Future Science

Essays from the cutting edge

Edited by Max Brockman

Features essays from nineteen young scientists from a variety of fields, writing about what they are working on and what excites them most
Captures some of the exciting work looking at some of the most interesting scientific problems today
Covers a variety of issues from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology to plant populations and the new age of oceanography
Has strong support from scientists such as Steve Pinker and Brian Eno

Future Science

Essays from the cutting edge

Edited by Max Brockman

Description

The next wave of science writing is here. Editor Max Brockman has talent-spotted 19 young scientists, working on leading-edge research across a wide range of fields. Nearly half of them are women, and all of them are great communicators: their passion and excitement makes this collection a wonderfully invigorating read.

We hear from an astrobiologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena about the possibilities for life elsewhere in the solar system (and the universe); from the director of Yale's Comparative Cognition Laboratory about why we keep making the same mistakes; from a Cambridge lab about DNA synthesis; from the Tanzanian savannah about what lies behind attractiveness; we hear about how to breed plants to withstand disease, about ways to extract significance from the Interne's enormous datasets, about oceanography, neuroscience, microbiology, and evolutionary psychology.

Future Science

Essays from the cutting edge

Edited by Max Brockman

Preface, Max Brockman
1:On the Coming Age of Ocean Exploration, Kevin P. Hand
2:Children's Helping Hands, Felix Warneken
3:Molecular Cut and Paste, William McEwan
4:Next Step: Infinity, Anthony Aguirre
5:Nurture, Nature, and the Stress That is Life, Daniela Kaufer and Darlene Francis
6:What Can Huge Data Sets Teach Us About Society and Ourselves?, Jon Kleinberg
7:On the Universality of Attractiveness, Coren Apicella
8:To Err is Primate, Laurie R. Santos
9:Our Brains Know Why We Do What We Do, Samuel M. McClure
10:Is Shame Necessary?, Jennifer Jacquet
11:Plant Immunity in a Changing World, Kirsten Bomblies
12:The Emergence of Human Audiovisual Communication, Asif A. Ghazanfar
13:Why Rejection Hurts, Naomi I. Eisenberger
14:Finding the Mind in the Body, Joshua Knobe
15:Should the Law Depend on Luck?, Fiery Cushman
16:How We Read People's Moral Minds, Liane Young
17:How Odd I Am!, Daniel Haun
18:Where Does Human Diversity Come From?, Joan Y. Chiao
Acknowledgements

Future Science

Essays from the cutting edge

Edited by Max Brockman

Author Information

Edited by Max Brockman, Vice President of Brockman, Inc Literary Agency

Max Brockman is the vice president of Brockman, Inc. a literary agency, and the editor of What's Next? Dispatches on the Future of Science. He also works with the Edge Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization that publishes the Edge newsletter (www.edge.com). He lives in New York City.

Contributors:

ANTHONY AGUIRRE, Associate Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz
COREN APICELLA, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Health Care Policy
KIRSTEN BOMBLIES, Molecular Biologist and Assistant Professor in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard University
JOAN Y. CHIAO, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at Northwestern University
FIERY CUSHMAN, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University
NAOMI I. EISENBERGER, Assistant Professor in UCLA's Social Psychology program, director of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, and Co-Director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory
DARLENE FRANCIS, Assistant Professor in UC Berkeley's School of Public Health
ASIF A. GHAZANFAR, Associate Professor in Princeton University's Neuroscience Institute and its Department of Psychology
KEVIN P. HAND, Planetary Scientist and Astrobiologist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
DANIEL HAUN, Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Portsmouth
JENNIFER JACQUET, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia
DANIELA KAUFER, Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley
JON KLEINBERG, Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University
JOSHUA KNOBE, Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Program in Cognitive Science at Yale University
SAMUEL M. McCLURE, Assistant Professor in Stanford University's Psychology Faculty
WILLIAM MCEWAN, Postdoctoral researcher at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
LAURIE R. SANTOS, Associate Professor of Psychology at Yale University and Director its Comparative Cognition Laboratory
FELIX WARNEKEN, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
LIANE YOUNG, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston College