Brain Science

James Cantrel wants to be braver in his new high school. He wants to pursue a new crush, stand up to new bullies, and create a comic book with his new best friend, Matt. An odd accident derails it all. Aliens in his dreams seem all too real. When he wakes, he finds he's been out, stealing supplies to build an invention he only recognizes from his latest, trance-induced drawings.

For Doris, a swimmy-in-the-head 13-year-old, it seems life can get no worse. She's tragically unpopular at school and failing American History. She's grounded and will not be attending the spring dance. And now, a creepy bug-eyed man is going to grant her a wish, whether she likes it or not.

A leading science writer examines how the brain's capacity reaches its peak in middle ageFor many years, scientists thought that the human brain simply decayed over time and its dying cells led to memory slips, fuzzy logic, negative thinking, and even depression.

Using deadly foamal bombs and newly developed vibration weapons, men like Joao Martinho and his coworkers fought to clear the green hell of the Mato Grosso. But somehow those areas that had been completely cleared were becoming reinfested, despite the impenetrable vibration barriers. And tales were coming out of the jungles - tales of insects mutated to incredible sizes, of creatures who seemed to be men but whose eyes gleamed with the chitinous sheen of insects....

In her extraordinary work with dolphins, Patricia St. John has broken new ground in opening little-known worlds, all in pursuit of what she fiercely believes in: learning the languages of those who have been unreachable. Using what she has discovered from her years of work with dolphins, St. John is able to break through to autistic children. Her story is a remarkable one.

To many, the brain is the seat of personal identity and autonomy. But the way we talk about the brain is often rooted more in mystical conceptions of the soul than in scientific fact.

Properly valuing brain gender diversity in the workplace is one of the biggest and largely untapped sources of competitive advantage for modern businesses. Recent advances in neuroscience provide the key to unlocking it. Leading applied neuroscientists and international corporate coaches Kate Lanz and Paul Brown tell you why and how to access all the brains in your business.

When I was born I was so small I was mistaken for a French fry. I was never an ordinary creature. My best friend was a seagull. I was strictly illegal. Artificially Intelligent Persons like me, commonly known as "apes", had been banned ever since that thing with the Twelve Elevens. Mother raised me for the black market. Buyers and sellers all had their plans, but then I grew a mind of my own. This is my story, the story of how my brain ended up inside this box.

Die Hirnforschung macht rasante Fortschritte, aber nur selten treten wir einen Schritt zurück und fragen uns, was es heißt, ein Lebewesen und Mensch zu sein. Der renommierte Neurowissenschaftler David Eagleman nimmt uns mit auf die Reise durch das Gewirr aus Milliarden von Hirnzellen und Billionen von Synapsen - und zu uns selbst.

Abby Thomas is spending the summer in a run-down old house with a bratty pre-teen named Merrideth she is supposed to tutor. Not a dream job. But it does come with perks. There's John Roberts, a devastatingly attractive neighbor who is almost too wonderful to be real. And there's the new computer program Beautiful Houses - also too amazing to be real. No one knows how it works, but with it she can rewind and fast-forward the lives of all the people who ever lived in the house, including Charlotte Miles.

Whether we realize it or not, we think of our brains as computers. In neuroscience, the metaphor of the brain as a computer has defined the field for much of the modern era. But as neuroscientists increasingly reevaluate their assumptions about how brains work, we need a new metaphor to help us ask better questions. The computational neuroscientist Daniel Graham offers an innovative paradigm for understanding the brain. He argues that the brain is not like a single computer—it is a communication system, like the internet.

It is indisputable that human intelligence makes our species stand out from other lives on Earth. Our brains, much more than our muscles, explain our successes in development, as well as our sometimes devastating effects on the planet. Our modern brain is an evolutionary feat in development for over 520 million years and is the key to everything that makes us the entirety of humanity. But while the human brain is remarkable, what happens if people stop being intelligent?

Technology surrounds us every day: a phone alarm wakes us up, an electronic calendar tracks assignment deadlines, GPS directs us to the new dentist’s office, social media keeps us connected to friends and family, and streaming platforms make sure we’re never without something new to binge-watch. Our devices and apps can make life much more convenient and entertaining. But for years, scientists have warned that too much screen time may have negative effects on our health.

Can a football game affect the outcome of an election? What about shark attacks? Or a drought? In a rational world the answer, of course, would be no. But as best-selling historian Rick Shenkman shows in Political Animals, our world is anything but rational. This isn't because we aren't smart. Instead, modern cues are setting off ancient, instinctive responses that worked to keep us safe in the Stone Age but lead us astray today.

The lightning brain had been waging a life-or-death battle against the T-Plague virus for the past 24 hours.... The lightning brain had won, but victory came at a terrible cost; neural entanglement gravely crippled Electra's lightning brain. Book three picks up where book two's "Death Vigil" ends. The lightning brain must repair itself before Electra can rejoin the battle against the Techno-Plague, as well as contend with war raging in Cyberspace directed by a rogue Middle East state allied with China and Russia, all the while dealing with America's relentlessly harsh government.

"Mrs. T struggled mightily to maintain composure.... Her head felt an overinflated balloon.... She had struggled even harder to salvage a rescue mission.... To retrieve what's needed to keep America safe from the Techno-Plague, Middle East Terrorism, and the Guardian Party." Book two's action explodes from where book one ends, relentlessly terminating old enemies as fast as new ones emerge. Can Electra keep her "secret" hidden while allowing males to play her deadly games as her array of extraordinary skills deepens? You won't find out until the last line of the last chapter!

En tiempos en que la (auto) ficción está al servicio de la cobardía, Eduardo Herrera nos ofrece su testimonio franco como un ex operador de la corrupción de cuello blanco...

New from the Smart Teens-Smart Choices series: Information and encouragement for teens with stories by teens, for teens, about: The difference between using, dependency, and addiction; what to do if you or a friend can't stop using; withdrawal, relapse, and recovery; and cool ways to stand your ground and say "no" when being enticed to use drugs or alcohol.

This extraordinary travel book tells the true story of how in 1997 writer Michael Paterniti agreed to take a road trip from New Jersey to California, reuniting the preserved brain of the great scientist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) with his granddaughter Evelyn. Paterniti's improbable travelling companion is 84-year-old Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who not only removed Einstein's brain from his head during the autopsy but purloined it from Princeton Hospital also!

Are we driving off a digital cliff and heading for disaster, unable to focus, maintain concentration, or form the human bonds that make life worth living? Are media and business doomed and about to be replaced by amateur hour? Both visionary and practical, I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works captures the zeitgeist of an emerging age, providing the understanding of how a radically changed media world is influencing human behavior.