Moiya McTier assumes the role of cosmic interpreter to let our galaxy tell her own story. The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy English takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to his subject matter, resulting in wildly compelling stories, such as how Buckfast, a tonic wine created by monks to treat colds and influenza, became the “U.K.'s version of Four Loko.” It is every bit as entertaining as it is educational. With immense wit and charm, author Camper English traces millennia to explore how civilizations used fermented and distilled beverages to do everything from hydrating the workforce to fending off the Black Death. Your favorite cocktail may very well have its roots in medicine of generations past. Dana Dunhamĭoctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails This and her other portals to shared experience-the omnipresent television, a new drug that transfers memories-dissolve the barriers of being into a dizzying alchemy of past and present, love and truth, death and memory. Its protagonist, grieving the recent death of her mother, throws herself into translating a little-known Tamil manuscript about 17 medical students who strove to achieve radical compassion during the Sri Lankan Civil War (dating to 1983–2009). Set in a future of eye scans, carbon credits and advanced AI, Akil Kumarasamy's new novel nonetheless feels surprisingly like home-even as it tests the boundaries of self and story. Kelley is Harold Weintraub Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. The book is a snappy read but lingers: it left me wondering why we don't respect signals of intelligence from other species-and more deeply consider how our own intelligence works against us. From here he compares our species with others in terms of “death wisdom” and mortality and later considers the happiness of bees, as well as what it means to foresee the future. Although there is certainly evidence of deception throughout the animal kingdom, our species has the supposedly superlative abilities of language and “theory of mind.” But do they serve us well? Are we better off? Gregg dives into a fascinating discussion of the downsides, running from Jane Austen (“we have daily proof”) to the modern onslaught of disinformation. Gregg argues that the key feature of lying is intention. Let's take lying: an overdeveloped human trait that is often employed for advantage. Curiously, we don't do very well with this search on our own planet. We often look outward for extraterrestrial signs of intelligence by seeking messages or signals that come from faraway planets. Humans basically “know it when we see it” and regard intelligence as a positive trait. Gregg cheekily points out that even the scientists (who are generally considered smart humans) who devote their careers to creating artificial intelligence can't agree on what intelligence is. But how do we know if other animals are actually happier? The premise here is that being unhappy is the price our species pays for intelligence.
Nietzsche was both an intellectual genius and a mental wreck-the latter overcoming the former when, so the story goes, he witnessed a horse being whipped in Turin, Italy, and subsequently suffered a psychotic break. Nietzsche's conundrum, as Gregg sees it, is that he both envied cows and pitied them for the same reason: cows do not have an awareness that they will die. Gregg, an expert on animal cognition, explores what human foibles reveal about animal intelligence by invoking philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.” Would we, as a species, be better off if we were more like other animals? I suspected I'd enjoy reading Justin Gregg's tour of this question when he opened with a quote from Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett, a book in one of my favorite science-fiction series: “Mere animals couldn't possibly manage to act like this. If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals about Human Stupidity
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