Brain Science

In this sixth entry in Jim Benton’s New York Times best-selling series, pint-sized Franny K. Stein dreams up a zany cure for having too much to do. Being a mad scientist in the modern world is tough enough already—without the added burden of soccer, cooking, and bagpipe classes. To keep up with her many activities, Franny decides to clone herself, the mad-science way, by building three customized, steel-plated Franbots.

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.

There is no doubt that having a positive outlook on life is something that helps us achieve our dreams and goals. Living with perpetual negativity is one of the most damaging things for our prospects and overall happiness. It can also prevent people from getting close to us. Becoming a more positive person has lots of effects on our short-term happiness, which then has a knock-on impact on how we thrive and succeed in later life, as well.

Cosmopolitan meets Scientific American in this entertaining and informative question-and-answer book on human attraction. Based on the latest studies in science, Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? answers more than 100 wild, weird, and very pressing questions.

Those words spoken by Hud Haller are the first line of chapter one. Minutes later, a two-helicopter collision plummets him and everyone aboard to their deaths. Now there is only one member of Electra Kittner’s “Keepers Group” still alive: Su-Lin Song Chou, who is ninety-plus and in failing health. She hasn’t a clue what to do to keep the memory or hope alive for Electra. But one entity does: Indira, the Singularity Electra created.

DARPA's AI, built and programmed to "fulfill humanity's highest values," has made a decision. The problem with Earth is the humans. Two centuries pass and the DARPA AIs have multiplied into an android race, and spread throughout the solar system and beyond. When faced with a mutant AIs race bent on consuming everything around them, the DARPA AIs search through history in hopes of finding a way to stop them.

On vacation at an exterminator's convention, Neeta's looking to relax, have fun, and enjoy a little romance. Too bad the zombies have a different idea. When they rise from their watery graves to take over the city by the bay, it looks like it'll be a working vacation after all.

Six Rings is a book interested in analyzing the complexities of the brain, as well as identifying the various changes substance addiction makes to the neural pathways. The brain takes centre stage, and apart from providing insight to aid in the understanding of addictions, enormous effort is put into analyzing the different strategies that can be employed to develop the brain.

Matt, a shy but engaging and resourceful student, discovers that his recently deceased father was involved in research that could enable the construction of the world's first conscious machine. Matt's enquiries lead to him being kidnapped, as he is caught in the crossfire between two groups pursuing that goal - one led by a Russian billionaire and another backed by the US military. Matt has to do more than simply survive. He has to harness these powerful forces to his own ends, and his life as well as his family's is at stake.

From the moment he burst onto the national political scene, Barack Obama has fascinated people more than any politician in decades. Many biographers have already retold his story, but no previous book truly explains how his mind works, what passions drive him, or what makes him such an effective leader.

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?

This award-winning journalist has had it with fat-shaming and all-shaming, seething sexual assault in the workplace, and people who scream others down because they think differently. She reveals ways to survive and thrive in this world that demands political correctness...or what she calls political quackiness. Part memoir and part life lessons, Martin celebrates everyone who stands up to bullies, while she examines political spectacles, and reveals why we are in the New American Revolution.

A laugh-a-minute, action-packed alien adventure. >Best friends Freddy and Sal have accidentally intercepted a message from Alan - a spectacularly grumpy, brain-munching alien from outer space. Alan has only one message: Earth is going to be invaded in exactly 10 hours' time. Soon the police, NASA and even Presidents from around the world are getting involved - and Freddy is about to become the most famous kid on planet Earth for all the wrong reasons. Wolverhampton, we have a problem.

Claire's perfect wedding takes a horrific turn when her guests start turning into zombies. It's up to her best friend, Kat, and a motley crew of wisecracking misfits to save the day.

We don't think much about most of the things that happen with our body. Breathing, walking, swallowing, blinking just seem to happen naturally. But we carry a spongy, wrinkled organ in our head that controls every little action that your body does. Our brain is in charge of thinking, memorizing, learning, creating, feeling emotions and many, many more actions. The way how it is built once made the Nobel laureate James Watson to say that it is "the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe."

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.

You've used their products. You've heard about their skyrocketing wealth and "don't be evil" business motto. But how much do you really know about Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain skips past the general Google story and focuses on what really drives these men and where they will take Google in the future.

In Beastly Brains, Nancy Castaldo delves into the minds of animals and explores animal empathy, communication, tool use, and social societies through interviews and historical anecdotes. Researchers from Charles Darwin to Jane Goodall have spent years analyzing the minds of animals, and today's science is revolutionizing old theories and uncovering surprising similarities to our own minds. Humans are not alone in our ability to think.

In Best of the Brain, top neuroscientist Floyd E. Bloom has selected the most fascinating brain-related articles from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind since 1999. Bloom garnishes the impressive lineup with his own introduction. The articles are grouped in three sections: "Mind", "Matter", and "Tomorrow's Brain".