Raffaello Cortina Editore

In the early 1990’s, while studying the activity of single neurons in the premotor cortex of monkeys, Giacomo Rizzolatti and his coworkers at the University of Parma discovered that some neurons of this area (today known as mirror neurons) had a surprising property. They respond not only when the monkey performed a given action, but also when the animal observed the researcher (or another monkey) performing that same action. In the following years, many monkey experiments specified the mechanism of mirror neurons and their possible functions. In addition, brain imaging and other non-invasive techniques demonstrated that a mirror neuron system is present also in humans. These results had a deep impact on cognitive neuroscience. In essay written on the occasion of the beginning of the new millenium, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran predicted that “mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology”. The unexpected properties of these neurons have not only attracted the attention of neuroscientists. Many sociologists, anthropologists and even artists have been fascinated by mirror neurons. The great director and playwright Peter Brook stated that mirror neurons throw new light on the mysterious link that is created each time actors take the stage and face their audience.  The present book provides, for the first time, an accessible and systematic overview of the theoretical issues and experimental work behind the extraordinary discovery of mirror neurons. From the first pages, the reader will discover how certain areas of the brain – traditionally labelled “motor” areas – have much more complex properties than believed in the past. The motor system – or, as the authors prefer to call it, the acting brain – plays an essential role in perceiving and understanding the objects that surround us. This  “sensorimotor understanding” is very different from conceptual and linguistic knowledge. Nevertheless, it plays a fundamental role in cognition and represents the basis for a variety of cognitive skills. The view that perception, action and cognition cannot be considered as separate entities is clearly shown by the properties of mirror neurons. When we see someone grasping a piece of food and bringing it to his or her mouth, we immediately know what that person is doing. We do not need to resort to reasoning. Our mirror system automatically codes the visual information from the scene in terms of action, and because that action is part of our motor repertoire, we immediately grasp its meaning.  In other terms, we perceive the observed action as if we were doing it. This is also true for actions that require particular motor skills, such as those of a pianist or a dancer. The sight of an artist playing or dancing activates in the brain of the observers the same areas that respond when they themselves carry out the same actions. Not only actions, however, are immediately shared. We are linked to others also by emotions. Each of us knows how contagious are fear, disgust, as well as joy. In the past, many reasons were given in order to explain our ability for immediate empathy with others. Only now, however, we are beginning to understand that the various forms of emotional “resonance” are determined by specific, anatomically separated, mirror neuron systems. When we see someone moving away from a glass containing some liquid or from a plate with food with a grimace of disgust, we immediately react as if we were experiencing the disgust. This is indeed what occurs: the sight of an emotional reaction of another person activates, in our brain, the same cortical areas that are activated when we ourselves experience that emotion!

A technology that promises many revolutions, from medicine to finance.The quantum computer of the future could perform calculations in seconds that would take millions of years for the most powerful supercomputer in existence today. But how do these “impossible computers” work? And why are they so extraordinarily efficient? The first quantum revolution transformed our understanding of the world, forcing us to abandon a deterministic view of the universe. The second revolution, already underway, aims to build real machines: computers that follow quantum logic, an intrinsically secure Internet, and ultra-precise sensors that will change our daily lives, from medicine to cybersecurity. It is true that “God plays dice,” and with those dice we can create the technology of the future. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book guides the reader from an understanding of the fundamental principles of quantum theory to the new technologies that will transform the world.Praise for THE IMPOSSIBLE COMPUTER"Among the many books seeking to explain quantum physics to nontechnical readers, The Impossible Computer stands out because of its unique and original emphasis: explaining how apparently abstract scientific investigations into the nature of reality are increasingly affecting every detail of our daily lives. To encourage us along this intellectual journey, from philosophy to technology, is far from easy. The authors accomplish it by employing familiar analogies in unfamiliar ways, to make understandable quantum concepts such as superposition and entanglement, and their many and varied applications to fields such as computation, keeping secrets, and diagnostics of unprecedented accuracy." Michael Berry, University of Bristol, UK"Casati and collaborators invite the reader into the strange and fascinating world of quantum computation with clarity, wit, and elegance. It is a compelling introduction to the quantum information revolution—and to the probability that quantum computing will reshape the way we understand the world.” Eric Heller, Harvard University, USA

Being mothers without forgetting we are women too. Is there a way to hold together these two realities without letting the maternal instinct prevails? Recently we are used to take more care to mothers than to women. While being a mother is an evidencebased fact, being a woman is a far more complex business, almost an enigma. The author here tries to analyze the complexity of being a woman, in order to then understand maternity in a different way: without idealizations and starting from the woman behind every mother. To avoid a society that idolizes the mother while forgets the woman. A counter-intuitive refl ection on maternity and on the maternal function.

