Science All books
Jean-Paul Lévy
The Making of Man
Jean-Paul Lévy's book is marked by a resolutely materialistic reflexion, characteristic of biologists : the only thing that distinguishes man from all other living things is the capacity to reason. From this prospective, he explains how a human body is constructed, how and why it produces thoughts and why, one day, it finally ceases to function and dies. His thought process leads to a materialistic solution of the problem of the union of the body and soul. Jean-Paul Lévy is a hematologist and immunologist. He heads France's National Agency for AIDS Research
Xavier Seron
The Lie
Based on the latest advances in research, notably in Anglophone countries. An approach that leans heavily on the neurosciences and looks at the cerebral foundation of lying.
Georges Charpak, Richard L. Garwin
Power People and Nuclear Mushrooms
How can we control nuclear power ? This question has been preoccupying Georges Charpak and Richard Garwin for a long time. They here engage themselves in a thought-process concerning the stakes of nuclear power in civil society and the military. It is high time to see the issue clearly, and steering clear of sterile polemics, to denounce the true risks. This book describes in detail everything we need to know about the question : what is a chain reaction ? What exactly happened at Chernobyl ? What should be done with radioactive waste ? How are nuclear arms made and what would future war confrontations be like ? etc... Georges Charpak is a Nobel Prize winner in physics. Richard Garwin is a nuclear physicist.
John Dixon Hunt
The Art of the Garden and its History (Product of the Collège de France)
What can a garden reveal about ourselves and our culture ?
Jean-Pierre Bibring
Alone in the Universe
Since the first observations made with space probes, everything seems to indicate that the Earth, the product of a long chain of coincidences, is unique in its kind. Is life not therefore a generic property of the universe?
Mario Livio
Is God a Mathematician?
A best seller, finally available in France A question that everyone has asked, even if they don't dare ask out loud… Mathematics? An aspect of culture like any other.
Antonio R. Damasio
Feeling & Knowing Making Minds Conscious
This book brings together the most recent discoveries in the cognitive sciences, neurobiology, psychology, and other fields, while adding the philosophical dimension dear to Antonio Damasio.
Jean-Pierre Pharabod, Gérard Klein
Fortune and Misfortune in Quantum Physics (Re)discovering the great theories of physics
The great theories of physics seen through the controversies they provoke. Quantum physics and general relativity, the two pillars of modern physics, are a source of fascination to many. Difficult subjects tackled in their historical context and without scientific tools.
Lionel Naccache
An Apologia for Discretion What does it mean to be part of the universe in the 21st century?
In the great tradition of essays, the author draws on cognitive neuroscience and neurology, mathematics, physics, biology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, Judaism and literature.
Françoise Zonabend
The Nuclear Peninsula Three Mile Island, Tchernobyl, Fukushima... and after?
Twenty-five years after her first investigation, the author returns to the French nuclear site at La Hague — and finds it more dangerous than ever
Alain Ehrenberg
The Mechanics of Passions: The New Contemporary Individualism
The book’s very stimulating thesis: the twenty-first century will be the century of the brain and the neurosciences, which are already playing the role that psychoanalysis played in the twentieth century.
Alexandre Moatti
The Roots of Transhumanism France 1930-1980
Transhumanism and “augmented man” were already controversial subjects in the Belle Époque… An invaluable history for an understanding of what is truly at play behind this technoscientific fantasy.
Michel Jouvet
The Sleep, Consciousness and Wakefulness
A major scientific work that offers a sweeping panorama of the state of consciousness, from Hippocrates to the latest findings in neurology.
Alain Prochiantz
A Monkey, Yourself
Based on recent data in the sequencing of genomes, an explanation of the genetic and cellular mechanisms at the origin of the unique position of our species in the animal world.
Georges Chapouthier
Saving Humans through Animals
An original thesis that connects in a paradoxical, but reasoned way, the development of morality in humans to their animal nature.
Jean-Philippe Lachaux
The Brain’s Balancing Act Understanding and Managing Attention
The keys to attention management for improved concentration in daily life
David Elbaz
The 10,001 Nights of the Universe The Dance of the Cosmos
A modern version of Arabian Nights about the latest discoveries of the universe
Philippe Damier
Decision Making Based on Self-Knowledge Neuroscience and Decision
Practical tips to avoid some of the common pitfalls of decision-makers. How to optimise the decision-making process.
Stanislas Dehaene
Conquering the Brain
This book brings together exceptionally beautiful images (close to 100 [voir ci-dessus]), all full color, and the most current knowledge of the brain from research throughout the world.
Francis Waldvogel
A Tableau of Life Exchanges, Emergences, Complexity
A strong thesis that is applied to the entire visible and invisible world: the exchange that is the essence of the living being.
Jacques Hochmann, Marc Jeannerod
Is there anybody there ? Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience
For the first time, a psychoanalyst and a neurophysiologist have put their expertise together in order to progress in knowledge. The focus is rather on their ability to listen to each other, and their avoidance of concessions, than on individualistic, polemic arguments. Thus, important bridges are built between the two disciplines, which perhaps heralds the advent of another psychology. Jacques Hochmann is a professor of psychiatrics and a psychoanalyst. Marc Jeannerod is a professor of physiology and a neurophysiologist.
Gerald M. Edelman
The Biology of Consciousness
How do we think? What makes us beings that are endowed with conscience, capable of memory, of perceiving the surrounding world, of feeling passion? This book presents an ensemble of mechanisms that compose the human spirit and addresses the progress of the neuroscientific revolution: the biology of the brain and the study of its evolution are in the process of surrendering to us the key to conscience itself. Gerald. M. Edleman, winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine, heads the Institute of Neurosciences at La Jolla, California.
Sylvie Vauclair
The New Symphony of the Stars
A very accessible book written by an astrophysicist who deals with the questions and concerns of modern humans.
Patrice Debré
Microbiotic Man Humans and microbes: thousands of years of a shared history — for better or for worse.
A book that will interest readers who wish to learn more about such issues as epidemics, the current vaccination controversy, the recent flare-up of the Ebola virus and hopes of eradicating Ebola.
Barbara Demeneix
How Fossil Fuels Are Destroying our Health, the Climate and Biodiversity
Based on the most recent scientific studies, this book shows the interdependence between the climate, biodiversity and our health. It will give food for thought to environmentalists
Pierre Boulez, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Philippe Manoury
The Enchanted Neurons The Brain and the Music
A unique event: two major intellectuals of our time discuss the links between the neurosciences and music
Bernard Diu
Do atoms really exist ?
Few scientific notions have aroused the speculative imagination like the thermodynamic entropy. All organised systems - societies, living creatures - are destined without exception to decline and eventual death. This book clearly exposes the historical and conceptual development of thermodynamics. Born from a desire to understand and master steam powered machines - the symbol of our industrialised societies - it became the science of the human body. However, it was suddenly passed over in favour of the theory of atoms. It was thus demolished by statistical mechanics which ceded to the imperatives dictated by the atomical structure of the body. After an epic struggle, sometimes quite ferocious, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics have been reconciled by adopting the base of the second with the techniques of the first. This book reads like a novel about contemporary physics. Bernard Diu, a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieur, is a professor at the University of Paris VII.