Technological Nature

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262294834
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Technological Nature by : Peter H. Kahn, Jr.

Download or read book Technological Nature written by Peter H. Kahn, Jr. and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-02-25 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why it matters that our relationship with nature is increasingly mediated and augmented by technology. Our forebears may have had a close connection with the natural world, but increasingly we experience technological nature. Children come of age watching digital nature programs on television. They inhabit virtual lands in digital games. And they play with robotic animals, purchased at big box stores. Until a few years ago, hunters could "telehunt"—shoot and kill animals in Texas from a computer anywhere in the world via a Web interface. Does it matter that much of our experience with nature is mediated and augmented by technology? In Technological Nature, Peter Kahn argues that it does, and shows how it affects our well-being. Kahn describes his investigations of children's and adults' experiences of cutting-edge technological nature. He and his team installed "technological nature windows" (50-inch plasma screens showing high-definition broadcasts of real-time local nature views) in inside offices on his university campus and assessed the physiological and psychological effects on viewers. He studied children's and adults' relationships with the robotic dog AIBO (including possible benefits for children with autism). And he studied online "telegardening" (a pastoral alternative to "telehunting"). Kahn's studies show that in terms of human well-being technological nature is better than no nature, but not as good as actual nature. We should develop and use technological nature as a bonus on life, not as its substitute, and re-envision what is beautiful and fulfilling and often wild in essence in our relationship with the natural world.

The Nature of Technology

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Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141031638
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis The Nature of Technology by : W. Brian Arthur

Download or read book The Nature of Technology written by W. Brian Arthur and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2010 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nature of Technology will change the way you think about this fundamental subject forever. W. Brian Arthur's many years of thinking and writing about technology have culminated in a unique understanding of his subject. Here he examines the nature of technology itself: what is it and how does it evolve? Giving rare insights into the evolution of specific technologies and a new framework for thinking about others, every sentence points to some further truth and fascination. At a time when we are ever more reliant on technological solutions for the world's problems, it is extraordinary how little we actually understand the processes that lead to innovation and invention. Until now. This will be a landmark book that will define its subject, and inspire people to think about technology in depth for the very first time.

Technological Nature

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262113228
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (621 download)

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Book Synopsis Technological Nature by : Peter H. Kahn, Jr.

Download or read book Technological Nature written by Peter H. Kahn, Jr. and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-02-25 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why it matters that our relationship with nature is increasingly mediated and augmented by technology. Our forebears may have had a close connection with the natural world, but increasingly we experience technological nature. Children come of age watching digital nature programs on television. They inhabit virtual lands in digital games. And they play with robotic animals, purchased at big box stores. Until a few years ago, hunters could "telehunt"—shoot and kill animals in Texas from a computer anywhere in the world via a Web interface. Does it matter that much of our experience with nature is mediated and augmented by technology? In Technological Nature, Peter Kahn argues that it does, and shows how it affects our well-being. Kahn describes his investigations of children's and adults' experiences of cutting-edge technological nature. He and his team installed "technological nature windows" (50-inch plasma screens showing high-definition broadcasts of real-time local nature views) in inside offices on his university campus and assessed the physiological and psychological effects on viewers. He studied children's and adults' relationships with the robotic dog AIBO (including possible benefits for children with autism). And he studied online "telegardening" (a pastoral alternative to "telehunting"). Kahn's studies show that in terms of human well-being technological nature is better than no nature, but not as good as actual nature. We should develop and use technological nature as a bonus on life, not as its substitute, and re-envision what is beautiful and fulfilling and often wild in essence in our relationship with the natural world.

Nature, Technology, and Society

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Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814726178
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Nature, Technology, and Society by : Victor Ferkiss

Download or read book Nature, Technology, and Society written by Victor Ferkiss and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1994-11 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ferkiss (emeritus, government, Georgetown U.) delves thoughtfully into how various civilizations and cultures, including Western civilization, have historically looked at humanity, nature, and technology. He then looks at the conflicting attitudes of contemporary thinkers, seeking a balance, but maintaining a bias toward reverence for nature and an unwillingness to allow technology and its owners to set all the terms. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019103875X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health by : Matilda van den Bosch

