Aaron’s Comments (group member since Apr 08, 2012)

Aaron’s comments from the New Popular Science Books group.

Just finished the new book by Google big wigs Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen called The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. The authors prognosticate on how digital technology will impact everything from the domestic sphere; to government and international relations and conflicts; to the developing world (where 5 billion people are expected to come online in the next 20 years). The authors have some very interesting perspectives on how the digital age will play out. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/05/23...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Ramez Naam called The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. The book explores our current resource shortages and environmental problems, and argues that the power of innovation is equal to the task of overcoming them--based on the history (and present) of innovation, as well as a theoretical understanding of what drives it. It's a brilliant book, and has gone straight into my top 10 of all time. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/04/30...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Michael Moss called Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. The book explores the history and practices of the processed food industry. It’s an eye-opening look at just what goes into our food (and why), and how this is contributing to some of our most common and serious health issues, like obesity, diabetes, heart disease and even some types of cancer. I’ve written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/04/17...

Cheers,
Aaron

Peter wrote: "David Brooks writes about the book today and seems to disagree with the hands-off attitude toward the data. Or maybe I should say "minds-off". He would prefer that we do think about causality and n..."

Yes. Nate Silver expresses this opinion as well. It's always going to be dangerous to assume that a correlation indicates causation, since this simply isn't always the case. The authors of Big Data, at times, seem to recognize this as well, but ultimately they shunt this concern aside. Somewhat irresponsibly, I think.

Just finished reading the new book by Jonah Berger called Contagious: Why Things Catch On. The book explores social pandemics and brings a scientific approach to understanding why things go viral. It's a fun and interesting read about an intriguing topic. I've written a full executive summary available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/04/03...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier called Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. The book traces the history, present and future of big data, and argues that the phenomenon will transform our world. It's a good overview of an interesting and important topic. I've written a full executive summary available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/03/21...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Chip Walter called Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived. The book makes use of the latest fossil finds and DNA analysis to chart the evolution of our species from chimp to the present. It's an excellent account of our evolutionary story. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/02/26...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Al Gore called The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. The six main drivers of change that Gore identifies are: 1) Automation in the new global economy; 2)The shifting of power from nation-states to multinational corporations; 3) The Internet-ization of everyone and everything ; 4) The biotechnology revolution; 5) The depletion of the world's resources due to population increase and unsustainable consumption; and 6) Climate change. The book is very interesting. I've written a full executive summary available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/02/12...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Maria Konnikova called Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. The author makes the case that Holmes brings the scientific method and scientific thinking to everyday life, and aims to help us do the same. It's self-help for the scientifically minded, and its backed up by the latest in psychological research. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/01/28...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading Jared Diamond's new book The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?. The book explores our traditional way of life (prior to the onset of civilization) and makes the argument that though civilization does bring it with it many important benefits, there are several areas wherein traditional practices represent an improvement over how we do things in the modern world, and that these practices could (and should) be incorporated into our modern way of life (both at the personal and societal level). The areas include conflict resolution, child care, treatment of the elderly, approaching risk and health. The book is very illuminating. I've written a full executive summary of it available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/01/15...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Taleb makes the case that complex systems (including the body, technology, businesses, the economy, politics etc.) benefit when they are allowed to unfold organically and with a measure of randomness, as opposed to being designed in a top-down, formulaic way (though it is the spirit of the age to think otherwise). It’s a very intriguing point of view. I’ve written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/12/17...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Ray Kurzweil called How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. The book charts the progress of artificial intelligence, and points up how these machines are already operating according to the same principles as our brains. As our understanding of the brain continues to advances, Kurzweil argues, we will be able to use this knowledge to build machines that are ever more human-like--until, eventually, our machines will achieve human-level intelligence, and beyond. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/11/27...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Daniel Kahneman called Thinking, Fast and Slow. The book breaks down thinking into two systems:
intuition and deliberation, and explores their interaction. The main argument of the book is that intuitive thinking often misleads us, and that it is important to know the many ways that it does so in order that we may catch the errors. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/11/13...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by George Church called Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. The book tracks the evolution of genomics and genetic engineering (now called synthetic biology), and explores current and upcoming developments and technologies in biotech from biomaterials to bioenergy to biomedicine. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/10/30...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Nate Silver called The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't. The book explores the factors that complicate forecasting across many fields, with a focus on the economy. The book also delves into the subtle things that can be done to make us better predictors. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/10/15...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Larry Young called The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction. The book explores the biology and chemistry of everything from ge
nder identity (and sexual orientation) to love (and parenting) to monogamy (and infidelity), taking us inside our bodies to investigate the genes and hormones that influence our approach to love, sex and relationships. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/09/30...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Paul Tough called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. The book explores the character traits that lead to success and how we can cultivate them in young folks. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/09/17...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Jim Baggott called HIGGS - The Invention and Discovery of the ‘God Particle’. The book discusses the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, and also does an excellent job of explaining the development of the Standard Model of particle physics (which theory is our best explanation of matter and force, and the theory of which the Higgs boson is a part). The book provides just what the general reader needs to understand the discovery of the Higgs boson and what it all means. I've written an executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/09/02...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by David K. Randall called Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep. The book takes a look at the science behind pretty well every facet of sleep you can think of from sleep deprivation, to natural sleep patterns (and how it changes over the course of a lifetime), to putting your kids to bed, to dreaming, to sleepwalking (and the bizarre phenomenon of committing crime while sleepwalking), to insomnia, to just plain getting a better night's sleep. I've written a full executive summary of the book available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/08/20...

Cheers,
Aaron

Just finished reading the new book by Sam Kean called The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code. The book tells the story of DNA--both the story of the history of life (from the smallest, simplest microbe, to we human beings), as well as the story of how we human beings managed to unravel DNA's mysteries (from Mendel, to Morgan, to Watson and Crick, to the Human Genome Project). I've written a full executive summary available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/08/01...

Cheers,
Aaron