Helen Plum Library

The gripping story of the most important overlooked commodity in the world -- sand -- and the crucial role it plays in our lives. After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other -- even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. From Egypt's pyramids to the Hubble telescope, from the world's tallest skyscraper to the sidewalk below...

A desperate Kremlin takes advantage of a military crisis in Asia to simultaneously strike into Western Europe and invade east Africa in a bid to occupy three Rare Earth mineral mines that will give Russia unprecedented control for generations over the world's hi-tech sector. Pitted against the Russians are a Marine lieutenant colonel pulled out of a cushy job at the Pentagon and thrown into the fray in Africa, a French Special Forces captain and his...

"Human life has been repeatedly transformed by certain key technologies, each of which has triggered a profound metamorphosis. The fabrication of weapons, the mastery of fire, and the technologies of clothing and shelter transformed the human body, enabling us to walk upright, shed our body hair, and migrate out of tropical Africa into temperate climates. Symbolic communication changed human evolution from a slow biological process into a fast cultural...

"An impassioned exploration of the ways in which social media has manipulated us all. Facebook didn't mean to facilitate a genocide. Twitter didn't want to be used to harass women. YouTube never planned to radicalise young men. But with billions of users, these platforms need only tweak their algorithms to generate more 'engagement'. In so doing, they bring unrest to previously settled communities and erode our relationships. Social warming has happened...

Friedman discusses how the key to understanding the 21st century is understanding that the planet's three largest forces -- Moore's law (technology), the market (globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loos) -- are accelerating all at once. And these accelerations are transforming the five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community. Friedman posits that we should purposely "be late" -- we should...

An eminent political thinker uses our history with states and corporations--"artificial agents" to which we have granted immense power--to predict how AI will remake society. Countless books, news reports, and opinion pieces have announced the impending arrival of artificial intelligence, with most claiming that it will upend our world, revolutionizing not just work but society overall. Yet according to political philosopher and historian David Runciman,...

"How technological advances have shaped human relationships and work patterns over time"--

The director of MIT's Media Lab and a contributor to "Wired" present a set of working principles for adapting and thriving in the face of the twenty-first century's rapidly changing and unpredictable digital environments The world is more complex and volatile today than at any other time in our history. The tools of our modern existence are getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, just as billions of strangers around the world...

Neo and the rebel leaders estimate that they have 72 hours until Zion falls under siege to the Machine Army. Not much time separates the last human enclave on Earth from the 250,000 Sentinels programmed to destroy humankind. But the citizens of Zion, emboldened by Morpheus' conviction that the One will fulfill the Oracles Prophecy and end the war with the Machines. This rests all manner of hope and expectation on Neo, who finds himself stalled by...