Ken MacLeod is one of the brightest and most progressive of Britain’s “Hard SF” stars who navigate exciting new futures to the delight of legions of fans around the world. His works combine cutting-edge scientific speculation, socialist and anarchist themes, and a deeply humanistic vision. Described by fans and adversaries alike as a “techno-utopian socialist,” MacLeod thrusts his characters into uncanny encounters that have included AI singularities, divergent human evolution, and posthuman cyborg-resurrection. In his novella The Human Front, a young Scottish guerrilla fighter is drawn into low-intensity sectarian war in a high-intensity dystopian future, and the arrival of an alien intruder (complete with saucer!) calls for new tactics and strange alliances. Its companion piece, “Other Deviations,” first published in this edition, reveals the complex origins of MacLeod’s alternate history. Plus: “The Future Will Happen Here, Too,” in which a Hebridean writer celebrates the landscapes that shaped his work, measures Scotland’s past against humanity’s future, and peers into the eyes of an eel. And Featuring: our irreverent Outspoken Interview, a candid and often cantankerous conversation that showcases our author’s deep erudition and mordant wit.

There is growing enthusiasm in the scientific community about the prospect of mapping and sequencing the human genome, a monumental project that will have far-reaching consequences for medicine, biology, technology, and other fields. But how will such an effort be organized and funded? How will we develop the new technologies that are needed? What new legal, social, and ethical questions will be raised? Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome is a blueprint for this proposed project. The authors offer a highly readable explanation of the technical aspects of genetic mapping and sequencing, and they recommend specific interim and long-range research goals, organizational strategies, and funding levels. They also outline some of the legal and social questions that might arise and urge their early consideration by policymakers.

Experts estimate that as many as 98,000 people die in any given year from medical errors that occur in hospitals. That's more than die from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDSâ€"three causes that receive far more public attention. Indeed, more people die annually from medication errors than from workplace injuries. Add the financial cost to the human tragedy, and medical error easily rises to the top ranks of urgent, widespread public problems. To Err Is Human breaks the silence that has surrounded medical errors and their consequenceâ€"but not by pointing fingers at caring health care professionals who make honest mistakes. After all, to err is human. Instead, this book sets forth a national agendaâ€"with state and local implicationsâ€"for reducing medical errors and improving patient safety through the design of a safer health system. This volume reveals the often startling statistics of medical error and the disparity between the incidence of error and public perception of it, given many patients' expectations that the medical profession always performs perfectly. A careful examination is made of how the surrounding forces of legislation, regulation, and market activity influence the quality of care provided by health care organizations and then looks at their handling of medical mistakes. Using a detailed case study, the book reviews the current understanding of why these mistakes happen. A key theme is that legitimate liability concerns discourage reporting of errorsâ€"which begs the question, "How can we learn from our mistakes?" Balancing regulatory versus market-based initiatives and public versus private efforts, the Institute of Medicine presents wide-ranging recommendations for improving patient safety, in the areas of leadership, improved data collection and analysis, and development of effective systems at the level of direct patient care. To Err Is Human asserts that the problem is not bad people in health careâ€"it is that good people are working in bad systems that need to be made safer. Comprehensive and straightforward, this book offers a clear prescription for raising the level of patient safety in American health care. It also explains how patients themselves can influence the quality of care that they receive once they check into the hospital. This book will be vitally important to federal, state, and local health policy makers and regulators, health professional licensing officials, hospital administrators, medical educators and students, health caregivers, health journalists, patient advocatesâ€"as well as patients themselves. First in a series of publications from the Quality of Health Care in America, a project initiated by the Institute of Medicine

Heritable human genome editing - making changes to the genetic material of eggs, sperm, or any cells that lead to their development, including the cells of early embryos, and establishing a pregnancy - raises not only scientific and medical considerations but also a host of ethical, moral, and societal issues. Human embryos whose genomes have been edited should not be used to create a pregnancy until it is established that precise genomic changes can be made reliably and without introducing undesired changes - criteria that have not yet been met, says Heritable Human Genome Editing. From an international commission of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.K.'s Royal Society, the report considers potential benefits, harms, and uncertainties associated with genome editing technologies and defines a translational pathway from rigorous preclinical research to initial clinical uses, should a country decide to permit such uses. The report specifies stringent preclinical and clinical requirements for establishing safety and efficacy, and for undertaking long-term monitoring of outcomes. Extensive national and international dialogue is needed before any country decides whether to permit clinical use of this technology, according to the report, which identifies essential elements of national and international scientific governance and oversight.

