New Science

Why might some sex education programs result in more teen pregnancies? Why did reading that self-help book make you feel less happy? What's the best way to recover from trauma? Can we actually improve our lives by redirecting our thinking?

Based on her groundbreaking research and large-scale scientific studies, Oettingen introduces a new way to visualize the future, called mental contrasting. It combines focusing on our dreams with visualizing the obstacles that stand in our way. In Rethinking Positive Thinking, Oettingen applies mental contrasting to three key areas of personal change - becoming healthier, nurturing personal and professional relationships, and performing better at work.

"There is the mammal way and there is the bird way." But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviors they have, for years, dismissed as anomalies or mysteries - what they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, survive. They are also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, abilities we once considered uniquely our own.

Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home—until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.

When murder and sabotage imperil the time-sensitive and top-secret mission of a team of civilian scientists, Starfleet deploys Captain Christopher Pike and the Enterprise crew to Kathara Station, a classified research facility located above the accretion disk of a black hole. Lieutenant Commander Una Chin-Riley soon discovers the station’s director, Valkeya, is hiding secrets—but so is Captain Pike, who many years earlier visited this same black hole on a mission that went tragically wrong, and whose consequences have haunted him ever since.

There’s the new treecat adoptee who needs to be kept from becoming a risk to the carefully guarded secret of just how smart the arboreal inhabitants of Sphinx really are. There’s the overeager journalist whose campaign to protect the treecats from exploitation as the newest, coolest pet on any planet could threaten the very creatures he seeks to defend. And there’s the mysterious rash of weird accidents that are plaguing Sphinx’s younger inhabitants—including some of those nearest and dearest to Stephanie.

Jon Birger offers women bold new strategies for finding the one. Backed by research showing that women can win at romance by making the first move with the men of their choice, Birger explains why: It's better to choose than to be chosen; the "play hard to get" method is not only outdated but grounded in bad science; the first move does not have to be a big move; it's time to log off of dating apps and date men you actually know; the workplace can be a terrific place to meet a long-term romantic partner...and more.

Yale psychologist Paul Bloom presents a striking new vision of the pleasures of everyday life. The thought of sex with a virgin is intensely arousing for many men. The average American spends over four hours a day watching television. Abstract art can sell for millions of dollars. Young children enjoy playing with imaginary friends and can be comforted by security blankets. People slow their cars to look at gory accidents, and go to movies that make them cry.

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi traces the fascinating history of connected systems. Understanding the structure and behavior of networks will forever alter our world, allowing us to design the "perfect" business or stop a disease outbreak before it goes global.

The Secret Body is a gripping drama of discovery and a landmark account of the dawning revolution in human health that reveals a hitherto invisible universe within each of us.

How are chefs and companies planning to transform our dining experiences, and what can we learn from their cutting-edge insights to make memorable meals at home? These are just some of the ingredients of Gastrophysics, in which pioneering Oxford professor Charles Spence shows how our senses link up in the most extraordinary ways and reveals the importance of all the off-the-plate elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the placing on the plate, the background music and much more.

The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.

The essays in this collection came about during the unhurried months when one who had traveled incessantly was obliged to stay still, even as events flared on all sides in a world that never stops moving. Wade Davis brings his unique cultural perspective to such varied topics as the demonization of coca, the sacred plant of the Inca; the Great War and the birth of modernity; the British conquest of Everest; the endless conflict in the Middle East; reaching beyond climate fear and trepidation; on the meaning of the sacred.

For all of neuroscience's advances, we've made little progress on its biggest question: How do simple cells in the brain create intelligence? Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses map-like structures to build a model of the world - not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know. This discovery allows Hawkins to answer important questions about how we perceive the world, why we have a sense of self, and the origin of high-level thought.

First published in 1979, Joan Didion's The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermaths of the 1960s. Examining key events, figures, and trends of the era—including Charles Manson, the Black Panthers, and the shopping mall—through the lens of her own spiritual confusion, Joan Didion helped to define mass culture as we now understand it. Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central text of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.

In this accessible, up-to-date, and authoritative examination of the world’s most radical technology, neuroscientist and AI researcher Christopher Summerfield explores what it really takes to build a brain from scratch. We have entered a world in which disarmingly human-like chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Bard, appear to be able to talk and reason like us—and are beginning to transform everything we do. But can AI ‘think’, 'know' and ‘understand’? What are its values? Whose biases is it perpetuating? Can it lie and if so, could we tell? Does their arrival threaten our very existence?

Dr. Rand McClain takes a fresh approach to genetics, natural aging, and proactive medical treatments. He is the founder and head of the Regenerative and Sports Medicine Clinic, a leading practitioner of alternative and cutting-edge treatments. In Cheating Death, he shares the best drugs and supplements, treatment methods, and devices-approaches that are backed by extensive research as well as McClain's own work with his patients. McClain shows how you can get access to these therapies and jumpstart your body's regenerative processes.

How do some people avoid the slowing down, deteriorating, and weakening that plagues many of their peers decades earlier? Are they just lucky? Or do they know something the rest of us don’t? Is it possible to grow older without getting sicker? What if you could look and feel 50 through your 80s and 90s? Founder of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and one of the leading pioneers of longevity research, Dr. Nir Barzilai’s life’s work is tackling the challenges of aging to delay and prevent the onset of all age-related diseases.

Their new allies and neighbors, the Jema, are free for the first time in a thousand years, and they want payback. The Jema are going to take the fight to the Kaerin on Chandra, with or without the help of Eden. Meanwhile on Earth, the dumpster fire continues to burn as Sir Geoff and Task Force Chrome are being hunted by the ISS and the military. The fight for freedom rages across three worlds, and the one group that is capable of travelling between them is out gunned and outmanned.

Society has never been more egalitarian—in theory. Prejudice is taboo, and diversity is strongly valued. At the same time, social and economic inequality have exploded. In We Have Never Been Woke, Musa al-Gharbi argues that these trends are closely related, each tied to the rise of a new elite—the symbolic capitalists.