New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Imagine a future where we grow houses rather than build them. Where smartphones are alive, clothing has opinions and all human knowledge fits into a speck of DNA. A world where disease is a thing of the past and the human lifespan is dramatically extended.To achieve this, says Adrian Woolfson, founder of the genome writing company Genyro, we must transform biology into a predictive, programmable engineering material. That means decoding the generative grammar of DNA: the language of life itself. We will then be able to author genomes—and, if we choose, even rewrite our own.In On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence (MIT Press, 2026), Woolfson describes how we are at the cusp of a technological revolution, driven by the convergence of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. Currently at the scribbling phase—writing the genomes of viruses, bacteria and yeast—we will eventually author the genomes of extinct and never-before-realized species. Life will become computable, detached from its past and no longer bound by Darwinian evolution.While offering extraordinary opportunities, this power also carries great risk, and it is vital for everyone to understand what the future might hold. In this groundbreaking work, Woolfson provides a guide to this bold new world, offering a moral compass to help us do so safely, wisely and ethically.

Adrian Woolfson is the cofounder of Genyro, a California-based biotechnology company specializing in synthetic genome design and construction. He studied medicine at Balliol College, Oxford, and was formerly the Charles and Katherine Darwin Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge, working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Greg is the Executive Director and Founder of the World War II Discussion Forum (wwiidf.org). He also has a strong interest in literature, culture, religion, science and philosophy (translation: he's an eclectic reader who is constantly missing deadlines for book reviews).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

In this episode of High Theory, Kim talks to Ben Mangrum about Generic. A curious term that denotes both the conventions and rules of genre, and the impersonal or nameless quality of things like generic drugs or generic devices; the generic structures many of our cultural codes. Ben uses both senses to talk about the history of computing. He tells us about the surprising role the genre of comedy has played in our interactions with computers.

Ben suggested that we reference Spike Jones’s 2010 short film I’m Here as an example of computational comedy. In the episode Ben references Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg’s Modern Romance (Penguin Books 2016), a book of comedy and social critique about online dating, as well as classics like Agatha Christie’s Muder on the Orient Express (Collins Crime Club 1934), William Gibson’s Neuromancer (Ace Books 1984), and the film You’ve Got Mail (1998). He also talks about David Schumway’s writing on screwball comedies, “Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage” in Cinema Journal 30 no. 4 (Summer 1991): 7-23, doi: 0.2307/1224884, and Lauren Berlant’s on genre, “Genre Flailing” in Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry 1 no. 2 (2018).

If you want to learn more, check out Ben’s book, The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence (Stanford 2025). In this cultural history of the computer, Ben shows that comedy has been central to how we've made sense of the technology's sweeping effects on public life and private experience. From the first Broadway play to include a computer in the 1950s to popular films and joke-telling digital assistants, many have used comedy to make the computer seem ordinary. Others have tried to stage the assimilation of computers within corporate life as a kind of comic drama. Mangrum describes these and many other ways in which comedy and computation have come together as a new genre of experience: the comedy of computation.

Ben Mangrum works as an Associate Professor of Literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research examines topics ranging from the environmental humanities to twentieth-century “world literature” and the history of ideas and media underlying contemporary methods in the digital humanities. His first book, Land of Tomorrow: Postwar Fiction and the Crisis of American Liberalism, was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press.

The transcript of this episode lives here as a WordDoc and here as a PDF. The image for this episode shows a happy computer, drawn in a few pixels on a blue background. It was made for High Theory by Lili Epstein.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Kristan Stoddart's Russia's Hybrid Warfare Offensive Against the West (de Gruyter, 2025) is a timely and systematic analysis of Russian hybrid warfare with a particular focus on Russian cyberespionage and cyberwarfare. It especially analyzes Russian policy from the election of President Vladmir Putin in 2000 to date.

It takes a long term, long lens, view of Russian policies and actions internationally and domestically, fundamentally questioning the relationship and boundaries between active measures, espionage, cyberespionage, and hybrid warfare.

The most up-to-date and systematic analysis of Russia’s hybrid warfare.

Draws on a wide range of multi-disciplinary literature.

Questions the boundaries between active measures, espionage, cyberespionage, and hybrid warfare.

Dr. Kristan Stoddart is an Associate Professor at Swansea University where he is director of the Geopolitical Challenges Research Institute. Previously he was a Reader in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University. From 2014 to 2017, Kristan was part of a £1.2 million project examining Cyber Security Lifecycles funded by Airbus Group and the Welsh Government. He also was a member of the UK’s Independent Digital Ethics in Policing Panel for around four years through to 2018. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is the author of eight books and many articles and book chapters.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Automata examines how AI and advanced robotics are rapidly surpassing human abilities in fields once thought uniquely ours – from playing chess to discovering new antibiotics to fraud detection. The question is no longer if machines will replace workers, but how we can stay relevant in a world shaped by intelligent automation. This book explores the profound transformation ahead, drawing on real-world trends and technologies already beginning to reshape our lives.

With most of these changes expected within the next decade or two, Automata: The Power of AI Integrated with Advanced Robotics (U Toronto Press, 2026) offers timely use cases and practical strategies to help individuals and organizations navigate this new era. It highlights needed changes in education – such as the importance of learning-to-learn and emotional intelligence – to help society prepare for this new age.

Automata is a vital guide for anyone seeking to thrive – rather than just survive – as human work, society, and daily life are redefined by the rise of machine intelligence.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch a double sunset on Tatooine, stand among the sand dunes of Arrakis or gaze at the gas-giant planet Polyphemus from the moon Pandora? In Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact (Reaktion, 2025), Keith Cooper explores the fictional planets of films such as Star Wars, Dune and Avatar, and discusses how realistic they are based on our current scientific understanding and astronomical observations. The real exoplanets astronomers are now discovering are truly stranger than fiction, as the author shows. Featuring insights from over a dozen scientists and award-winning science-fiction authors, including Charlie Jane Anders, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds, Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact is perfect for readers of popular science and fans of science fiction.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society