Virtual worlds

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Juan de Onis

When the first Iberian adventurers discovered the Amazon and the native Indian and tribal peoples living along its banks, they believed they had stumbled upon what one traveler later called "the unfinished last page of Genesis." Legends sprang up of El Dorado, the gilded man, and a golden city hidden along the river which would bring limitless wealth to its discoverer. Today the tropical rain forests of the Amazon have no less a hold on the world's imagination--environmentalists plead for the last great wilderness, a fragile Eden whose fate is intimately linked with the fate of the earth, while landless peasants and wildcat miners, stream to what they perceive as the last frontier, rich in untapped resources and possibilities. The tension between the needs of the delicate and irreplaceable ecosystem and the no-less-compelling needs of the population seemed inevitable, and perhaps insolvable.^ In The Green Cathedral, Juan de Onis offers a set of proposals for the economic and ecological survival of this vital region, arguing that it is not possible to save the trees of Amazonia without also saving its people. A former foreign correspondent for the New York Times who has known Amazonia since the early sixties, de Onis undertook an intensive two year study of the region in 1988, traveling over 36,000 kilometers by land, water and air to interview the homesteaders, cattle ranchers, bureaucrats, peasant organizers, Indians, and activists who together will decide the future of the vast forests. Avoiding the doomsday tone of many experts, de Onis not only draws a vivid portrait of the greenest part of the earth and the rawness of life on the frontier, but also argues that Amazonia is not yet ecologically ruined nor economically crippled.^ Indeed, he uncovers heartening evidence that the peoples and governments of Amazonia are learning from the past, finding ways of preserving and profiting from their environment. For instance, the farmers and ranchers notorious for slashing and burning the rain forest during the eighties' "decade of destruction" are finding that Amazonia's best yields are rubber, timber, cellulose, and genetic resources, the very renewable products that require careful cultivation and reforestation. This more balanced approach, argues de Onis, offers the most realistic hope for the region's teeming flora and fauna and for the world's burgeoning human population as well. Published on the eve of the international environmental conference to be held in Brazil in June, 1992, The Green Cathedral will be welcomed as an inspiring, pragmatic call to action. It is essential reading for anyone interested in seeing the Amazon and its people steer from certain destruction towards a new era of discovery.

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Robert Pollack

"The genetic age is upon us, yet most people have only a limited understanding of the wondrous chemical that encodes the formula for all living things. As DNA's secrets are revealed, they must be rescued from the obscuring language of science, and now Signs of Life does just that. Borrowing from the humanities, Robert Pollack offers an entirely fresh perspective: DNA, he argues, should be seen as a great work of natural literature, a three-billion-year-old, continuously evolving text." "An award-winning scientist and teacher, Pollack displays both a sophisticated understanding of biology and a remarkable gift for metaphor. In elegant prose, he shows precisely how DNA provides the instruction book for life. He takes us deep inside a living cell - a teeming walled city - and explains how the genetic script at its heart governs all its operations. He opens the book containing the human genome and lucidly reveals the process by which biologists and physicians have begun to read its words and sentences." "But the frontier of genetics now extends into troubling territory. Pollack identifies several areas of concern: the ambitious but flawed Human Genome Project, the widespread access to individual genetic data, the temptation to manipulate genetic codes to make them "better." Given our still-crude ability to interpret these living texts, our eagerness to rewrite them is alarming. The power to change the human genome brings with it enormous responsibilities, and Pollack offers persuasive evidence that if we fail to achieve a fuller understanding of the multiple meanings of DNA, we risk disaster." "Signs of Life is both a brilliant illumination of a biological text and a provocative meditation on our awesome new ability to alter it. With the grace of a born writer and teacher, Robert Pollack has written a book that will change the way people think about science, genetics, and the future of our species."--BOOK JACKET.

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Peter J. Bentley

Imagine a future world where computers can create universes -- digital environments made from binary ones and zeros. Imagine that within these universes there exist biological forms that reproduce, grow, and think. Imagine plantlike forms, ant colonies, immune systems, and brains, all adapting, evolving, and getting better at solving problems. Imagine if our computers became greenhouses for a new kind of nature. Just think what digital biology could do for us. Perhaps it could evolve new designs for us, think up ways to detect fraud using digital neurons, or solve scheduling problems with ants. Perhaps it could detect hackers with immune systems or create music from the patterns of growth of digital seashells. Perhaps it would allow our computers to become creative and inventive. Now stop imagining. digital biology is an intriguing glimpse into the future of technology by one of the most creative thinkers working in computer science today. As Peter J. Bentley explains, the next giant step in computing technology is already under way as computer scientists attempt to create digital universes that replicate the natural world. Within these digital universes, we will evolve solutions to problems, construct digital brains that can learn and think, and use immune systems to trap and destroy computer viruses. The biological world is the model for the next generation of computer software. By adapting the principles of biology, computer scientists will make it possible for computers to function as the natural world does. In practical terms, this will mean that we will soon have "smart" devices, such as houses that will keep the temperature as we like it and automobiles that will start only for drivers they recognize (through voice recognition or other systems) and that will navigate highways safely and with maximum fuel efficiency. Computers will soon be powerful enough and small enough that they can become part of clothing. "Digital agents" will be able to help us find a bank or restaurant in a city that we have never visited before, even as we walk through the airport. Miniature robots may even be incorporated into our bodies to monitor our health. Digital Biology is also an exploration of biology itself from a new perspective. We must understand how nature works in its most intimate detail before we can use these same biological processes inside our computers. Already scientists engaged in this work have gained new insights into the elegant simplicity of the natural universe. This is a visionary book, written in accessible, nontechnical language, that explains how cutting-edge computer science will shape our world in the coming decades.

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Michio Kaku

A fascinating exploration of the science of the impossible—from death rays and force fields to invisibility cloaks—revealing to what extent such technologies might be achievable decades or millennia into the future. One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. In Physics of the Impossible, the renowned physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future. From teleportation to telekinesis, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals—and the limits—of the laws of physics as we know them today. He ranks the impossible technologies by categories—Class I, II, and III, depending on when they might be achieved, within the next century, millennia, or perhaps never. In a compelling and thought-provoking narrative, he explains: - How the science of optics and electromagnetism may one day enable us to bend light around an object, like a stream flowing around a boulder, making the object invisible to observers “downstream” - How ramjet rockets, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanorockets may one day take us to the nearby stars - How telepathy and psychokinesis, once considered pseudoscience, may one day be possible using advances in MRI, computers, superconductivity, and nanotechnology - Why a time machine is apparently consistent with the known laws of quantum physics, although it would take an unbelievably advanced civilization to actually build one Kaku uses his discussion of each technology as a jumping-off point to explain the science behind it. An extraordinary scientific adventure, Physics of the Impossible takes readers on an unforgettable, mesmerizing journey into the world of science that both enlightens and entertains. [(source)][1] [1]: