What We Are Reading Today: Linchpins by Seth Godin

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Updated 02 February 2021
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What We Are Reading Today: Linchpins by Seth Godin

In bestsellers such as Purple Cow and Tribes, Seth Godin taught readers how to make remarkable products and spread powerful ideas. But Linchpins is about you — your choices, your future, and your potential to make a huge difference in whatever field you choose.

There used to be two teams in every workplace: Management and labor. Now there’s a third team: The linchpins. These people figure out what to do when there’s no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.

Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. They may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.

As Godin writes, “Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.”


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Experiments of the Mind’

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Updated 05 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Experiments of the Mind’

Author: EMILY MARTIN

Experimental cognitive psychology research is a hidden force in our online lives. We engage with it, often unknowingly, whenever we download a health app, complete a Facebook quiz, or rate our latest purchase.

How did experimental psychology come to play an outsized role in these developments? “Experiments of the Mind” considers this question through a look at cognitive psychology laboratories. Emily Martin traces how psychological research methods evolved, escaped the boundaries of the discipline, and infiltrated social media and our digital universe.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Quantitative Biosciences Companion in Python’

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Updated 04 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Quantitative Biosciences Companion in Python’

Authors: JOSHUA S. WEITZ, NOLAN ENGLISH, ALEXANDER LEE, AND ALI ZAMANI

This lab guide accompanies the textbook “Quantitative Biosciences,” providing students with the skills they need to translate biological principles and mathematical concepts into computational models of living systems.

This hands-on guide uses a case study approach organized around central questions in the life sciences, introducing landmark advances in the field while teaching students—whether from the life sciences, physics, computational sciences, engineering, or mathematics—how to reason quantitatively in the face of uncertainty.

 


What We Are Reading Today: Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe

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Updated 03 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe

  • The story of how evidence for the so-called “Lambda-Cold Dark Matter” model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton

Authors: Jeramiah P. Ostriker and Simmon Mitton

Heart of Darkness describes the incredible saga of humankind’s quest to unravel the deepest secrets of the universe. Over the past 40 years, scientists have learned that two little-understood components—dark matter and dark energy—comprise most of the known cosmos, explain the growth of all cosmic structure, and hold the key to the universe’s fate.

The story of how evidence for the so-called “Lambda-Cold Dark Matter” model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton.

From humankind’s early attempts to comprehend Earth’s place in the solar system, to astronomers’ exploration of the Milky Way galaxy and the realm of the nebulae beyond, to the detection of the primordial fluctuations of energy from which all subsequent structure developed, this book explains the physics and the history of how the current model of our universe arose and has passed every test hurled at it by the skeptics.

This monumental puzzle is far from complete, however, as scientists confront the mysteries of the ultimate causes of cosmic structure formation and the real nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘A Natural History of Shells’ by Geerat Vermeij

Updated 03 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘A Natural History of Shells’ by Geerat Vermeij

Geerat Vermeij wrote this “celebration of shells” to share his enthusiasm for these supremely elegant creations and what they can teach us about nature.

Most popular books on shells emphasize the identification of species, but Vermeij uses shells as a way to explore major ideas in biology.

How are shells built? How do they work? And how did they evolve?

With lucidity and charm, the MacArthur-winning evolutionary biologist reveals how shells give us insights into the lives of animals today and in the distant geological past.


What We Are Reading Today: The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs 

Updated 02 May 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs 

Author: Gregory S. Paul

The bestselling “Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs” remains the must-have book for anyone who loves dinosaurs, from amateur enthusiasts to professional paleontologists. Now extensively revised and expanded, this dazzlingly illustrated large-format edition features nearly 100 new dinosaur species and hundreds of new and updated illustrations, bringing readers up to the minute on the latest discoveries and research that are radically transforming what we know about dinosaurs and their world.