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Futuristic inventions and emerging technologies that will change the world !

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Futuristic inventions and emerging technologies that will change the world !

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Our robot butlers have been a collective dream for nearly the past century. Years before any actual valid science in the realm of robotics or machine learning even existed, the cartoonish and fictionalized representation of the robot butler was stained into cultural memory. Whether it was the carto...

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Tilly Lockey, a girl with a bionic hand !

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Tilly Lockey, a girl with a bionic hand !

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◊ As a baby, Tilly contracted a deadly form of meningitis called meningococcal septicaemia, and had to undergo an operation to have both her hands amputated. Tilly is now fifteen, and is the proud owner of two super stylish Hero Arms. Tilly recently received a pair of Alita: Battle Angel bionic arms from director James Cameron.

◊ Bionic arms such as the Hero Arm are worn by people with upper limb differences. A bionic arm works by picking up signals from a user's muscles. ... To close the Hero Arm's hand, and perform the selected grip, imagine flexing the wrist inwards while pulling the fingers into the heel of the hand.

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A journal that elicits about science technology and the Western Miracle. Here an extract !

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A journal that elicits about science technology and the Western Miracle. Here an extract !

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Scientific American is the authority on science and technology for a general audience, with coverage that explains how research changes our understanding of the world and shapes our lives. First published in 1845, Scientific American is the longest continuously published magazine in the US. The magazine has published articles by more than 150 Nobel Prize-winning scientists and built a loyal following of influential and forward thinking readers. The archives of Scientific American include articles penned by Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Jonas Salk, Marie Curie, Stephen Hawking, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Stephen Jay Gould, Bill Gates, and more.

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Leader in innovation, research & development.

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Leader in innovation, research & development.

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Hello ! Welcome to my Padlet.

◊ First of all, in this Padlet I'm talking about scientific innovations depending on the country in which it was created.

◊ You can click on the pink dot to see the scientific innovations. There is also some pink dot in the Ocean, it means that its just a random doc. that elicits of many things so there's not a particular country.

◊ In the Antarctic, you will be able to see some cartoons about scientific innovations ! (blue dots)

◊ You will find my quiz in the north of Greenland ! Then you will find the answers in the south of Greenland. (Green dots)

◊ In Alaska there is my bibliography. (Red dot)

Have a good reading :)
- Mahé Luxe 1er 08

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Why do experts think that science, tech and innovation can help beyond the pandemic ?

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Why do experts think that science, tech and innovation can help beyond the pandemic ?

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International cooperation on the science, technology and innovation frontiers can fast-track sustainable development progress after the COVID-19 crisis, experts say.

The coronavirus pandemic has compelled leaders, policymakers and everyday people to think carefully about what makes healthy and resilient communities.

At the same time, it has prompted a rethink of how to address other pre-pandemic catastrophes, such as climate change, food insecurity and social inequality.

To address these challenges, the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) will examine how to make science and technology work for all, at its inter-sessional panel for 2020-2021, slated for 18 to 22 January.

During the event, experts will examine two key issues. The first focuses on health and how science, technology and innovation can be used to close the gap on SDG3 for health and wellbeing. The second explores the prospects of blockchain for sustainable development.

International collaboration

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, scientists in many countries have largely collaborated under the principle of 'open science' - where knowledge, methods, data and evidence are made freely available and accessible to everyone.

Collaborative arrangements of open science, especially the mapping of the virus's genome, helped in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines being administered in various countries.

"In the same way that the development of the vaccines greatly benefited from scientists collaborating in unity for a common cause, governments must also unite in solidarity to ensure that everyone, especially the poorest, gain access to the vaccines," said Shamika N. Sirimanne, UNCTAD's director of technology and logistics.

Ms. Sirimanne, who also heads the CSTD secretariat, said international collaboration in scientific research can play a critical role in improving health, equity and sustainable development.

She said the need for countries to come together and share their experiences and lessons learned is no less critical in dealing with emerging issues in the digital age.

"Just as the pandemic sees no borders, digital technologies also transcend national jurisdictions," she added, emphasizing the importance of the CSTD sessions in helping share lessons in scientific approaches and policy thinking.

The UN and the international community have an important role in shaping global norms and frameworks on frontier technologies.

"It's important for the international community to better understand the risk-reward tradeoffs," Ms. Sirimanne said, whether this is for the implementation of blockchain technology in consumer services, or using artificial intelligence, gene editing, and other new and emerging innovations in healthcare.

Avoiding unintended consequences

Digital technologies in health can generate several unplanned risks, with implications for the resilience of social, cultural and political institutions.

These need to be tempered and controlled for as far as possible, according to experts.