Digital and new technologies are really the reasons for our anxiety, stress and loneliness? Are all adolescences’ problems really connected to social media and smartphones? During the history of humankind, the development of new widespread technologies has always been seen as something threatening. That was the case of photography, cinema, TV and then the internet. Every techno-scientific revolution saw the raising of many heralds of doom who said that machines would have brought disaster on man and society. Today the situation is not different, especially against what is considered to be the most dangerous digital creation of these last decades: the smartphone. In fact, it is a common thought that what it is probably the most feared and the most used technology is also cause for anxiety, inattention and social isolation. In face of these beliefs, can permissions to a limited use or prohibitions be the solution? This is the authors’ starting point: unmasking false ideologies and pointless ways, they explain what neuroscience research can tell us about this matter and what are and will be the real challenges of a digital society.

A new book about teenagers in search of identity.In Call Me Adult, Matteo Lancini takes us on a profound journey into the complex world of adolescents. From family dynamics to school, from social media to psychotherapy sessions, from friendship to couple relationships, the author explores how young people build their connections in an ever-changing world. Building on topics such as the uncertainty about the future and the fragility of adults, Lancini offers a powerful reflection: to truly connect with young people, we must know how to listen and respond with empathy.A book that ptovides parents, teachers, and psychologists with the tools to move beyond the rush of doing and rediscover the power of truly being present in relationships.

The complex and fascinating world of space ventures.Earth is our world, while space is a hostile and merciless environment. To explore it, we have to completely reinvent our technology: vehicles other than those on Earth, artificial environments within the spacecraft to protect our life and physiological balance. The challenge of space exploration lies precisely in this: pushing the boundaries of knowledge and technology to push us farther and farther. Paolo Ferri, who led the European Space Agency's operations department for years, takes us into the behind-the-scenes of the space missions, revealing us the difficulties, the dead ends, and the unexpected triumphs. The result is a unique adventure to the edge of the universe, and a profound reflection on the potential and the limits of our scientific knowledge.

A great psychoanalyst's reflection on anorexia, pathological addictions and psychosis.This collection of short essays explores, through a psychoanalytic perspective, pathologies such as anorexia, addictions, and psychosis, highlighting the central role of the void, which manifests in different but always determining ways. Substance abuse, social masks, everyday madness, deadly narcissism, self-destructive use of the body, and social segregation are all expressions of the void. What emerges is the replacement of the human partner with an inhuman one: food, drugs, obsession for the body image, etc. This kind of substitutions would be meant to guarantee a final remedy for the anguish but leads life toward death instead.

Few words to tell the story of a culture.We all know that the origins of our culture lie there, in that sunny, windswept peninsula, and in the countless islands that populate the Aegean Sea. It was there that the oldest words in living memory began to be used, and some of them continue to be spoken after more than three thousand years.Giulio Guidorizzi has chosen thirty of them to lead us to the origin of some ideas that are still essential for our culture. Democracy, beauty, violence, law, friendship. Each of these words shows a way of coming up with reality as the Greeks did it, and is intended to bring to life their extraordinary world exploring specific concepts that are still relevant today.

From persecutor to Apostle of Christ. The personal and ideal world of Christianity's "enfant terrible".While he was on a journey approaching Damascus, Paul was "grasped, clasped, conquered" by Christ. From that moment, a few days after the death of Jesus, Paul became the most passionate Christian missionary.The gospel he proclaims is not just a theory, it is also a way of being. That's what his Epistles are: an interwaving of words and life. The theological dissertation is always receptive to the ethical pastoral, existential implication. This journey through the personal and ideal world of the "Apostle par excellence" is an invitation to bring Paul out of its hagiographic pages and into out secularized world.

What kind of world would we have if evolution had taken different paths? And why, instead, did things turned out this way?In his outstanding short story "The Library of Babel", Jorge Luis Borges imagines a seemingly endless place where all the books of the world are collected; those already written and those existing only potentially. Just as a writer can imagine books that have never been written, a scientist in the laboratory can create enzymes that evolution has never created, which are extremely powerful and can do wonderful things. Proteins, DNA, genomes are also some kind of books: they are sequences formed by codes and therefore, in some way, alphabets. Here a literary idea becomes a scientific metaphor. Telmo Pievani teases our imagination, always assisted by scientific evidence, sharing with the reader hypotheses of historical crossroads, parallel universes, potential lives.

The discovery of mirror neurons was a huge revolution not only for the neurological and biological studies, but also for humanities. Anthropological and sociological research is highlighting the paradox of considering ourselves as expressions of the relationships and contexts in which we live.Science, in fact, shows us that intersubjectivity sets its roots in the prenatal stage, throughout the relationship between the fetus and the mother, within wich multisensory connections are developed and are destinated to leave a trace in postnatal memory.Two distinguished scholars of our time draw attention to the importance of recognizing ourselves as sharers, rather than individuals, in order to understand what it means to be human nowadays through an interdisciplinary essay that starts with a scientific discovery and comes to embrace all that underlies the world and the life of our species.