Near-death experiences offer a glimpse not only into the nature of death but also into the meaning of life. They are not only useful tools to aid in the human quest to understand death but are also deeply meaningful, transformative experiences for the people who have them. In a unique contribution to the growing and popular literature on the subject, philosophers John Martin Fischer and Benj…
In March of 2012, The Linux Foundation released a report entitled, ‘Linux Kernel Development: How Fast it is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It’. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system that facilitates communication between computer hardware and soft-ware, and the Linux kernel development project is conside…
People with Down syndrome possess a culture. They are producers of culture. And in the 21st century, this culture is increasingly visible as a global phenomenon. Down Syndrome Culture examines Down syndrome alongside its social, cultural, and artistic representation. Author Benjamin Fraser draws upon neomaterialist and posthumanist approaches to disability as well as the work of disability theo…
It was a cold winter evening in 2010, and I had just arrived in Paris for a short research trip. The tiny hotel where I would be staying was on the fifth floor of the ophthalmological wing of the hôtel-Dieu (or hospital) just across from the cathedral of Notre Dame. 1 Given the subject of the book I was in France to research, it seemed appropri-ate that I should s…
Augmented reality can be understood as an integration of the virtual into the real or augmentation thereof. This places augmented reality on the ‘reality’ side of the mixed reality continuum,1 meaning that virtual elements usually exist as foreign bodies in a real space. While there are many possible applications for augmented reality, its potential for a…
“Precarity is everywhere today”, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu announced in a lecture in 1997 (qtd. in Springveld 26). “[P] recarity is not a passing or episodic condition, but a new form of regulation that distinguishes this historical time”, American philosopher Judith Butler writes in her foreword to German political theorist Isabell Lorey’s study State of Insecurity: Governme…
Do you love quantum physics, cosmology, and the humor behind the popular television show The Big Bang Theory? Have you been on the lookout for a fun, non-technical explanation of the science behind things like time travel, wormholes, antimatter, and dark energy? You’ll find all of that, and more, inside this fact-filled, cartoon-packed book. In Quirky Quarks: A Cartoon Guide to the Fa…
“There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it” (Shapin 1996, 1). So began Stephen Shapin’s The Scientific Revolution, a work, con-cise and smart, that embodied an approach to the history of science termed “the social construction of science.” Shapin argued that if we are going to talk about a “scientific revolution,” then we need to see it not …
The Bronze Age in Greece began around 3100 B.C. with the first bronze work-ing for the manufacture of tools and weapons (see map 1). Already in the Neo-lithic, there had been limited use of copper, the essential ingredient of bronze, while stone tools were still essential for some purposes in the Bronze Age. Copper typically was alloyed with tin to produce bronze, but…
In classical mythology, Atlas carries the weight of the world and the star-studded sky on his shoulders. Much like his brother Prometheus, Atlas, a Titan, is punished by the victorious Olym-pian gods, led by Zeus, for siding with Kronos and the humans created by the Titans in the war against them. Prometheus is also notorious for having given humanity fire. Consequently, he…