Recommendations for the week

Considered to be the largest lagoon in India and amongst the largest lagoons in the world, lake Chilika spreads across Puri, Khordha and Ganjam districts of Odisha. But like most waterbodies today, it faces problems of a shifting shoreline and encroachment, which threaten both the lake and the people living near it. Capturing the elements of continuity and change in Chilika, and the stories of communities that live around it, Delhi is hosting Counter Poetry—an art exhibition of paintings and large-scale sculptures made of wood and stone gathered off the lake by Bhubaneswar-based artist Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty. Held at Art Centrix Space from October 1, the exhibition will continue till November 20.  

The brain evolves as one ages. Adolescence triggers a huge transformation, but pregnancy has an even more profound impact on women, argues A Mother's Brain. The author, a neuroscientist, proffers latest research, including her own, on maternal brain. The topic is often misunderstood or has not been adequately studied, despite 85 per cent of women experiencing pregnancy at some point in their lives. The author explores the challenges of motherhood reshaping women's immune system and how it nurtures maternal well-being as well as the mother-baby bond.

The AGI Chronicles offers a behind-the-scene story of technology companies racing to build the most powerful technology that equals or outdoes humans in learning, reasoning and in application of knowledge across tasks. While artificial general intelligence (AGI) is still a theoretical concept, many have debated whether it is potentially good or harmful for humans. The author, a technology columnist for New York Times, tracks the developments of the last decade, perhaps one of the biggest in human history, by drawing on some 150 interviews with insiders at OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind.