DOCSLIB.ORG

Culture Works, June 2018

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Culture Works, June 2018 Wordtrade.com| 1202 Raleigh Road 115| Chapel Hill NC 27517| USA ph 9195425719| fx 9198691643| www.wordtrade.com Spotlight 18 The Performance Cortex: How Neuroscience is Redefining Athletic Genius by Zach Schonbrun Culture Works [Dutton, 9781101986332] Cognitive Neuroscience, 4th Edition by Marie T. Banich and Rebecca J. Compton [Cambridge Table of Contents University Press, 9781107158443] The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Oklahoma Winter Bird Atlas by Dan L. Reinking Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny (University of Oklahoma Press) Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku [Doubleday, Bibliography 9780385542760] How to Think Like an Anthropologist by Matthew The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Engelke [Princeton University Press, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny 9780691178783] Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku [Doubleday, Ethnographers in The Field: The Psychology of 9780385542760] Research by John L. Wengle [The University of The bestselling author of The Future of the Mind, Alabama Press, 9780817303891] Physics of the Future and Physics of the Impossible, The New Chimpanzee: A Twenty-First-Century traverses the frontiers of astrophysics, artificial Portrait of Our Closest Kin by Craig Stanford intelligence, and technology to offer a stunning [Harvard University Press, 9780674977112] vision of humanities' future in space, from settling Culture Writing: Literature and Anthropology in the Mars to traveling to distant galaxies. Midcentury Atlantic World by Tim Watson Formerly the domain of fiction, moving human [Modernist Literature and Culture, Oxford, civilization to the stars is increasingly becoming a 9780190852672] scientific possibility--and a necessity. Whether in the near future due to climate change and the The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines by depletion of finite resources, or in the distant future Timothy Insoll [Oxford Handbooks, Oxford due to catastrophic cosmological events, we must University Press, 9780199675616] face the reality that humans will one day need to The Neolithic of Europe: Papers in Honour of leave planet Earth to survive as a species. World- Alasdair Whittle, edited by Penny Bickle, Vicki renowned physicist and futurist Michio Kaku Cummings, Daniela Hofmann, & Joshua Pollard explores in rich, intimate detail the process by [Oxbow Books, 9781785706547] which humanity may gradually move away from From Cooking Vessels to Cultural Practices in the the planet and develop a sustainable civilization in Late Bronze Age Aegean, 1st edition edited by outer space. He reveals how cutting-edge Julie Hruby & Debra Trusty (Oxbow Books) developments in robotics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology may allow us to terraform and build The Crown of Aragon: A Singular Mediterranean habitable cities on Mars. He then takes us beyond Empire edited by Flocel Sabaté [Brill's Companions the solar system to nearby stars, which may soon to European History, Brill, 9789004349605] be reached by nanoships traveling on laser beams The Heart Is a Shifting Sea: Love and Marriage in at near the speed of light. Finally, he brings us Mumbai by Elizabeth Flock [Harper, beyond our galaxy, and even beyond our universe, 9780062456489] to the possibility of immortality, showing us how humans may someday be able to leave our bodies The Existentialist's Survival Guide: How to Live entirely and laser port to new havens in space. Authentically in an Inauthentic Age by Gordon With irrepressible enthusiasm and wonder, Dr. Marino [HarperOne, 9780062435989] Kaku takes readers on a fascinating journey to a 1 | page spotlight|©authors|or|wordtrade.com future in which humanity may finally fulfill its long- Some of them rise to greatness, ushering in an era awaited destiny among the stars. of peace and plenty, and some even create interstellar empires with their starships. Others fall Excerpt: Toward a Multiplanet Species into ruin, wracked by bitterness, strife, and war. When I was a child, I read Isaac Asimov's Many of the revolutionary concepts in Stapledon's Foundation Trilogy, which is celebrated as one of novel were incorporated into subsequent science the greatest sagas in the history of science fiction. I fiction. For example, our hero in Star Maker was stunned that Asimov, instead of writing about discovers that many superadvanced civilizations ray gun battles and space wars with aliens, asked deliberately keep their existence a secret from a simple but profound question: Where will human lower civilizations, to prevent accidentally civilization be fifty thousand years into the future? contaminating them with advanced technology. This What is our ultimate destiny? concept is similar to the Prime Directive, one of the In his groundbreaking trilogy, Asimov painted a guiding principles of the Federation in the Star Trek picture of humanity spread out across the Milky series. Way, with millions of inhabited planets held Our hero also comes across a civilization so together by a vast Galactic Empire. We had sophisticated that its members enclose their mother traveled so far that the location of the original sun in a gigantic sphere to utilize all its energy. This homeland that gave birth to this great civilization concept, which would later be called the Dyson was lost in the mists of prehistory. And there were sphere, is now a staple of science fiction. so many advanced societies distributed throughout the galaxy, with so many people bound together He meets a race of individuals who are in constant through a complex web of economic ties, that, with telepathic contact with one another. Every this huge sample size, it was possible to use individual knows the intimate thoughts of the others. mathematics to predict the future course of events, This idea predates the Borg of Star Trek, where as if predicting the motion of molecules. individuals are connected mentally and are subordinate to the will of the Hive. Years ago, I invited Dr. Asimov to speak at our university. Listening to his thoughtful words, I was And at the end of the novel, he encounters the Star surprised at his breadth of knowledge. I then asked Maker himself, a celestial being who creates and him a question that had intrigued me since tinkers with entire universes, each with its own laws childhood: What had inspired him to write the of physics. Our universe is just one in a multiverse. In Foundation series? How had he come up with a total awe, our hero witnesses the Star Maker at theme so large that it embraced the entire galaxy? work as he conjures up new and exciting realms, Without hesitation, he responded that he was discarding those not pleasing to him. Stapledon's inspired by the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. trailblazing novel came as quite a shock in a world In the story of the empire, one could see how the where the radio was still considered a miracle of destiny of the Roman people played out over its technology. In the 1930s, the idea of achieving a turbulent history. space-faring civilization seemed preposterous. Back then, propeller-driven airplanes were state- I began to wonder whether the history of humanity of-the-art and had hardly managed to venture has a destiny as well. Perhaps our fate is to above the clouds, so the possibility of traveling to eventually create a civilization that spans the entire the stars seemed hopelessly remote. Milky Way galaxy. Perhaps our destiny is truly in the stars. Star Maker was an instant success. Arthur C. Clarke called it one of the finest works of science fiction Many of the themes underlying Asimov's work were ever published. It fired up the imagination of a explored even earlier, in Olaf Stapledon's seminal whole generation of postwar science fiction writers. novel Star Maker. In the novel, our hero daydreams But among the general public, the novel was soon that he somehow soars into outer space until he forgotten amidst the chaos and savagery of World reaches faraway planets. Racing across the galaxy War II. as pure consciousness, wandering from star system to star system, he witnesses fantastic alien empires. 2 | Page Spotlight © Finding New Planets in Space Realizing that the galaxy could be teeming with Now that the Kepler spacecraft and teams of habitable planets, you will never see the night sky Earth-bound astronomers have discovered about in the same way again. four thousand planets orbiting other stars in the Once astronomers have identified these Earth-sized Milky Way galaxy, one begins to wonder if the planets, the next goal will be to analyze their civilizations described by Stapledon actually exist. atmospheres for oxygen and water vapor, a sign In 2017, NASA scientists identified not one but of life, and listen for radio waves, which would seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a nearby star, a signal the existence of an intelligent civilization. mere thirty-nine light-years from Earth. Of these Such a discovery would be one of the great turning seven planets, three of them are close enough to points in human history, comparable to the taming their mother star to support liquid water. Very of fire. Not only would it redefine our relationship soon, astronomers will be able to confirm whether to the rest of the universe, it would also change our or not these and other planets have atmospheres destiny. containing water vapor. Since water is the The New Golden Age of Space "universal solvent" capable of being the mixing bowl for the organic chemicals that make Exploration All these exciting discoveries of exoplanets, along up the DNA molecule, scientists may be able to with the novel ideas brought about by a fresh new show that the conditions for life are common in the generation of visionaries, are rekindling the public's universe. We may be on the verge of finding the interest in space travel. Originally, what drove the Holy Grail of planetary astronomy, a twin of the space program was the Cold War and superpower Earth in outer space.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Social Behavior of Chimpanzees and Bonobos