For example, "infodemics", the overabundance of inaccurate health information online, can make it difficult to access trustworthy and reliable guidance on the COVID-19 pandemic.

An area where there is increasing risk is in digital technologies such as blockchain. A widely known application of blockchain technology is cryptocurrency - Bitcoin being the most prominent.

The value of Bitcoin reached an all-time high, by topping the $40,000 mark, during the first week of 2021, only to plummet by more than 20% the following week.

While cryptocurrency has remarkable potential to ensure financial inclusion for marginalized people, there is a growing need to prevent systemic risk from speculative activities that create asset bubbles.

For example, if investors accumulate debt to purchase large sums of cryptocurrency using fiat money (i.e. the US dollar or euro), and there is a devaluation in the exchange rate - as is currently evident - this could lead to payment defaults in the respective fiat currency, potentially leading to personal financial ruin.

"Yet the absence of an international effort for regulating blockchain in financial markets is a serious concern, given the transnational nature of both global finance and digital technologies," Ms. Sirimanne said. "We need to leverage benefits, but guard against negative impacts."

The CSTD offers member States a platform to explore ways of strengthening the science-policy interface at the national and global levels and better coordinate STI-focused international cooperation in the spirit of multilateralism.

The CSTD inter-sessional panel will also review progress made in the implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) at the regional and international levels.

These deliberations by experts will then be taken up at the ministerial level during the annual session of the CSTD, scheduled for 17 to 21 May 2021.

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How science, tech and innovation can help beyond the pandemic

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The coronavirus pandemic has compelled leaders, policymakers and everyday people to think carefully about what makes healthy and resilient communities. At the same time, it has prompted a rethink of how to address other pre-pandemic catastrophes, such as climate change, food insecurity and social inequality.

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Black Mirror famously deconstructs the infatuation with technology with the negative effects it can have on the future. In fact, the entire series is about the fall of humanity and morality at the hands of some form of technological advancement.

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◊ Launched in 2009, bitcoin is the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

◊ Bitcoin is created, distributed, traded, and stored with the use of a decentralized ledger system, known as a blockchain.

◊ Bitcoin's history as a store of value has been turbulent; the cryptocurrency skyrocketed up to roughly $20,000 per coin in 2017, but less than years later, it was trading for less than half of that. Nowadays bitcoin equal around 37 000€.

◊ People can send Bitcoins (or part of one) to your digital wallet, and you can send Bitcoins to other people.

◊ Every single transaction is recorded in a public list called the blockchain.

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1- (B)
2- (B)
3- (A)
4- (B)
5- (A)

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The quiz is going to talk about futuristic car, that I presented in Germany !

1- What's the brand of the car I put in this Padlet ?
A- Tesla / B- Mercedes-Benz

2- From which film the car was inspired ?
A- Alita / B- Avatar

3- Can the battery of this car be composted.
A- YES / B- NO

4- What type of material the floor car is made out of ?
A- Steel / B- Wood

5-  Can each wheel be driven separately ?
A- YES / B- NO

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This Mercedes Benz concept car was inspired by the 2009 blockbuster film Avatar. The car is packed with super-futuristic features.

In fact, the battery in this car can even be composted. The seats of the Vision Avtr are made of wood, while the floor of the vehicle is made of hand-harvested Indonesian timber. Even more impressive, each wheel can be driven separately, and the front and rear axles can be driven either simultaneously or in opposite direction, meaning that the vision AVTR can be driven sideways by approximately 30 degrees.

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During Brazil’s 2014 World Cup, a paraplegic in a robotic suit performed the “symbolic kick-off” to inaugurate the games. Behind this grand presentation was a group of scientists led by Brazilian Miguel Nicolelis.

Alongside Nicolelis is a team of 150 scientists still working to create and perfect a suit to assist people with motor disabilities. This exoskeleton converts electric signals from the brain into movements performed by the suit. To achieve this, electrodes are placed on a large area of the brain to capture neural signals.

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World Cup 2014 exoskeleton: mind-control robotic suit to help paralyzed walk again

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It may be old, and do not look like futuristics innovations, but for the past it was amazing !

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5 Inventions You Didn't Know Came From Australia !

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5 Inventions You Didn't Know Came From Australia !

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Google Maps, and the Other Inventions You Didn't Know Came from Australia

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Google Maps and a number of other popular inventions originated in the land Down Under.

