, better one characterized by dialogue and collaboration among humans and new forms of intelligence. In this book on the idiosyncratic and prescient Czech-Brazilian philosopher, art historian and critic Martha Schwendener explores the profound effect of art on Flusser s thought. The Society of the Screen reveals how Flusser s lifelong engagement with experimental practices from abstract painting and concrete poetry in Brazil to video, cybernetics, and photography in Europe and the United States as well as his extensive involvement with the Sao Paulo Biennial informed his belief that we were moving from history a civilization informed by linear writing into post-history, dominated by technical images. The book delves deeply into how Flusser s ideas evolved, particularly in correspondence and collaboration with artists like Mira Schendel, Fred Forest, Wen-Ying Tsai, Harun Farocki, Louis Bec, and Karl Gerstner.

A searing indictment of the American public health, media, and political establishments decision-making process behind pandemic school closures. An Abundance of Caution is a devastating account of the decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. In fascinating and meticulously reported detail, David Zweig shows how some of the most trusted members of society from Pulitzer Prize winning journalists to eminent health officials repeatedly made fundamental errors in their assessment and presentation of evidence. As a result, for the first time in modern American history, millions of healthy children did not set foot in a classroom for more than a year. Since the spring of 2020, many students in Europe had been learning in person. Even many peers at home in private schools, and public schools in mostly 'red' states and districts were in class full time from fall 2020 onward. Whatever inequities that existed among American children before the pandemic, the selective school closures exacerbated them, disproportionately affecting the underprivileged. Deep mental, physical, and academic harms among them, depression, anxiety, abuse, obesity, plummeting test scores, and rising drop-out rates were endured for no discernible benefit. As Europe had shown very early, after they had sent kids back to class, there was never any evidence that long-term school closures, nor a host of interventions imposed on students when they were in classrooms, would reduce overall cases or deaths in any meaningful way. The story of American schools during the pandemic serves as a prism through which to approach fundamental questions about why and how individuals, bureaucracies, governments, and societies act as they do in times of crisis and uncertainty. Ultimately, this book is not about COVID; it s about a country ill-equipped to act sensibly under duress.

A personal chronicle of three key legal privacy battles that have defined the digital age and shaped the internet as we know it. From a seasoned leader in the field of digital privacy rights. Throughout her career, Cindy Cohn has been driven by a fundamental question: Can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online? Privacy s Defender chronicles her thirty-year battle to protect our right to digital privacy and shows just how central this right is to all our other rights, including our ability to organize and make change in the world. Shattering the hypermasculine myth that our digital reality was solely the work of a handful of charismatic tech founders, the author weaves her own personal story with the history of Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state. She describes how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, as well as how this work serendipitously helped her discover her birth parents and find her life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which she grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world. Part memoir and part legal history for the general reader, the book is a compelling testament to just how hard-won the privacy rights we now enjoy as tech users are, but also how crucial these rights are in our efforts to combat authoritarianism, grow democracy, and strengthen other human rights.

From the winner of the Holberg Prize and New York Times bestselling author of The World According to Star Wars. All over the world, people are questioning the separation of powers. They want a strong man, able to do what must be done. But James Madison was right to say this: 'The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.' In this essential and immensely timely book, Separation of Powers, Cass Sunstein explains why the separation of powers is necessary for both freedom and self-government. He shows that freedom from fear is a central goal of the system of separation of powers. He also explains why the executive branch is the most dangerous branch, why the idea of presidential immunity is a terrible one, and why an independent judiciary is crucial. Drawing on his extensive experience in the White House, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security, the author also argues that the separation of powers is, in fact, six separations of powers: (1) The legislature may not exercise the executive power. (2) The legislature may not exercise the judicial power. (3) The executive may not exercise the legislative power. (4) The executive may not exercise the judicial power. (5) The judiciary may not exercise the legislative power. (6) The judiciary may not exercise the executive power. Each of these is essential to liberty under law.

The social cost of carbon: The most important number you've never heard of and what it means. If you're injuring someone, you should stop and pay for the damage you've caused. Why, this book asks, does this simple proposition, generally accepted, not apply to climate change? In Climate Justice, a bracing challenge to status-quo thinking on the ethics of climate change, renowned author and legal scholar Cass Sunstein clearly frames what s at stake and lays out the moral imperative: When it comes to climate change, everyone must be counted equally, regardless of when they live or where they live which means that wealthy nations, which have disproportionately benefited from greenhouse gas emissions, are obliged to help future generations and people in poor nations that are particularly vulnerable. Invoking principles of corrective justice and distributive justice, Sunstein argues that rich countries should pay for the harms that they have caused and that all of us are obliged to take steps to protect future generations from serious climate-related damage. He shows how 'choice engines,' informed by artificial intelligence, can enable people to save money and to reduce the harms they produce. The book casts new light on the 'social cost of carbon,' the most important number in climate change debates and explains how intergenerational neutrality and international neutrality can help all nations, above all the United States and China, do what must be done.

