New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

As we build the AI-powered digital economy, how far do we want to go? Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control (St. Martin's Press, 2022) explores how China’s Communist Party is harnessing new technologies in an effort to achieve an unprecedented level of social control. The authors outline the most brutal and extreme applications of these technologies to the Uighur people of western China. They contrast this with the relatively benign-seeming applications to traffic control, crime, and public order in the prosperous Han Chinese heartland, where a little loss of privacy can feel like a small price to pay.They also make clear that these developments are not isolated to China. They show how America faces similar tradeoffs between using the benefits these tools can bring for crime fighting and other goals, against the risks of losing privacy and potentially making our criminal justice system even less fair. They examine the role of US companies in selling crucial elements of the technology package to Chinese firms and government agencies and challenge their defense that they had no way of knowing how or where these technologies would be used. And they examine China’s export of surveillance technologies to other countries around the world.This book is essential reading for anyone thinking about how the digitization of the economy and our lives can benefit us or be turned against us.Authors Josh Chin and Liza Lin are award-winning journalists with the Wall Street Journal. The book grows out of years of reporting on these developments within China, as well as an extensive investigation into the roots of these trends and their connections around the world.Host Peter Lorentzen is the Chair of the Economics Department at the University of San Francisco, where he leads a new Master's program in Applied Economics focused on the digital economy. His research focus is the political economy of governance in China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Plants have long harnessed the chemical characteristics of aromatic compounds to shape the world around them. Frankincense resin from the genus Boswellia seals injured tissues and protects trees from invading pathogens. Jasmine produces a molecule called linalool that attracts pollinating moths with its flowery scent. Tobacco uses a similarly sweet-smelling compound called benzyl acetone to attract pollinators. Only recently in the evolutionary history of plants, however, have humans learned to co-opt their fragrances to seduce, heal, protect, and alter moods themselves.In this wide-ranging and accessible Scent: A Natural History (Yale University Press, 2022), biologist-turned-perfumer Dr. Elise Vernon Pearlstine turns our human-centered perception of fragrance on its head and investigates plants' evolutionary reasons for creating aromatic molecules. Delving into themes of spirituality, wealth, power, addiction, royalty, fantasy, and more, Pearlstine uncovers the natural history of aromatic substances and their intersection with human culture and civilization.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Biomedical research using various animal species and in vitro cellular systems has resulted in both major successes and translational failure. In Model Systems in Biology: History, Philosophy, and Practical Concerns (MIT Press, 2022), comparative neurobiologist Georg Striedter examines how biomedical researchers have used animal species and in vitro cellular systems to understand and develop treatments for human diseases ranging from cancer and polio to Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. Although there have been some major successes, much of this “translational” research on model systems has failed to generalize to humans. Striedter explores the history of such research, focusing on the models used and considering the question of model selection from a variety of perspectives—the philosophical, the historical, and that of practicing biologists.Striedter reviews some philosophical concepts and ethical issues, including concerns over animal suffering and the compromises that result. He traces the history of the most widely used animal and in vitro models, describing how they compete with one another in a changing ecosystem of models. He examines how therapies for bacterial and viral infections, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological disorders have been developed using animal and cell culture models—and how research into these diseases has both taken advantage of and been hindered by model system differences. Finally, Striedter argues for a “big tent” biology, in which a diverse set of models and research strategies can coexist productively.Rachel Pagones is an acupuncturist, educator, and author based in Cambridge, England. Her book, Acupuncture as Revolution: Suffering, Liberation, and Love (Brevis Press) was published in 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe--and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it uncovers the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.Javier Mejia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

The pickup truck is the symbol of rural conservative masculinity. So, it often takes centre stage in the tired culture wars between reactionary neo-populists and liberal moralists. Like today, with Canada’s right crudely embracing the truck–and tweeting furiously about those ‘Laurentian elites,‘ and ‘Toronto columnists‘ who thumb their nose at it. But, if you really want to piss off the libs: don’t just post about it. Why not hang some big veiny nuts from your truck? Today on the show, we talk about the political history of trucks and trucking.—————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————-You can support the show for free by following or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button.If you want to do a little more we would love it if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.——————-ABOUT THE SHOW——————For a full list of credits, contact information, and more, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Digital discourse has become a widespread way of communicating worldwide, WhatsApp being one of the most popular Instant Messaging tools. A Linguistic Overview of Whatsapp Communication (Brill, 2022) offers a critical state-of-the-art review of WhatsApp linguistic studies. After evaluating a wide range of sources, and seeking to identify relevant works, two major thematic domains were found. On the one hand, references addressing WhatsApp linguistic characteristics: status notifications, multimodal elements such as emojis or memes, and language variation, among others. On the other, the volume offers an overview of references describing the use of WhatsApp to learn English as a foreign or second language (EFL/ESL). The author provides a broad critical review of previous works to date, which has enabled her to detect areas of research still unexplored.Lucia Fernandez Amaya is Professor in English at the Department of Philology and Translation, Pablo de Olavide University in Seville.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