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USA :
California : Youtube (Innovative Techs)
California : Youtube (
20th Century Studios)
New-York : Youtube (Innovative Techs)
Saint-Louis : bbc.co.uk
Washington : jstor.org
Florida : openbionics.com

South America :
Brazil : Youtube (TomoNews US)
Brazil : contxto.com

Europe :
Germany : Youtube ( Mercedes-Benz)
Germany : deutschland.de
UK : Netflix

Africa :
Kenya : Youtube (Innovative Techs)

Asia :
Russia : kaspersky.com
Perm : Nature.com
China : Lovemoney.com
China : Iberchina.com
South Korea : theblancesmb.com
Taiwan : theblancesmb.com

Oceania :
Australia : usnews.com

In the ocean :
Atlantic Ocean : Youtube (Screen Rant)
Indian Ocean : unctad.org
Pacific Ocean (south) : share.america.gov
Pacific Ocean (north) : big think.com
Antarctic Ocean : americanscientist.org

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In Alita: Battle Angel, it’s 2563. The movie is an epic adventure of hope and empowerment. When Alita awakens with no memory of who she is in a future world she does not recognize, she is taken in by Ido, a compassionate doctor. Alita is a young woman with an extraordinary past. Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious history. But she finally discover that she has unique fighting abilities that those in power will stop at nothing to control.

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Alita: Battle Angel | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

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10 'Weird' Cartoon Inventions We Wish Were Real !

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10 'Weird' Cartoon Inventions We Wish Were Real !

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10 Weird Cartoon Inventions We Wish Were Real

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Europe and the United States have traditionally led in scientific development, but China in particular has emerged as a new science and technology powerhouse.

A key indicator of the rise of China in science and technology is its spending on research and development. Chinese research and development investment has grown remarkably, with the rate of growth greatly exceeding those of the United States and the European Union. China is now the second-largest performer of research and development, on a country basis, and accounts for 20 percent of total world research and development. (Figure 1).

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China ranked second for innovation in science and technology, falling short of first place to the US.

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Scientific and technological breakthroughs that will blow your mind !
Here you will be able to see that China host amazing innovations, there are often the first one to create new things.

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The tech and inventions that show why China is the best in the world

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A beacon of eye-opening innovation, China is rapidly overtaking the US to become the global leader in everything from artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to green energy. We put the spotlight on 30 recent advances that reveal why the planet's most populous country is fast-developing the edge.

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We all know about Dolly the sheep, the first successful mammalian clone. But did you know there's a South Korean company that will clone your beloved dog? It's true. For a hefty fee (around $100,000 to be exact), a company called Sooam Biotech will supply you with an exact genetic replica of your beloved pooch—treats, training, and TLC not included.

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One of the coolest sci-fi technologies in the film "Minority Report" were the air-touch screens, liberating computing from the desk and even the hand-held device. Thanks to the Taiwanese company Industrial Technology Research Institute, the possibility of computing with an air-touch screen is becoming closer than ever.

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◊ From (1:42) to (2:42)

The internet feels spread all around the world, but it's not: nearly half the world's population lacks access to basic connectivity. Loon is working to bridge this divide by pioneering high-altitude communications technology that makes it possible to connect more people, places and things worldwide.

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8 INVENTIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL CHANGE OUR WORLD

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Rutgers University - Newark Campus, University Avenue, Newark, New Jersey, États-Unis

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◊ From (3:42) to (4:46)

Biomedical engineers from Rutgers University in New Jersey have developed a bio-ink for 3D printing that enables the construction of scaffolds to support growing human tissues. Significantly, the stiffness of the scaffolds can be controlled depending on the mixture of ink used, enabling applications for different types of tissues for repair or replacement.

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8 INVENTIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL CHANGE OUR WORLD

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◊ From (2:42) to (3:42)

One day, delivery drones will be as commonplace and accessible as mailing a letter or catching a bus, and Volansi technology will play a pivotal part in the transport revolution.

For now, drone delivery services help people get foods where and when they need them, whatever the terrain or existing infrastructure.

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8 INVENTIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL CHANGE OUR WORLD

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Inventions you never guessed were from Russia !

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Inventions you never guessed were from Russia !

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What do you think when you hear the word 'Russia'? Vodka? Dolls? Grizzly bears? All of the above? You'd be right. But did you know that it also gave the world some of our greatest innovations to date? Here are some technologies you may not have known originated from the Russian state.

From electric trains to TV, electricity in the home and more, innovations throughout history have come to define us and how we live and work. So who do we have to thank for that? Well, lots of people, really. Including Russia. But apart from Kaspersky's award-winning cybersecurity solutions, what other innovations has this nation given the world?

Electric railway - 1881

Russian visionary Fyodor Pirotsky was obsessed with transmitting electricity over long distances. He developed a two-rail design (what we would call a 'railway' in today's world), in which one rail was a direct conductor of electricity, and the other a reverse conductor. But it wasn't until 1881 that his design started making headway; the world's first electric tram, made of a two-decker horse tramway, went into service in Saint Petersburg, Russia, carrying 40 people. The result? A safe way of transporting people and cargo over long distances, without relying on coal. It was this sort of bulletproof innovation that led to Berlin, Germany, adopting the technology later that year, followed by Brighton in the UK. Cue the industrial revolution.