A highly original first anthology on the cultural history of the unconscious that is destined to become definitive. 'Know thyself' the injunction that was once inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo became a touchstone for classical and modern philosophers before being embraced as the end game of psychoanalysis by Freud and his followers. The conceptual baggage that Freud took on his armchair journey into the unconscious mind is well-known and so, too, the more recent science on implicit memory, blindsight and automatic processing but the history of the unconscious beyond the consulting room and laboratory has largely been overlooked. From ancient dream theory to hypnosis, somnambulism to psychedelic mind-expansion, The Unconscious by Antonio Melechi traces the wider social and scientific history of the unconscious mind. It brings together a chorus of voices including Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Mary Arnold Foster, Swami Vivekananda, and Philip K. Dick, to name only some to investigate the elusive psychology of memory and learning, instinct and imagination, creative breakthrough and mental breakdown. Moving beyond the familiar psychoanalytic framework, the book draws on a rich seam of sources, including case studies, psychological experiments, pulp fiction, urban legend, and commercial hype. Approaching the unconscious as both a product of discovery and invention, the anthology underscores its importance as a perennial source of debate, a tantalizing mirror to our hidden selves, and a powerful master key that continues to influence contemporary thought.

Much has been written about Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti’s mantra of part-to-whole as one of the continuing conditions of architecture. While this underlying thesis has oft been repeated in the annals of architectural history and theory, architects have rarely questioned the idea. In Rewriting Alberti, architect Peter Eisenman suggests, however, that Alberti provoked a radical discourse beyond the part-to-whole dialogue featured in his Ten Books. Eisenman’s in-depth analysis of Alberti’s five built works reveals a disjunction between the architect’s buildings and theoretical writings, suggesting a new relationship of form to meaning based on the fragmentation of homogeneous space.Rewriting Alberti includes contributions by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mario Carpo, and Daniel Sherer. Carpo, an architectural historian and critic, theorizes that Alberti’s work initiated an idea of the discipline as a notational system akin to contemporary computational logics. By way of comparison, Sherer, an architectural historian, reconsiders critic Manfredo Tafuri’s readings of Alberti, and architect and theorist Aureli draws on Alberti to propose another idea of the architectural “project.”Here, in one book are four different discourses (and more than 60 drawings) which look back at the origins of architectural signs and semiology and forward to understand the way that history informs architecture today.

How our desire to stamp out hypocrisy is backfiring?and how learning to target our criticisms better can improve our politics, business, and personal relationships.In our increasingly distrusting and polarized nations, accusations of hypocrisy are everywhere. But the strange truth is that our attempts to stamp out hypocrisy often backfire, creating what Michael Hallsworth calls The Hypocrisy Trap. In this groundbreaking book, he shows how our relentless drive to expose inconsistency between words and deeds can actually breed more hypocrisy or, worse, cynicism that corrodes democracy itself.Through engaging stories and original research, Hallsworth shows that not all hypocrisy is equal. While some forms genuinely destroy trust and create harm, others reflect the inevitable compromises of human nature and complex societies. The Hypocrisy Trap offers practical solutions: ways to increase our own consistency, navigate accusations wisely, and change how we judge others? actions. Hallsworth shows vividly that we can improve our politics, businesses, and personal relationships if we rethink hypocrisy?soon.

J. G. Ballard''s collected nonfiction from 1962 to 2007, mapping the cultural obsessions, experiences, and insights of one of the most original minds of his generation.J. G. Ballard was a colossal figure in English literature and an imaginative force of the twentieth century. Alongside seminal novels?from the notorious Crash (1973) to the semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun (1984)?Ballard was a sought-after reviewer and commentator, publishing journalism, memoir, and cultural criticism in a variety of forms. This volume collects the most significant short nonfiction of Ballard''s fifty-year career, extending the range of the only previous collection of his nonfiction, A User''s Guide to the Millennium (1996), which selected essays and reviews published between 1962 and 1995.A decade on from Ballard''s death in 2009, a new generation of readers needs a new collection. In the period following A User''s Guide, Ballard''s writing addressed 9/11, British politics from New Labour onward, and what he termed ?the rise of soft fascism??a diagnosis that maintains its relevance amid a shift toward right populism in European and US politics. Beautifully edited by Ballard scholar and novelist Mark Blacklock, this volume includes Ballard''s editorials and manifestos; commentaries on his own work; commentaries on the work of others; reviews; and more. Above all, it makes the case for the currency of Ballard''s work at a contemporary juncture at which so many of his diagnoses concerning the media and politics have become apparent.

