It is the world's most widely recognized weapon, the most profuse tool for killing ever made. More than fifty national armies carry the automatic Kalashnikov, as do an array of police, intelligence, and security agencies all over the world. In this tour de force, prizewinning New York Times reporter C. J. Chivers traces the invention of the assault rifle, following the miniaturization of rapid-fire arms from the American Civil War, through World War...

"A structural engineer examines the seven most basic building blocks of engineering that have shaped the modern world"--

"From FSGO x Logic: a Stanford professor's spirited dismantling of Silicon Valley's intellectual origins"--

In this fascinating foray into the centuries-old relationship between science and military power, acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and writer-researcher Avis Lang examine how the methods and tools of astrophysics have been enlisted in the service of war. "The overlap is strong, and the knowledge flows in both directions," say the authors, because astrophysicists and military planners care about many of the same things: multi-spectral detection,...

Takes the reader on a journey into what Gerstein identifies as the central organizing construct for the future of civilization: the continued proliferation of technology. He proposes a method for gaining a better understanding of how technology is likely to evolve in the future, and considers three technologies that are now converging and will shape the future: biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and the "internet of things".

"The year is 1888 and Louis Le Prince is finally testing his "taker" or "receiver" device for his family on their front lawn. The device is meant to capture ten to twelve images per second on film, creating a reproduction of reality that can be replayed as many times as desired. In an otherwise separate and detached world, occurrences from one end of the globe could now be viewable with only a few days delay on the other side of the world. No human...

"This little-known WWII story introduces a renegade pilot whose personal mission to rescue his family from a POW camp changed modern air warfare forever. December 1941: Manila is invaded, and US citizen and Philippine Airlines manager, Pappy Gunn, is ordered to fly key military command out of the country, leaving his family at home. So Gunn was miles away when the Japanese captured his wife and children, placing them in an internment camp where they...