    Current Anthropology Volume 39, Number 4, August±October 1998 1998 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/98/3904-0001$3.00 Molecular studies indicate that humans, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and bonobos (P. paniscus) are very The Social Behavior closely related in a lineage that split into hominid and Pan lines approximately 6±7 million years ago, possibly following a divergence from the gorilla lineage about 1± of Chimpanzees 2 million years earlier (Caccone and Powell 1989, Ru- volo et al. 1991). Chimpanzees and bonobos have a and Bonobos more recent common ancestry only some 2±2.5 million years ago (Caccone and Powell 1989). Although it is now an endangered species, the chimpanzee is an ex- tremely successful species ecologically, occurring in a Empirical Evidence and Shifting wide range of habitat types across the equatorial portion 1 of the African continent. The bonobo, by contrast, is Assumptions found in a much more geographically and ecologically restricted region of lowland rain forest in central ZaõÈre. Until the 1980s, so little was known about the behavior by Craig B. Stanford of wild bonobos that detailed comparisons between the two Pan species were not possible. The number of ®eld observation hours on bonobos is today still a small frac- tion of the database of chimpanzee behavior and ecol- ogy (White 1996a), but cross-species comparisons are As our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos have nevertheless commonplace. been widely used as models of the behavior of early hominids. In recent years, as information on the social behavior and ecology These two African apes have been reported to differ of bonobos has come to light, many interspeci®c comparisons dramatically in patterns of sexuality, dominance, same- have been made.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes and References
    Notes and References Caveat: The Dangers of Behavioral Biology The contents of this book are known to be dangerous. I do not mean that in the sense that all ideas are potentially dangerous. Specifically, ideas about the biological basis of behavior have encouraged political tendencies and movements later regretted by all decent people and condemned in school histories. Why, then, purvey such ideas? Because some ideas in behavioral biology are true—among them, to the best of my knowledge, the ones in this book—and the truth is essential to wise action. But that does not mean that these ideas cannot be distorted, nor that evil acts cannot arise from them. I doubt, in fact, that what I say can prevent such distortion. Political and social movements arise from worldly causes, and then seize whatever congenial ideas are at hand. Nonethe- less, I am not comfortable in the company of scientists who are content to search for the truth and let the consequences accumulate as they may. I therefore recount here a few pas- sages in the dismal, indeed shameful history of the abuse of behavioral biology, in some of which scientists were willing participants. The first episode is recounted in William Stanton’s The Leopard’s Spots: Scientific Atti- tudes Toward Race in America, 1815–59 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1960). Such names as Samuel George Morton, George Robins Gliddon, and Josiah Clark Nott mean little to present-day students of anthropology, but in the difficult decades between the death of Jeffer- son and the Civil War, they founded the American School of Anthropology.
    [Show full text]
  • Nh112n05.Pdf
    "J/ ^^Ev*^'«m^^' E'«' |Ni#|S^ 9 |\^.?^:- t; 1 •"<^j>'is«i- te?^. ...^ V :«r*§r^ ^5^ ^J^'W ^>vi: ^ "( ^/< %^^^ a. >ii^. ff mm. S 's considered one of the world's premier jazz pianists. Ellis M 3 rS3 1 1 I He's taught some of the world's most famous musicians. Even fathered a few of his own. But with it came to money. Ii-etirement approaching, he didfl't Waflt tO llTiprOViSe. Not when plan, so money wouldn't get in the \li We worked with him on ways to make the most of his retirement ||way of his music. Now he's ready for the next act, whatever that may be. ^k ^idg on for ideas, advice, and results. TIAA-CRERorg or call 800.842.1924 ^^ Managing money for people with other things to think ahoutj"" I 1 INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT I I SAVINGS TRUSTS REfiREMENf I INSURANCE MUTUAL FUNDS COLLEGE product; Investors , distribute securities ifilisMarsalis became a participant in 1990. TIAA-CREF Individual and Institutional Services, Inc., and Teachers Personal Service h 2002 Teaehiers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), Nev r" nm LAVISHW ILLUSTRWED mm. -The New York Time '^^^(%4. i^l %, < 1 11 ii ii# J anuary 4;2u04 T L Journeys of Body, Mind i Spirit K.-4,f # •i. % • « AMERi(i»Tv|MusELnv\ o Natural KTSTORY OPENDAp: CENTRAL PARK WEST AT 79TH STREET WWW.AMNH.ORG 212-769-5100 made ORGANfZED BY THE AMERICAN MUS£UM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK, AND THE VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY, HANOI.
    [Show full text]