Periodic table of the elements - 1896

During the 19 th century, some chemists started to notice that some of Earth's elements had similar properties. But their attempts at articulating their thoughts were futile. That was until Russian Dimitri Mendeleev made an altogether normal train trip in 1896. As a chemist, he'd been studying elements for a while and had created cards for each of them showing their properties.

One of Mendeleev's favorite pastimes during his rail journeys was playing solitaire or patience. In a stroke of genius, or boredom, he assembled his cards of the elements as he would a game of solitaire. There you have it: elements connected to each other in vertical and horizontal lines based on similar properties. Or the periodic table, to you and me.

Linear Homeoscope - 1817

The linear homeoscope may not mean anything to most people today, but back in the early 19 th century, it was a godsend. Inspired by the statistics department of the Police Ministry in Saint Petersburg, Semyon Korsakov wanted to enhance natural intelligence, a similar mission to Google or modern AI programs. His journey began: by constructing the linear homeoscope for the comparison and navigation of information.

The homeoscope was a wooden block with a table (to record information in columns) and a selection of pins on another wooden block (which you move over the original block to find the information you're looking for). For example, columns would list different medical treatments, and the rows would list the different symptoms. By setting your search criteria using the pins, you could map the right treatment for the right disease in the flash of an eye. His invention was essentially an early steampunk version of Google for the 1800s, by classifying information and making it quicker to find. Albeit on a smaller scale than today - we now make nearly six billion search engine queries every day.

Transformer - 1876

Transformers, historically named 'the distribution of light,' are key components of today's power grids, regulating the amount of electricity that goes into everything from steel factories to your microwave. Surprise, surprise, we have two Russians to thank for that: Pavel Yablochkov and Ivan Usagin. During the mid-1870s, the pair created an electrical device that could convert alternating current from one voltage to another - allowing electricity suppliers to increase or decrease currents to adapt to different electrical systems, converting electricity from power plants to safely use in your office or home.

Radio - 1885

Washing the dishes, passing time on a gridlocked highway or even trying to drown out the sounds of your co-workers, wherever you live in the world, chances are you've listened to the radio. But you may not know who created it. Russian physics professor Alexander Popov announced a system for wireless communications in a lecture at St. Petersburg university in 1885, displaying the world's first radio set. Some arguments still remain about who created this first. Italian Guglielmo Marconi conducted similar experiments at the time, although his articles were published 12 years later. Marconi eventually patented the radio and is now credited with its invention. Sorry, Alexander.

Helicopter - 1939

The rotor-driven aviation device. The central component that has come to define helicopters in the modern age. Also, the claim to fame for Russian inventor Igor Sikorsky. After designing it in the early 20 th century, he used it to create the first hydroplane and multiple-engine aircraft. Then things got turbulent. Fleeing the Russian revolution, he set up shop in America, where some say Sigorsky realized his full potential. After taking a timely financial contribution from Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, he started Sikorsky Aero Engineering Company. His first venture? The world's first helicopter takeoff in 1939.

Theremin - 1920

Ethereal, pure sounds, like an electronic echo of the voice, controlled exclusively by your hands in thin air. A vivid dream? Perhaps. One of the most unique inventions in the musical world? Without a doubt. Invented in Moscow by Russian Lev Termen (Léon Theremin, as he's more widely known), the theremin is quite the innovation. Put simply: it's complicated. You wave your hands in front of its two antennas, thus creating an electromagnetic field and, in turn, sound. The pitch depends on the proximity of your hand to a rod-like vertical antenna. The first commercially available electronic musical instrument, it heralded the sonic revolution of electronic music.

But even more extraordinary than the theremin's musical legacy is the ensuing endeavors for Léon Theremin. After leaving Russia to pursue a life in America, it's believed he was extradited back to the Soviet Union in the 1930s, where he reportedly worked for the KGB on its cutting-edge Cold War technology. Not the kind of gig you can say no to. He used similar technology to that of the theremin to create the 'bug' - a covert surveillance device - and even claimed to have invented the world's first television behind the iron curtain. An amazing pioneer of technology. And a busy, busy man.

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Inventions you never knew were from Russia

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What do you think when you hear the word 'Russia'? Vodka? Dolls? Grizzly bears? All of the above? You'd be right. But did you know that it also gave the world some of our greatest innovations to date? Here are some technologies you may not have known originated from the Russian state.