A novel and scientific approach to creating transformative social change?and the surprising ways that each of us can help make a real difference.Changing the world is difficult. One reason is that the most important problems, like climate change, racism, and poverty, are structural. They emerge from our collective practices: laws, economies, history, culture, norms, and built environments. The dilemma is that there is no way to make structural change without individual people making different?more structure-facing?decisions. In Somebody Should Do Something, Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly show us how we can connect our personal choices to structural change and why individual choices matter, though not in the way people usually think.The authors paint a new picture of how social change happens, arguing that our most powerful personal choices are those that springboard us into working together with others. Taking inspiration from the writer Bill McKibben, they stress how one ?important thing an individual can do is be somewhat less of an individual.?Organized into three main sections, the book first diagnoses the problem of ?either/or? thinking about social change, which stems from the false choice of making better personal choices or changing the system. Then it offers a different way to think about social change, anchored in a new picture of human nature emerging across the social sciences. Finally, the authors explore ways of putting this picture into practice. Neither a how-to manual nor an activist?s guide, Somebody Should Do Something pairs stories and science (plus some jokes) to help readers recognize their own power, turning resignation about climate change and racial injustice into actions that transform the world.

The weird and wonderful stories of the ancestors of today?s comic-book and cinematic superheroes.Superhumans?humans who?ve evolved into creatures stronger, smarter, and more gifted than we have any reason to be?first showed up in science-fictional narratives during the genre?s emergent Radium Age. Originally published between 1902 and 1928, the stories and excerpts anthologized in this volume by Joshua Glenn feature the likes of Marie Corelli?s Young Diana, who, having been rendered super-alluring via a rejuvenation experiment, seeks revenge on a sexist society; Thomas Dunbar, one of the first lab-created superhumans; Zoo and Yva, superwomen who contemplate the extermination of us mere mortals, thanks to George Bernard Shaw and H. Rider Haggard; and Alfred Jarry?s André Marcueil, a scientist who develops a super-sexual capacity.Hugo Gernsback gives us Ralph 124C 41+, a benevolent super-genius inventor who dwells atop a New York skyscraper. M.P. Shiel tells the story of Hannibal Lepsius, a homeschooled prodigy turned amoral tech-bro; and Karel Capek gives us Rudy Marek, an inventor who, having developed super powers, wonders whether civilization will survive his latest invention. Thea von Harbou?s genius scientist, Rotwang, is even less conscientious in his scheming; as is Arthur Conan Doyle''s ever-irascible Professor Challenger, here in one of his final outings. Finally, Jean de La Hire?s Nyctalope, a popular French super-powered crimefighter character, makes an appearance; and so does Edgar Rice Burroughs?s Tarzan of the Apes… though reduced to miniature size.

When a capitalist cabal plots to assassinate Lenin, can quick-witted American workers ride to the rescue before it''s too late??a new translation.In Yankees in Petrograd, the Russian author Marietta S. Shaginyan (writing under the American nom de plume ?Jim Dollar?) gives us a riveting crime and espionage adventure with science fiction elements. Despite having awesome technologies such as spacetime-bending public transportation and electrical forcefields protecting Soviet Russia against its foes, the world?s first proletarian state is threatened by a fascist organization that will stop at nothing?including kidnapping, mesmerism, and infiltration?to assassinate Vladimir Lenin and his fellow Communist leaders! Enter Mike Thingsmaster, American tradesman and leader of a secret global organization defending the interests of the proletariat, who tasks his network with foiling this nefarious plot. Shaginyan?s novel, serialized in 1924 with covers decorated by Alexander Rodchenko?s photomontages, proved wildly popular with the Soviet reading public, which followed its dizzying plot breathlessly. Settings constantly shift and characters assume multiple identities; scenes of danger, intrigue, and melodrama are interspersed with moments of comic relief. Can Thingsmaster and his allies?including a robber baron?s scion who converts to the cause of Revolution, an alluring masked woman, a doctor investigating a disease that causes fierce anti-communists to revert to proto-human form, a chimney sweep, an intelligent dog, and the General Prosecutor of Illinois?succeed in thwarting the fascists? You?ll have to read until the final chapter to find out.A satire of the sort of thrillers then appearing in Black Mask and similar American pulps, Yankees in Petrograd is an over-the-top, pro-communist thrill ride.