Slice of MIT

In his new book, Architecture by Moonlight: Rebuilding Haiti, Redrafting a Life, Paul Fallon '77, SM '81, MArch '81 recounts his two-year challenge to help design, plan, and build the orphanage with a family in honor of their daughter. Published just ahead of the five-year anniversary of the natural disaster, the book tells one of the many compelling stories of Americans trying to help.

“It’s a positive story,” says Fallon, “and we need more positive stories about Haiti.” Read more: http://bit.ly/1nqsq55

Podcast transcript: https://bit.ly/2GMjBBl

Sound engineering: Brielle Domings.

Clara Fernández-Vara SM '04, an Associate Arts Professor at the Game Center at New York University, discusses her book Introduction to Game Analysis.

In one respect,Introduction to Game Analysis is a history of modern gaming, covering everything from Monopoly to Minecraft. While its intended audience is those considering an academic career in game theory, the book sets out a strong argument for critics of the field who might not yet deem it worthy enough for funding at major research universities. Read more: http://bit.ly/1o0MsxF

Podcast transcript: https://bit.ly/2GzS2HO

A conversation with Judith Donath SM '86, PhD '97, whose book The Social Machine was published by MIT Press in May 2014. The book is a chronicle of Donath's projects in social media dating from the late 1980s, long before the term was in vogue. Read more: http://bit.ly/1TjtJwr

Donath also traces the rise of social media to its roots in Usenet groups and discussion boards to the conquests of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Donath explores why these media thrived while others failed, and the book serves as both a guide for researchers studying social media and a cautionary tale for casual users who don’t always question them critically enough.

Learn more about Judith Donath: http://vivatropolis.org/judith/

Book homepage: http://vivatropolis.org/SocialMachine/

Podcast transcript: https://bit.ly/2Gz80lL

Fariborz Ghadar '68, SM '70 discusses his new book, Becoming American: Why Immigration Is Good for Our Nation's Future.

“Like many other immigrants before and after me, I had become aerodynamic,” Ghadar writes. “Shaped by the stronger than normal forces I had encountered in my lifetime as an immigrant. I worked hard not to be knocked over by these forces, which often led to sacrifices.”

Read more: http://bit.ly/2vMf0cU

Transcipt: https://bit.ly/2EeKhp5

Emperor penguin fathers nest on an egg for two months while the mothers journey to the sea to feed. The mimic poison frog nurtures its tadpole young through adolescence. Are human fathers this important? Paul Raeburn, MIT class of 1972, examines that question in his new book Do Fathers Matter? What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We’ve Overlooked.

Raeburn is a regular contributor to the New York Times, Science, Discover, and The Huffington Post, and he is chief media critic for the Knight Science Journalism Tracker at MIT. Like his first three books, which explored genetic engineering, the secrets on the planet mars, and depression in children, Raeburn’s non-fiction emerges from his own basic questions about science and his yearning to fact-check closely-held beliefs and presumptions about science in everyday living.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2fyPr8B

Transcipt: https://bit.ly/2GQ507P

Monica Byrne SM '05 discusses her debut novel, The Girl in the Road, in this podcast from the MIT Alumni Association.

Byrne, tells the story of one young woman leaving her home in Mumbai to cross the Arabian Sea on a futuristic solar bridge, and another young woman seeking a soulmate on a road trip in Africa. Byrne, an award-winning playwright, discusses the influences of her earth sciences and geology studies on the novel and her decision to pursue a life in the arts after such a rigorous study of science.

Read more about the book at alum.mit.edu/sliceofmit

Read the transcript: https://bit.ly/2GQp6ik

Downton Abbey fans have seen scant evidence of 20th-century media in the Masterpiece Classic program, but that may change in coming seasons. Thanks to the founding of BBC Radio in 1927, estates in financial trouble like that which Downton faces in season 4 get a huge boon, says Shundana Yusaf SM '01.

In this edition of the MIT Alumni Books Podcast, Yusaf, a professor of architecture at the University of Utah, discusses her book Broadcasting Buildings: Architecture on the Wireless.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2uNABwI

Transcript: https://bit.ly/2pY3MxN

Douglas Hough '71 discusses his new book, Irrationality in Health Care, What Behavioral Economics Reveals About What We Do and Why in this podcast from the MIT Alumni Association.

Hough, who studied economics under four Nobel laureates in his days at MIT, is now an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. After teaching medical students traditional economics for years, he discovered that behavioral economics, a relatively new field, appealed much more strongly to their experience. Hough realized that no one had yet written an examination of how the country might learn from applying such a model to the healthcare system at large.

Read more about the book at https://bit.ly/2H3fgHp

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2q10VUA

Can you make a Jello laser? Why are cats' eyes reflective? In his recently published book How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap, published by Oxford University Press in the fall, Stephen Wilk provides dozens of inquiries into the world of optics. In this podcast from the MIT Alumni Association, he discusses his fascination with the field.

Consider this volume The Anarchist’ Cookbook for MIT alums. If you’ve ever wondered why cats’ eyes are reflective, why the moon is blue every so often, whether autopsies of murder victims’ retinas will reveal images of their assailants, or who the first spectacle-wearers were in history, this is your book. Read more: alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2pYfFUk

Whether after tsunamis in Japan and Indonesia, hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy, typhoons in the Philippines, or even during search efforts after this month’s lost Malaysian Airlines flight, waves have been the focus of many urgent conversations in the past decade. Anyone who has a home on or near a coastline is talking more these days about the simple calculus of storm surges, beach erosion, and sea level rise than ever before.

Fredric Raichlen SM ’55, ScD '62, a civil engineering professor emeritus at the California Institute of Technology, discusses his new book, Waves, in this Alum Books Podcast episode.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2uxNKef

Episode Transcript: https://bit.ly/2GNsOsZ