 Supporting COMMUNITY. Inspiring DISCOVERY. Promoting LITERACY. |
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Nature and Science August 2025 |
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| More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to... by Adam BeckerMany of today’s tech industry leaders advance wildly optimistic visions of a future in which people will live on Mars, become immortal, and exist in simulation. Interrogating these scenarios with real science, journalist Adam Becker runs through the multitude of reasons why they aren’t achievable, and why we wouldn’t want them to be. Try this next: Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis. |
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The origin of language : how we learned to speak and why
by Madeleine Beekman
"Journeying to the dawn of Homo sapiens, evolutionary biologist Madeleine Beekman reveals the "happy accidents" hidden in our molecular biology-DNA, chromosomes, and proteins-that led to one of the most fateful events in the history of life on Earth: ourgiving birth to babies earlier in their development than our hominid cousins the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Faced with highly dependent infants requiring years of nurturing and protection, early human communities needed to cooperate and coordinate, andit was this unprecedented need for communication that triggered the creation of human language-and changed everything. Infused with cutting-edge science, sharp humor, and insights into the history of biology and its luminaries, Beekman weaves a narrativethat's both enlightening and entertaining. Challenging the traditional theories of male luminaries like Chomksy, Pinker, and Harari, she invites us into the intricate world of molecular biology and its ancient secrets. The Origin of Language is a tour deforce by a brilliant biologist on how a culture of cooperation and care have shaped our existence"
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| Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance by Laura DelanoLaura Delano shares her experiences as an over-prescribed psychiatric patient. After being diagnosed with several psychiatric “conditions” starting in her teens, Delano came to the stark realization in her late twenties that the combination of psychotropic drugs that she was taking was causing a cascade of interrelated symptoms. Unshrunk is an emotionally powerful cautionary tale, suitable for readers who enjoyed Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne. |
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We should all be birds : (a memoir)
by Brian Buckbee
"A charming and moving debut memoir about how a man with a mystery illness saves a pigeon, and how the pigeon saves the man"
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| Slither: How Nature's Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World by Stephen S. HallScience writer Stephen S. Hall has been fascinated by snakes since childhood, and his enthusiasm comes through in this sweeping overview of all things herpetological. Hall covers topics including people’s fear of snakes, snake venom, locomotion, evolutionary history, religious symbolism, and the ease with which snakes adapt to their surroundings. An enticing choice for snake lovers (and haters!). |
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Foreign fruit : a personal history of the orange
by Katie Goh
"What begins as curiosity about the origins of the orange soon becomes a far-reaching odyssey of citrus for Katie Goh. Goh follows the complicated history of the orange from east to west and west to east, from a luxury item of European kings and Chinese emperors to a modest fruit people take for granted. This investigation parallels Goh's powerful search into her own heritage. Growing up queer in a Chinese-Malaysian-Irish household in the north of Ireland, Goh felt herself at odds with the culture and politics around her. As a teenager, Goh visits her ancestral home in Longyan, China, with her family to better understand her roots, but doesn't find the easy, digestible answers she hoped for. In her midtwenties, when her grandmother falls ill, Goh ventures again to the land of her ancestors, this time to Malaysia, where more questions of self and belonging are raised. In her travels and reflections, she navigates histories that she wants to understand, but has never truly felt a part of. Like the story ofthe orange, Goh finds that easy and extractable explanations-even about a seemingly simple fruit-are impossible. The story that unfolds is Goh's incredible endeavor to flesh out these contradictions, to unpeel the layers of personhood; a reflection on identity through the cipher of the orange. Along the way, the orange becomes so much more than just a fruit-it emerges as a symbol, a metaphor, and a guide. Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange is a searching, wide-ranging, seamless weaving of storytelling with research and a meditative, deeply moving encounter with the orange and the self"
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The Big Hop : the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean and into the future
by David Rooney
"In 1919, in Newfoundland, four teams of aviators came from Britain to compete in "the Big Hop": an audacious race to be the first to fly, nonstop, across the Atlantic Ocean. One pair of competitors was forced to abandon the journey halfway, and two pairs never made it into the air. Only one team, after a death-defying sixteen-hour flight, made it to Ireland"
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The mind electric : a neurologist on the strangeness and wonder of our brains
by Pria Anand
Explores the storytelling nature of the brain through case studies, personal narrative, and cultural critique, examining how neurological symptoms are shaped, interpreted, and often misunderstood within medicine, revealing overlooked truths about illness, identity, and the porous boundaries between health and suffering
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Shade : the promise of a forgotten natural resource
by Sam Bloch
"Shade examines the key role that shade plays not only in protecting human health and enhancing urban life, but also looks toward the ways that innovative architects, city leaders, and climate entrepreneurs are looking to revive it to protect vulnerable people--and maybe even save the planet. Ambitious and far-reaching, Shade helps us see a crucially important subject in a new light"
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Mary Riley Styles Public Library
120 N. Virginia Ave, Falls Church, Virginia 22046 703-248-5030 (TTY 711) www.mrspl.org
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