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Vladimir Putin shakes a robot’s hand at a telecommunications company.

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In the highly respected Global Competitiveness Report 2018, published by the World Economic Forum, Germany leads in the innovation sector. And in the overall evaluation the country comes in at first place in Europe, and third place in the world, following the USA and Singapore.

What does the competitiveness report evaluate?

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report evaluates the economies of 140 countries based on twelve different points. While preparing the 2018 report, the criteria were adapted to the present-day situation by giving innovation greater significance.

Why is Germany the most innovative country?

According to the report, "Germany is the current leader in innovation - in part because of the speed it's developing new technologies like driverless cars." The country is matchless in the process of developing ideas into products. In addition to its innovative capacity, Germany's economic stability is also outstandingly good with low inflation and low debt levels.

Where are the weaknesses?

The report also spotlights weaknesses in detail. For instance, Germany only reaches 31st place in the worldwide rankings for information technology and telecommunication. The low level of the broadband infrastructure plays a significant role in this respect. That is why the federal government is pushing especially hard to improve network expansion.

How are other contenders doing?

The USA comes in at first place in the categories labour market, financial system and business dynamism. Singapore tops the list in infrastructure, health and end products. France only reaches 17th place in the overall rankings, but it is in the top ten for infrastructure, health and market size.

© www.deutschland.de
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In the highly respected Global Competitiveness Report 2018, published by the World Economic Forum, Germany leads in the innovation sector. And in the overall evaluation the country comes in at first place in Europe, and third place in the world, following the USA and Singapore.

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2 books that explore the history of innovation and its prospects. How Innovation Works and Make, Think, Imagine ?

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2 books that explore the history of innovation and its prospects. How Innovation Works and Make, Think, Imagine ?

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◊ On this document the only 2 first book talks about scientific innovations

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Innovation is crucial to our future, but the process, which turns inventions into applications that are affordable and useful, is not generally well understood. It is collective, collaborative, incremental, fortuitous, and based on trial and error. And forces that can stymie it must be reckoned with. Two of the books reviewed below-How Innovation Works and Make, Think, Imagine-explore the history of innovation and its prospects. The third book, Imagination, could easily have had "And How It Works" added to its title; it deals with the human brain's ability to form images and create scenarios in the absence of sensory input. Even in its most humdrum form, imagination is a necessary component of long-term memory and makes it possible for us to plan.

HOW INNOVATION WORKS: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom. Matt Ridley. 406 pp. HarperCollins, 2020. $29.99.

Matt Ridley is an engaging storyteller, and more than 60 percent of his new book, How Innovation Works, consists of stories about innovators. He makes a distinction between inventors and innovators: the latter are people who take an invention (their own or someone else's) and make it "practical, affordable, reliable and ubiquitous" enough to be worth using-people who apply new ideas to raise the standard of living. By telling us about their successes and failures, Ridley says, he will teach us how innovation happens.

Most of these stories, told at length and in fascinating detail, are arranged into chapters that deal with the particular field in which the innovation was made: energy (steam, electricity, nuclear power, shale gas), public health (vaccination, chlorination, antibiotics, antiseptics, insecticide, electronic cigarettes), transport (locomotives, steamships, the internal combustion engine, the diesel engine, aviation), food (potatoes, nitrogen fertilizer, dwarfing genes, plants genetically modified to kill insects, plants made resistant to bacteria using CRISPR), and communication and computing (telegraphy, radio, the computer, shrinking transistors, search engines, social media, artificial intelligence). In addition, there are chapters on low-technology innovation (Arabic numerals, water traps in toilets, corrugated iron roofs, cargo containers for ships, wheeled luggage, new combinations of cuisines, fast-food franchising, the sharing economy) and prehistoric innovation (farming, the domestication of dogs, tools, fire, life itself).

Elements of many of these stories are well-known; we've all heard about James Watt, for example, but Ridley, in keeping with his theme that innovation is a collective endeavor of trial and error to which many people contribute, begins the story of the steam engine by introducing us to Thomas Newcomen, Denis Papin, and Thomas Savery, all of whom aspired to build steam engines. In 1712, Newcomen actually succeeded in building one that worked, but his engine was very inefficient, and it wasn't until 1763 that James Watt came along and solved that problem.