From social media posts and text messages to digital government documents and archives, researchers are bombarded with a deluge of text reflecting the social world. This textual data gives unprecedented insights into fundamental questions in the social sciences, humanities, and industry. Meanwhile new machine learning tools are rapidly transforming the way science and business are conducted. Text as Data shows how to combine new sources of data, machine learning tools, and social science research design to develop and evaluate new insights.Text as Data: A New Framework for Machine Learning and the Social Sciences (Princeton UP, 2022) is organized around the core tasks in research projects using text--representation, discovery, measurement, prediction, and causal inference. The authors offer a sequential, iterative, and inductive approach to research design. Each research task is presented complete with real-world applications, example methods, and a distinct style of task-focused research.Bridging many divides--computer science and social science, the qualitative and the quantitative, and industry and academia--Text as Data is an ideal resource for anyone wanting to analyze large collections of text in an era when data is abundant and computation is cheap, but the enduring challenges of social science remain. Overview of how to use text as data Research design for a world of data deluge Examples from across the social sciences and industry Peter Lorentzen is economics professor at the University of San Francisco. He heads USF's Applied Economics Master's program, which focuses on the digital economy. His research is mainly on China's political economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Today Julia Keblinska and I had the pleasure of talking to Assistant Professor Jerry Zee about his book, Continent in Dust: Experiments in a Chinese Weather System, published by University of California Press in 2022.Continent in Dust offers a political anthropological account of strange weather. It is an ethnography of China’s meteorological contemporary - the transformed weather patterns whose formations and fallouts have accompanied decades of breakneck economic development. Focusing on intersections among statecraft, landscape, atmosphere and society, Jerry Zee’s research is beautifully articulated taking the reader on a journey from state engineering programs that attempt to choreograph the movement of mobile dunes in the interior, to newly reconfigured bodies and airspace in Beijing, and beyond. Timely and original, Continent in Dust considers contemporary China as a weather system to reconsider how we can better understand “the rise of China” literally, as the country itself rises into the air. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Before Remdesivir and Hydroxycloroquin there was Tamiflu.To prepare for Swine Flu and Bird Flu, governments spent billions stockpiling this drug called Tamiflu. You’d think governments used the best evidence-based advice, but the story of Tamiflu raises questions about how money shaped the process.On this episode of Cited, Darts and Letters predecessor, we open up the black box of pharmaceutical and public health expertise. We tell the story of a drug, from its days as middling flu treatment through its meteoric rise to international blockbuster. How do experts decide what makes a good drug, and how do pharmaceutical companies make billions from pandemic panic?—————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————-You can support the show for free by following or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button.If you want to do a little more we would love it if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.——————-ABOUT THE SHOW——————For a full list of credits, contact information, and more, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Margaret Cohen joins John to discuss The Underwater Eye, which explores "How the Movie Camera Opened the Depths and Unleashed New Realms of Fantasy." Margaret's earlier prizewinning books include The Novel and the Sea and The Sentimental Education of the Novel, but this project brings her places even her frequent surfing forays hadn't yet reached. She charts the rise of "wet for wet" filming both in the ocean itself and in various surrogates, exploring the implications of entering a domain that humans can explore and come to know, but never master.She and John discuss the rarity of professional divers in early 19th century (Henri Edwards 1843) and Natasha Adamowsky on the abiding fear of the depths. Conversation also pivots towards such SF classics as Stanislas Lem Solaris (1961), featuring a sentient underwater being which controls the planetary tides, though this wrinkle disappears in the 1971 Tarkovsky film. Margaret wittily labels the unintended consequences of human agency the "dialectic of the anthropocene."Mentioned in the episode 1916 20,000 Leagues was Hollywood’s first great underwater filming project. Underwater scenes of a length and complexity not seen again until modern films like The Deep (1977). Man Ray The Starfish is proof of high art's shared investment (also in Jean Painleve's science and sexlife films) in the same oceanic aspects that thrilled popular filmmakers. Esther William's Jupiter's Darling may be the apotheosis of bathing beauty breath-holding. Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges as underwater beefcake. Luc Besson, The Big Blue Recallable Books/FilmsMargaret chose Creature from the Black Lagoon 1954 which inspired Benicio del Toro's The Shape of Water (a "dry for wet" film, shot in studio rather than underwater) and was in its turn inspired by Gabriel Figueora, cinematographer of The Pearl'John favored a SF novel about space aliens who on landing seek out the oceanic depths, John Wyndham The Kraken Wakes (1953)Read a transcript here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society