Neural network research builds on the fiction that neurons are simple linear threshold units, completely neglecting the highly dynamic and complex nature of synapses, dendrites and voltage-dependent ionic currents.

Why, as we grow older, does time seem to condense, speed up and elude us, while in old age, significant events from our distant past can seem as vivid and real as what happened yesterday?

Applying a unique blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility, and keen observation, internationally acclaimed author Douwe Draaisma tackles such extraordinary phenomena as deja-vu, near-death experiences, the memory feats of idiot savants, and the effects of extreme trauma on memory recall.

A captivating excursion through the mathematical approaches to the notions of infinity and the implications of that mathematics for the vexing questions on the mind, existence, and consciousness.

The sources of moral behavior can be traced scientifically to humanity's evolutionary origins.

Human morality evolved as first an individual and then a species-wide mechanism for survival. As society evolved, humans needed rules governing behavior -- e.g., altruism, sympathy, reciprocity and community concern -- in order to ensure survival.

For much of the twentieth century scientists sought to explain objects and processes by reducing them to their component parts.

Over the past forty years, there has been a marked turn toward explaining phenomena by building them up rather than breaking them down.

This is the first book of its kind in many years, and describes the state of the art of PET and SPECT. The book covers every major facet of PET and SPECT technology, including its historical origins in early nuclear science, an introduction to its clinical applications, and in-depth coverage of the hardware components, imaging systems, physics, mathematics, and advanced image processing involved in PET and SPECT imaging.

A provocative look at the theological implications of artificial intelligence -- and the controversial questions raised by robotics about our very definition of humanity.

Renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views.

Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on earth. As our pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the 'rendezvous points' where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the very first primordial organism.

Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more.

In "What Is Thought?" Eric Baum proposes a computational explanation of thought.

Baum argues that the complexity of mind is the outcome of evolution, which has built thought processes that act unlike the standard algorithms of computer science and that to understand the mind we need to understand these thought processes and the evolutionary process that produced them in computational terms.

Baum proposes that underlying mind is a complex but compact program that corresponds to the underlying structure of the world. He argues further that the mind is essentially programmed by DNA.

A scientist shortage? Again? The gloomy warnings are back.

A crisis is in the making, says a report.

Overall, a grim picture -- of questionable validity.