Ridley likes to compare innovation with evolution, and his chapter discussing what he calls the 10 essential elements of innovation touches on a number of the things the two processes have in common. Like evolution, innovation is gradual; it happens primarily in small, incremental steps, and most technologies evolve from previous technologies rather than being invented from scratch. Innovation is different from invention. (Ridley cites an old cartoon that shows a beaver and a rabbit looking up at the Hoover Dam. The beaver says, "No, I didn't build it myself, but it's based on an idea of mine.") Innovation is also serendipitous, "recombinant," and based on trial and error. It is a team sport, with different people trying many different things in a process that is "cross-fertilized and networked"; it happens "between, not within, brains." Innovation is "inexorable"; often multiple people independently stumble across the same idea at the same time. There is a "hype cycle": New technologies are overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long term. Innovation is most likely to flourish under "fragmented governance" (in city-states, for example); empires and autocracies tend to be bad at it. And innovation usually allows us to do more with less.

In a chapter on the economics of his subject, Ridley takes issue with what he refers to as the "creationist" view that most innovation is the product of government-supported research and development ("intelligent design" by government). After all, governments didn't start supporting innovation on a large scale until the second half of the 20th century, and a great deal of innovation took place long before that. He also critiques the view that science leads to technology, which leads to innovation; he points out that often we don't understand the mode of action of an innovation until long after it is in practical use. Big companies are bad at innovation, he says, because they are bureaucratic and have too big a vested interest in the status quo. Although he has decidedly mixed feelings about intellectual property rights and patents, he seems to side chiefly with those who believe that the restrictions they impose exert too great a drag on innovation. Ridley acknowledges in this chapter that "innovation is not necessarily a good thing," noting that it can be harmful if it results in products that are toxic or dangerous. And he devotes an entire separate chapter to frauds and failures, such as Enron and Theranos.

But for the most part Ridley is a big booster of innovation, defending it against criticisms at every turn, and dismissing concerns about job destruction and unemployment. He claims that in the United States, workers today spend only about 10 percent of their lives working, compared with 25 percent for workers in 1900; but to arrive at that 10 percent figure, he assumes a 40-hour work week (with an hour-long lunch break that counts as work time) and at least "a few weeks" of vacation every year. Ridley is British (which you'll notice even if you don't read his author bio, because British spellings such as "defence" have been retained in the text), so maybe that's why he seems unaware of the long hours typically put in by salaried employees in the United States; in 2014, on average they worked 49 hours a week, and they often find themselves too busy to take earned vacation time.

In a chapter on resistance to innovation, Ridley criticizes activism (calling it "a significant deterrent") and the precautionary principle. Displaying little concern about risks, he maintains that there are no good scientific arguments against such innovations as fracking and vaping, and his support for genetically modified agriculture, and even the use of glyphosate, is particularly unnuanced. He deplores many types of regulations and seems to regard as preposterous the notion that concern for preservation of an endangered species could be a justifiable reason for delaying the completion of an innovative project. Because the book has no footnotes, just a relatively short bibliography for each chapter, readers who are not inclined to just take Ridley's word for the absence of scientific evidence against these innovations will have to investigate the topics on their own.

How Innovation Works wasn't published until May 19, 2020, but no coda was added discussing how much the world and its prospects have been changed by COVID-19 since the manuscript was completed. Thus it is unclear to what extent Ridley's commentary on economics and his speculations about the future in the last chapter remain relevant. He foresees an innovation famine in the West, where regulators and others are "sucking the vital juices from entrepreneurial enterprises," and he believes that innovation will continue to burgeon in China, despite the fact that the country's government is authoritarian. He notes that innovation is also accelerating in India and Brazil. The book closes with a reiteration of Thomas Edison's emphasis on experimentation and hard work, and an admonition that we abandon innovation at our peril.

MAKE, THINK, IMAGINE: Engineering the Future of Civilization. John Browne. 409 pp. Pegasus Books, 2019. $29.95.

Innovation is a subject upon which John Browne, the author of Make, Think, Imagine, can opine from some unique vantage points. Trained as an engineer, he has a physics degree from the University of Cambridge and a business degree from Stanford, and is best-known for having been CEO of BP from 1995 to 2007. He has served on the boards of Intel, a number of other companies, and many organizations, including the Francis Crick Institute, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the Tate Gallery; he is a Fellow of the Royal Society and past president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and has served in the House of Lords.

As research for this book, which he hopes will encourage progress while demonstrating that its risks can be managed, Browne interviewed 100 experts ("the world's greatest innovators"), most of whom he had previously met or collaborated with. Some are famous (Tim Berners-Lee, Craig Venter), many hold important posts in business or academia, and all are achievers in fields ranging from archaeology, architecture, computer science, economics, philosophy, and theoretical physics to robotics, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and autonomous vehicles. Their voices help bring the book to life, as do Browne's descriptions of places he visits in the course of conducting his interviews, such as NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the headquarters of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), Langer Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the campus of Google, a 3D-printing manufacturing site in the north of England, and several museum collections, where he examines innovations from earlier eras, including an axe from the Stone Age, an astrolabe, prints and texts produced by the earliest printing presses, and a watch masterpiece made by hand in the 18th century.