An original novel based on the bestselling comic book series and tied in to the new Playstation Network original drama series.

"The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them."--Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine" This is perhaps the most important mathematics book of our time. Francis Su shows mathematics is an experience of the mind and, most important, of the heart."--James Tanton, Global Math Project For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity's most beautiful ideas. In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award-winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires--such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love--and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother's, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher's letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can--and must--be open to all.

In Heroes are Human: Lessons in Resilience, Courage and Wisdom from the COVID Front Lines, we read gripping first-hand accounts by those thrust into the depths of the crisis. This book is a must-read for health care workers who have been besieged by the ongoing pandemic, for those who love them, and for any reader wanting to gain a deeper understanding of their immense sacrifices and struggles. Heroes are Human also offers invaluable self-care insights in the face of trauma. The book’s central voice and guide, Bob Delaney, is an internationally respected and experienced figure in the field of post-traumatic stress. His powerful message to front-line caregivers is that they are not alone. Delaney, along with co-author and award-winning journalist Dave Scheiber, published Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob (Sterling Publishing, 978-1-4027-5442-2, Hardcover, 2008; 978-1-4027-6714-2, trade paper, 2009) and Surviving the Shadows: A Journey of Hope into Post-traumatic Stress (Sourcebooks, 978-1-4022-6355-2, 2011). Covert is the true story of Delaney’s undercover life in a landmark 1970s Mafia investigation, dubbed “Project Alpha,” for which he risked his life wearing a wire as a young New Jersey State Trooper, taking on a new identity as a mob associate. He also writes about his overcoming PTSD through the sport of basketball, and career as an elite NBA referee. Surviving the Shadows tells the stories of brave men and women whose lives were plunged into despair by post-traumatic stress but who learned to cope, with Delaney’s help, by sharing their struggles with others who underwent similar trauma. For more than a quarter of a century, Delaney was a fixture as a referee on the hardwood courts of the National Basketball Association (NBA). But what Delaney did—and has done—off the courts defines his true legacy: It is his less visible, life-saving work of the last four decades, helping active members and veterans of the U.S. armed forces, law enforcement, fire fighters, and first responders—the often under-appreciated heroes who put their lives on the line for the rest of us every day—cope with the devastating effects of post-traumatic stress. Delaney comes by his healing wisdom from hard-won experience. He learned about PTSD first-hand, developing the condition after emerging from his grueling and prolonged undercover work. Helping others suffering from the debilitating effects of post-traumatic has been a driving force in his life. Former President Barack Obama and senior-ranking military leaders have honored Delaney for his contributions to PTSD awareness—stemming from his multiple visits with U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. In addition, Delaney was twice awarded the U.S. Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, presented by General Raymond T. Odierno (retired U.S. Army Chief of Staff) and Four-Star General (ret.) Robert W. Cone. In 2020, the NCAA bestowed its highest honor on him: the Theodore Roosevelt Award, previously given four U.S. presidents (Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan). More recently, Delaney has become deeply involved with the prestigious Harvard Global Mental Health initiative, which focuses on traumas and psychological burdens experienced throughout the world.

Rejecting fashionable subjectivist and cultural relativist approaches, this important book argues that human beings have universal and objective needs for health and autonomy and a right to their optimal satisfaction. The authors develop a system of social indicators to show what such optimization would mean in practice and assess the records of a wide range of developed and underdeveloped economies in meeting their citizens' needs.

First published in 2006. The ambitious role cast for scientists in public affairs has been matched by an equal coyness on the part of scientists to play it. Yet in spite of themselves, they have been virtually dragged on to the political stage because of their 'collectivities' - groups formed over the last four centuries often more fugitive than institutional - which have helped modify the human environment, thereby enabling men to emancipate themselves from the tyranny of the present and plan for the future. The byproducts of such plans, from the great botanical gardens to the seed beds of physical scientists like the Ecole Polytechnique, have also incubated further ideas about the relation of science and society that are ecumenical in scope. Indeed the positivist overtones of the Polytechnique herald the transition from platocracy to technocracy, for the technical intelligentsia trained its German, Russian and American counterparts have effected a quasi-religious synthesis of physics and politics. In this 'planning' was the central theme. The social history of such planning (with the concomitant views on the social organisation of science) is the subject of the book Pressurising it is the conviction that " we can identify a particular thing only by pointing to the various things it successively was before it became that particular thing that it will presently cease to be", and the story, which begins four hundred years ago and ends in 1964.

A concise and innovative account of clinical neuroendocrine disorders and the key principles underlying their diagnosis and management.