Download or read book Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health written by Matilda van den Bosch and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-05 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human beings have always been affected by their surroundings. There are various health benefits linked to being able to access to nature; including increased physical activity, stress recovery, and the stimulation of child cognitive development. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health provides a broad and inclusive picture of the relationship between our own health and the natural environment. All aspects of this unique relationship are covered, ranging from disease prevention through physical activity in green spaces to innovative ecosystem services, such as climate change adaptation by urban trees. Potential hazardous consequences are also discussed including natural disasters, vector-borne pathogens, and allergies. This book analyses the complexity of our human interaction with nature and includes sections for example epigenetics, stress physiology, and impact assessments. These topics are all interconnected and fundamental for reaching a full understanding of the role of nature in public health and wellbeing. Much of the recent literature on environmental health has primarily described potential threats from our natural surroundings. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health instead focuses on how nature can positively impact our health and wellbeing, and how much we risk losing by destroying it. The all-inclusive approach provides a comprehensive and complete coverage of the role of nature in public health, making this textbook invaluable reading for health professionals, students, and researchers within public health, environmental health, and complementary medicine.

The Human Relationship with Nature

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262112406
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (124 download)

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Book Synopsis The Human Relationship with Nature by : Peter H. Kahn

Download or read book The Human Relationship with Nature written by Peter H. Kahn and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of Outstanding Book Award, 2000, Moral Development and Education, American Educational Research Association. Winner of the 2000 Book Award from the Moral Development & Education Group of the American Educational Research Association Urgent environmental problems call for vigorous research and theory on how humans develop a relationship with nature. In a series of original research projects, Peter Kahn answers this call. For the past eight years, Kahn has studied children, young adults, and parents in diverse geographical locations, ranging from an economically impoverished black community in Houston to a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon. In these studies Kahn seeks answers to the following questions: How do people value nature, and how do they reason morally about environmental degradation? Do children have a deep connection to the natural world that gets severed by modern society? Or do such connections emerge, if at all, later in life, with increased cognitive and moral maturity? How does culture affect environmental commitments and sensibilities? Are there universal features in the human relationship with nature? Kahn's empirical and theoretical findings draw on current work in psychology, biology, environmental behavior, education, policy, and moral development. This scholarly yet accessible book will be of value to practitioners in the social science and environmental fields, as well as to informed generalists interested in environmental issues and children.

The Illusory Boundary

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Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 0813929881
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (139 download)

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Book Synopsis The Illusory Boundary by : Martin Reuss

Download or read book The Illusory Boundary written by Martin Reuss and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-08-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling new book challenges the view that a clear and unwavering boundary exists between nature and technology. Rejecting this dichotomy, the contributors show how the history of each can be united in a constantly shifting panorama where definitions of "nature" and "technology" alter and overlap.

"Art, Technology and Nature "

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351575384
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (515 download)

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Book Synopsis "Art, Technology and Nature " by : CamillaSkovbjerg Paldam

Download or read book "Art, Technology and Nature " written by CamillaSkovbjerg Paldam and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1900, the connections between art and technology with nature have become increasingly inextricable. Through a selection of innovative readings by international scholars, this book presents the first investigation of the intersections between art, technology and nature in post-medieval times. Transdisciplinary in approach, this volume?s 14 essays explore art, technology and nature?s shifting constellations that are discernible at the micro level and as part of a larger chronological pattern. Included are subjects ranging from Renaissance wooden dolls, science in the Italian art academies, and artisanal epistemologies in the followers of Leonardo, to Surrealism and its precursors in Mannerist grotesques and the Wunderkammer, eighteenth-century plant printing, the climate and its artistic presentations from Constable to Olafur Eliasson, and the hermeneutics of bioart. In their comprehensive introduction, editors Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam and Jacob Wamberg trace the Kantian heritage of radically separating art and technology, and inserting both at a distance to nature, suggesting this was a transient chapter in history. Thus, they argue, the present renegotiation between art, technology and nature is reminiscent of the ancient and medieval periods, in which art and technology were categorized as aspects of a common area of cultivated products and their methods (the Latin ars, the Greek techne), an area moreover supposed to imitate the creative forces of nature.

The Artificial and the Natural

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262026201
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis The Artificial and the Natural by : Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent

Download or read book The Artificial and the Natural written by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays - written by specialists of different periods and various disciplines - reveal that the division between nature and art has been continually challenged and reassesed in Western thought. Nature and art, the essays suggest, are mutually constructed, defining and redifining themselves.

Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134635214
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (346 download)

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Book Synopsis Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature by : Mike Michael

Download or read book Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature written by Mike Michael and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this exciting new book, Mike Michael uses case studies of mundane technologies such as the walking boot, the car and the TV remote control to question some of the fundamental dichotomies through which we make sense of the world. Drawing on the insights of Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway and Michel Serres, the author elaborates an innovative methodology through which new hybrid objects of study are creatively constructed, tracing the ways in which the cultural, the natural and the technological interweave in the production of order and disorder. This book critically engages with and draws connections between a wide range of literature including those concerned with the environment, consumption and the body.

Technobiophilia

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Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1849662169
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (496 download)

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Book Synopsis Technobiophilia by : Sue Thomas

Download or read book Technobiophilia written by Sue Thomas and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-09-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are there so many nature metaphors - clouds, rivers, streams, viruses, and bugs - in the language of the internet? Why do we adorn our screens with exotic images of forests, waterfalls, animals and beaches? In Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace, Sue Thomas interrogates the prevalence online of nature-derived metaphors and imagery and comes to a surprising conclusion. The root of this trend, she believes, lies in biophilia, defined by biologist E.O. Wilson as 'the innate attraction to life and lifelike processes'. In this wide-ranging transdisciplinary study she explores the strong thread of biophilia which runs through our online lives, a phenomenon she calls 'technobiophilia', or, the 'innate attraction to life and lifelike processes as they appear in technology'. The restorative qualities of biophilia can alleviate mental fatigue and enhance our capacity for directed attention, soothing our connected minds and easing our relationship with computers. Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace offers new insights on what is commonly known as 'work-life balance'. It explores ways to make our peace with technology-induced anxiety and achieve a 'tech-nature balance' through practical experiments designed to enhance our digital lives indoors, outdoors, and online. The book draws on a long history of literature on nature and technology and breaks new ground as the first to link the two. Its accessible style will attract the general reader, whilst the clear definition of key terms and concepts throughout should appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates of new media and communication studies, internet studies, environmental psychology, and human-computer interaction. www.technobiophilia.com

Digital Biology

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0743238168
Total Pages : 407 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (432 download)

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Book Synopsis Digital Biology by : Peter J. Bentley

Download or read book Digital Biology written by Peter J. Bentley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine a future world where computers can create universes -- digital environments made from binary ones and zeros. Imagine that within these universes there exist biological forms that reproduce, grow, and think. Imagine plantlike forms, ant colonies, immune systems, and brains, all adapting, evolving, and getting better at solving problems. Imagine if our computers became greenhouses for a new kind of nature. Just think what digital biology could do for us. Perhaps it could evolve new designs for us, think up ways to detect fraud using digital neurons, or solve scheduling problems with ants. Perhaps it could detect hackers with immune systems or create music from the patterns of growth of digital seashells. Perhaps it would allow our computers to become creative and inventive. Now stop imagining. digital biology is an intriguing glimpse into the future of technology by one of the most creative thinkers working in computer science today. As Peter J. Bentley explains, the next giant step in computing technology is already under way as computer scientists attempt to create digital universes that replicate the natural world. Within these digital universes, we will evolve solutions to problems, construct digital brains that can learn and think, and use immune systems to trap and destroy computer viruses. The biological world is the model for the next generation of computer software. By adapting the principles of biology, computer scientists will make it possible for computers to function as the natural world does. In practical terms, this will mean that we will soon have "smart" devices, such as houses that will keep the temperature as we like it and automobiles that will start only for drivers they recognize (through voice recognition or other systems) and that will navigate highways safely and with maximum fuel efficiency. Computers will soon be powerful enough and small enough that they can become part of clothing. "Digital agents" will be able to help us find a bank or restaurant in a city that we have never visited before, even as we walk through the airport. Miniature robots may even be incorporated into our bodies to monitor our health. Digital Biology is also an exploration of biology itself from a new perspective. We must understand how nature works in its most intimate detail before we can use these same biological processes inside our computers. Already scientists engaged in this work have gained new insights into the elegant simplicity of the natural universe. This is a visionary book, written in accessible, nontechnical language, that explains how cutting-edge computer science will shape our world in the coming decades.