Browne begins the book by talking about progress, which is made through a process of connecting ideas from different fields, trying things out, and learning from mistakes. He understands that progress is about more than rational functionality-that it is also about beauty, art, and the irrational. And he notes that even advances that are not technological may depend on engineering: For instance, the civil rights movement needed microphones and radio broadcasts to amplify its messages, and democracy requires reliable techniques for tallying votes. Importantly, he recognizes that a balance must be struck between innovation and the preservation of a stable society. Engineered solutions are imperfect, especially at first, and can have unintended and even harmful effects. Therefore, "innovators must strive to understand the hopes, needs and fears of society," he says, by enlisting the help of people who have "a deep understanding of the human condition." Also, innovators should respond to attacks on progress "with compassion and care." Browne understands that many people feel disenfranchised by globalization and believe that the world is getting worse. He hopes in the book to restore the public's confidence in innovation, not just by explaining how we have benefited from it historically, but by showing how its unintended consequences and abuses can be counteracted or prevented.

Because making things is at the heart of progress, manufacturing is discussed next, in "Make"-a chapter that moves from Stone Age tools to 3D printing, covering bespoke watchmaking, mass production, assembly lines, industrial robots, increasing automation, mass customization, and the role of open-source software along the way. Browne notes that innovation in physical engineering is needed to tackle climate change, to relieve poverty in the developing world, and to improve health care, infrastructure, and transport.

"Think" is a chapter devoted to machines that help us think: Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, EDSAC (the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer), microprocessing chips, quantum computing, personal computers, cloud computing, neural network algorithms and deep learning, and the pen-a reliable device with a minuscule price.

Chapters titled "Connect," "Build," "Energise," "Move," "Defend," and "Survive" discuss, respectively, networks and innovations in communication; architecture and city planning; energy and climate change; transportation; everything from gunpowder and nuclear bombs to chronometers, satellites, cybersecurity, and robots; and advances in medicine and public health.

The final chapter, "Imagine," is about some of the most ambitious engineering projects. Here Browne discusses the use of SLAC to explore the nature of matter; attempts to map the brain and enhance mental capabilities; advanced artificial intelligence; and the James Webb Space Telescope. He worries that engineering is becoming increasingly siloed and disconnected from design and creativity. One of his interviewees maintains that credit is being stolen from engineers and given to scientists. Browne reminds readers that innovation can have unpredictable effects and that engineers have an obligation to use their imaginations to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and wants of the people who will use that which they produce.

Make, Think, Imagine obviously has some overlap with Matt Ridley's How Innovation Works (discussed in the review at the top of this post). The latter is quite readable and serves as a good introduction to the topic, but Browne's book is more thoughtful, analytical, insightful, comprehensive, wide-ranging, and deeply researched (there are more than 50 pages of endnotes). For instance, Ridley acknowledges the importance of the invention of printing, devoting several sentences to Johannes Gutenberg, Martin Luther, and William Tyndale; but Browne begins with cuneiform tablets and the emergence of alphabets, goes into greater depth about the significance of the printing press, and recognizes that the advent of printed images was likewise revolutionary, particularly in providing scientific and technical diagrams. (Asked in an interview what he thought was the most important technological advance in history, Browne singled out the scripts and tools needed to write, keep records, and make calculations.) Unlike Ridley, Browne gives serious weight to the risks posed by innovations in the past and in our potential future. Throughout Make, Think, Imagine, the presence of so many voices of living innovators gives Browne's book a greater richness and focuses it more on the current cutting edge.

IMAGINATION: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest Power. Jim Davies. Pegasus Books, 2019. $28.95.

On the first page of Imagination: Your Mind's Greatest Power, author Jim Davies is at pains to point out that, although creativity is "the most spectacular use of imagination," his book is not about creativity (which he defines as the creation of something new that is effective). The book deals instead with more mundane kinds of imagination-for example, that which takes place when you are asked to "Imagine a jar of peanut butter," and you form a representation in your mind of the jar and its contents-or when you plan your day and must think of possible future realities, such as the order in which you will run your errands. You also have to use your imagination when you are remembering something that happened to you, Davies notes, because when you do so, "you're creating a simulation of a time and place that no longer exists."

The essence of imagination is the creation of ideas in your head. For most people, the clearest form of imagining is mental imagery, when you have the experience of seeing by using information from your memory (your perceptual history) rather than by using input from the environment. Individuals differ in how vivid and detailed their imagery may be, and a small number say that they experience no mental imagery at all. Mental imagery can form spontaneously-as may happen while you are reading a novel or "fleshing out" a verbal description-or it can be generated with an act of will. But you can also imagine things without imagery, using what Davies calls "conceptual imagination," as when thinking about an abstraction like justice. Memories that are factlike, or semantic (for example, "My name is Flora"), are represented as propositions (sentencelike structures) in what is known as long-term declarative memory. Hardly any of us have true photographic memories; instead, according to most psychologists, even though it feels as though we have pictures in our memories that we can recall, our long-term memories are actually made up of connected symbols that allow us to reconstruct something like a picture from nonpicture memories. If we are asked to imagine a bird, we typically imagine an averaged representation-a prototype of a bird. In a chapter on perception and memory, Davies also discusses the spatial element of memories, whether memories have two dimensions or three, procedural memory, episodic memory (memory of things you have experienced yourself), false memories, and monitoring of the sources of memories.

In a chapter on imagining the future, Davies notes that when we do so, it is a mistake to rely on "whatever our memory dredges up" rather than systematically reviewing all the possibilities. We need to guard against planning bias-being overly optimistic about how quickly we can get something done. Because we tend to imagine our future self as a different person, we are less likely to choose actions that include making sacrifices for the benefit of that future self. Although goal visualization can have benefits, imagining that we have already achieved our goals can make us less likely to fulfill them; it's better to visualize the individual steps needed to take to accomplish our aims. Something else to keep in mind is that when we predict how we'll feel in the future, we often get it wrong.

Davies goes on to discuss the fact that that you can use your imagination to change your feelings about a memory by reimagining it in a different way. He also notes that the way you imagine a moral situation can affect your judgment about it. Thinking of yourself as a good person in the abstract can help you be a better person, but if you vividly imagine yourself being good, you may end up thinking you're already "good enough." You can use your imagination to improve your mood, but you have to do so strategically. Reflecting on what you're grateful for can be particularly beneficial.

Long chapters on hallucinations, dreaming, and mind-wandering and daydreaming make up more than a quarter of the book. Hallucinations are not necessarily just imaginings that are mistaken for reality, Davies says. We tend to have more control of our imaginations, and we don't tend to believe that what they produce is real. Interestingly, imagination activates the prefrontal cortex, which is not active during at least some types of hallucinations. Topics covered in the chapter on hallucination include phantom limbs, Capgras syndrome, schizophrenia, Charles Bonnet syndrome, migraines, olfactory hallucination, sensory deprivation, inhibitory neural connections, and synesthesia.

Dreams are like hallucinations in that they are taken as real while we are dreaming (lucid dreaming is the rare exception to this). In one experiment, subjects were shown complex pictures so briefly that they had no conscious memory of seeing them; next they were asked to draw what they had seen. Then they were told to go home and dream about the pictures. The next day they drew scenes from their dreams, and those drawings contained elements of the subliminally presented pictures, suggesting that the subjects had stored details that they couldn't consciously remember.

Compared with dreams, daydreams are less violent, more reflective, less bizarre, more coherent, and more emotionally realistic; they are more concerned with the future, and their purpose may be to help us with planning and goals. One speculation is that we may have as many as two thousand fleeting daydreams per day.

Other subjects the book delves into include mnemonics, memory palaces, healing and pain relief, meditation, problem-solving, imaginary companions, virtual reality, and optical illusions.

In a section on imagination and science, Davies notes that visualization is helpful to practicing scientists: He compares imagination to "a physical simulation that allows scientists to rapidly 'test' ideas for plausibility in their minds." Imagination and imagery help us make analogies, which have been used to make scientific discoveries. But our mental images tend to be limited by our memories of our perceptions, and our sense organs filter what we perceive: We can't see certain wavelengths and can't hear above a certain pitch. Our common sense, which evolved based on what we can perceive with our sense organs, breaks down when faced with the very small (quantum effects), the very large (behavior of galaxies), the very slow (tectonic plate movement), or the very fast (effects when approaching speed of light). In such circumstances, mental imagery can actually be a hindrance to the development of scientific theories.

The book's wide range gives readers a lot to think about, but it is crammed with so many facts of such great variety and hops so quickly from one to another that I sometimes got bogged down and lost the narrative thread or found the information difficult to take in. In the course of reading the book, I often found myself wishing for more detailed descriptions of the scientific research studies whose findings Davies presents-descriptions that would have given me more of a basis for deciding how much weight to give to a study's conclusions, without having to track down the source provided in a footnote. All too often, Davies neglects even to say how many subjects participated in an experiment.

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Innovation is crucial to our future, but the process, which turns inventions into applications that are affordable and useful, is not generally well understood. It is collective, collaborative, incremental, fortuitous, and based on trial and error. And forces that can stymie it must be reckoned with.