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Nature and Science December 2025 |
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| If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate SoaresAI researchers Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares sound a strident alarm over the race to design the ultimate machine intelligence. While corporations and governments everywhere push relentlessly toward the development of “artificial superintelligence” (ASI), the authors warn that current industry safeguards are insufficient to contain a program that is “optimized for efficiency and unconstrained by human ethics” (Booklist). |
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True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen
by Lance Richardson
The first biography of Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, naturalist, and Zen roshi, whose trailblazing work championed Native American rights and helped usher in the modern environmental movement, by award-winning writer Lance Richardson.
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The War on Science: Thirty-Nine Renowned Scientists and Scholars Speak Out about Current Threats to Free Speech, Open Inquiry, and the Scientific Process edited by Lawrence M. KraussAn unparalleled group of prominent scholars from wide-ranging disciplines detail ongoing efforts to impose ideological restrictions on science and scholarship throughout western society. From assaults on merit-based hiring to the policing of language and replacing well-established, disciplinary scholarship by ideological mantras, current science and scholarship is under threat throughout western institutions. As this group of prominent scholars ranging across many different disciplines and political leanings detail, the very future of free inquiry and scientific progress is at risk. Many who have spoken up against this threat have lost their positions, and a climate of fear has arisen that strikes at the heart of modern education and research. Banding together to finally speak out, this brave and unprecedented group of scholars issues a clarion call for change.
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Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us
by Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall, PhD
Food Intelligence dispels many popular myths we have about weight loss and breaks down the real drivers of the obesity crisis based on decades of research. The essential guide for understanding what you're eating, and the forces that are driving you to eat it. Nutrition isn't rocket science; it's harder. There are new diet fads, bold claims about superfoods and articles promising the secrets to lasting weight-loss and longevity. The more 'expert' advice we hear about diet, the less clarity we have about what to eat. In Food Intelligence, award-winning health journalist, Julia Belluz, and internationally renowned nutrition and metabolism scientist, Kevin Hall, cut through the myths about nutrition to deliver a comprehensive book on food, diet, metabolism and healthy eating.
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The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind
by Simon Winchester
What is going on with our atmosphere? The headlines are filled with news of devastating hurricanes, murderous tornadoes, and cataclysmic fires affecting large swaths of America. Gale force advisories are issued on a regular basis by the National Weather Service. In 2022, a report was released by atmospheric scientists at the University of Northern Illinois, warning that winds--the force at the center of all these dangerous natural events--are expected to steadily increase in the years ahead, strengthening in power, speed, and frequency. While this prediction worried the insurance industry, governmental leaders, scientists, and conscientious citizens, one particular segment of society received it with unbridled enthusiasm. To the energy industry, rising wind strength and speeds as an unalloyed boon for humankind--a vital source of clean and "safe" power.
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Life on a Little-Known Planet: Dispatches from a Changing World
by Elizabeth Kolbert
landmark collection of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural world To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, Rolling Stone has advised, you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert. From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert's work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in Life on a Little-Known Planet are her most influential and thought-provoking essays. An intrepid reporter and a skillful translator of scientific idees, Kolbert expertly captures the wonders of nature and paints vivid portraits of the researchers and concerned citizens working to preserve them.
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On Drugs: Psychedelics, Philosophy, and the Nature of Reality
by Justin Smith-Ruiu
Like the best psychedelic experiences, On Drugs estranges the familiar, familiarizes the strange, and returns us to reality (whatever that is) with a broadened sense of the possible. Justin Smith-Ruiu is simply one of the most interesting thinkers alive, and he has found an ideal subject for his peculiar brand of brilliance.
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Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization
by Bill McKibben
In Here Comes the Sun, climate activist Bill McKibben explores the rapid rise of solar and wind energy as a powerful, accessible alternative to fossil fuels. Highlighting global progress and grassroots efforts, he shows how renewable energy offers not just a path out of the climate crisis but a chance to build a fairer, more democratic world. Despite resistance from the fossil fuel industry, McKibben argues that this solar revolution is our best hope for a sustainable future.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Côte Saint-Luc Public Library
5851 Cavendish Blvd.
Côte Saint-Luc, Quebec H4W 2X8
514-485-6900csllibrary.org/ |
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