This is a rough overview of things I am interested in – not things I like to do, but things I like to read about. The list is vaguely grouped (not in priority order) to make it easier to read, but the groupings are blurry, especially since I am most interested in the areas where these topics overlap. For example, education, surgery, and history of thought are all interesting on their own, but the history of medical education would be even more interesting.

This is a permanent work in progress; I will be updating this whenever I think of something.

Human body / medicine

  • Human physiology, endocrinology, metabolism
  • Human evolution
  • Diseases, infectious diseases
  • Trauma medicine, surgery
  • Women’s health, childbirth, abortion, breastfeeding
  • Modern diseases, allergies
  • Longevity

Human mind

  • History of thought
  • Rational thought
  • How our brains process language, numbers, etc
  • Psychiatry, psychopatology
  • Neurology, autism etc
  • Positive psychology, optimism/pessimism, mental resilience
  • Torture, effects of, survivors
  • Psychology of religion

Language

  • Psychology of language
  • Swearing
  • Comparative linguistics
  • Translation
  • Writing systems

Learning

  • Childhood development
  • How we learn, esp. language and mathematics
  • Education systems
  • Behaviour modification, incentive systems

Design, arts, crafts

  • Industrial design
  • Typography, layout
  • Information design, visual display of information, charts
  • Interaction design
  • Crafts, especially textile and paper
  • Technologies and techniques of creating art
  • Digital retouching of photos

Technology and science

  • Types of programming languages
  • History of mathematics
  • History of science
  • Effects of technology on human thinking and behaviour
  • Social software changing social patterns
  • Human side of software development
  • New industrial materials
  • Forensic science

Exploration

  • Exploration, voyages of discovery
  • Maps, images of the world
  • Navigation
  • Space exploration
  • Deep sea exploration

Society and economy

  • Demography, demographic trends
  • Economic systems, capitalism
  • Microeconomics, economic psychology
  • International trade, trade patterns, division of labour
  • History of economic thought

Social interactions

  • Surveillance, big brother society, privacy, liberties and freedoms and rights
  • Social engineering, hacking systems
  • Security, authentication, authorization, cryptography
  • Social software, online behaviour
  • Forgery, image manipulation

The environment and our interaction with it

  • Climate change
  • Environmental change, natural and man-made
  • Pollution cleanup technology
  • Domestication of plants and animals
  • Natural resources, energy, peak oil
  • Effects of environment on health (hormone disruptors)

Evolution

  • Human evolution

Civil systems

  • Infrastructure: roads, water, sewer systems, power systems, traffic systems
  • Urban planning
  • Agriculture, food production

Food

  • Nutrition
  • Functional foods, vitamins, antioxidants
  • Additives
  • Organic food

Everyday things

History, psychology and sociology of

  • Clothing and fashion
  • Medicine
  • Food
  • Tools
  • Education
  • Housing
  • Parenting and childcare