The Earth Has a Soul

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Publisher : North Atlantic Books
ISBN 13 : 9781556433795
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (337 download)

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Book Synopsis The Earth Has a Soul by : Carl G. Jung

Download or read book The Earth Has a Soul written by Carl G. Jung and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2002-05-28 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While never losing sight of the rational, cultured mind, Jung speaks for the natural mind, source of the evolutionary experience and accumulated wisdom of our species. Through his own example, Jung shows how healing our own living connection with Nature contributes to the whole.

NEXT NATURE

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Publisher : Next Nature Network
ISBN 13 : 9493213080
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis NEXT NATURE by : Koert van Mensvoort

Download or read book NEXT NATURE written by Koert van Mensvoort and published by Next Nature Network. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Think of nature and you’re likely to picture a forest, not a freeway. But how natural is nature really? We live in a world of constructed wildlife reserves, rainbow tulips, designer babies and cultured meat. We control a tomato’s biology so precisely, you can hardly call it natural anymore. Meanwhile, our grip on the Internet and the financial markets has grown so slight that they’re coming to resemble forces of nature. Using countless well-known examples and scientific insights, Koert van Mensvoort shows how a technosphere is evolving on top of a biosphere billions of years old. He’ll take you on an epic journey full of businesses that breathe, woods that smell like shampoo, and creatures that live on plastic. Along the way, a totally new view of the natural world will unfurl – one that’s not only more realistic but infinitely more creative, exciting and beautiful. To cope with the immense challenges facing the world today, we need to go forward, not back, to nature.

New Natures

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822978725
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis New Natures by : Dolly Jørgensen

Download or read book New Natures written by Dolly Jørgensen and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2013-07-08 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Natures broadens the dialogue between the disciplines of science and technology studies (STS) and environmental history in hopes of deepening and even transforming understandings of human-nature interactions. The volume presents richly developed historical studies that explicitly engage with key STS theories, offering models for how these theories can help crystallize central lessons from empirical histories, facilitate comparative analysis, and provide a language for complicated historical phenomena. Overall, the collection exemplifies the fruitfulness of cross-disciplinary thinking. The chapters follow three central themes: ways of knowing, or how knowledge is produced and how this mediates our understanding of the environment; constructions of environmental expertise, showing how expertise is evaluated according to categories, categorization, hierarchies, and the power afforded to expertise; and lastly, an analysis of networks, mobilities, and boundaries, demonstrating how knowledge is both diffused and constrained and what this means for humans and the environment. Contributors explore these themes by discussing a wide array of topics, including farming, forestry, indigenous land management, ecological science, pollution, trade, energy, and outer space, among others. The epilogue, by the eminent environmental historian Sverker Sörlin, views the deep entanglements of humans and nature in contemporary urbanity and argues we should preserve this relationship in the future. Additionally, the volume looks to extend the valuable conversation between STS and environmental history to wider communities that include policy makers and other stakeholders, as many of the issues raised can inform future courses of action.

Design in Nature

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Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307744345
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Design in Nature by : Adrian Bejan

Download or read book Design in Nature written by Adrian Bejan and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the constructal law, accounts for the evolution of these and many other designs in our world. Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical “flowcharts” or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies. All are governed by the same principle, known as the constructal law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

Diffusive Spreading in Nature, Technology and Society

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319677985
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis Diffusive Spreading in Nature, Technology and Society by : Armin Bunde

Download or read book Diffusive Spreading in Nature, Technology and Society written by Armin Bunde and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with randomly moving objects and their spreading. The objects considered are particles like atoms and molecules, but also living beings such as humans, animals, plants, bacteria and even abstract entities like ideas, rumors, information, innovations and linguistic features. The book explores and communicates the laws behind these movements and reports about astonishing similarities and very specific features typical of the given object under considerations. Leading scientists in disciplines as diverse as archeology, epidemics, linguistics and sociology, in collaboration with their colleagues from engineering, natural sciences and mathematics, introduce the phenomena of spreading as relevant for their fields. An introductory chapter on “Spreading Fundamentals” provides a common basis for all these considerations, with a minimum of mathematics, selected and presented for enjoying rather than frustrating the reader.