Exceptional Coverage. This authoritative volume starts with a clear introduction to the animal world, examining the reasons for the apparently infinite variety of animal forms and major evolutionary developments. Animal anatomy, life cycles and the principles of classification are also explored. This is followed by a superbly illustrated survey of world habitats, showing how they have adapted to each environment, and the threats that face both wildlife and plants today. The main part of the book, an up-to-date and comprehensive animal catalog, looks in detail at each major group and provides fascinating profiles of over 2,000 individual species. Visually Breathtaking. Spectacular photographic portraits bring a vast array of animals vividly to life, with special features on well-known and important animals such as the Galapagos tortoise. Each species profile is supported by maps and symbols showing distribution and habitat, as well as key information on size, population, and conservation status, forming an invaluable reference database. Outstanding Reference. Clear, comprehensive, and thought provoking, the Smithsonian Animal is essential reading for wildlife enthusiasts of all ages and levels of experience.

    . . A tour de force of a book that begs to be seen as well as to be read."--The Washington Post Book WorldWorld renowned scientist Carl Sagan and acclaimed author Ann Druyan have written a Roots for the human species, a lucid and riveting account of how humans got to be the way we are. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a thrilling saga that starts with the origin of the Earth. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits--self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics--are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals.Sagan and Druyan conduct a breathtaking journey through space and time, zeroing in on critical turning points in evolutionary history, and tracing the origins of sex, altruism, violence, rape, and dominance. Their book culminates in a stunningly original examination of the connection between primate and human traits. Astonishing in its scope, brilliant in its insights, and an absolutely compelling read, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a triumph of popular science.

    Edward O. Wilson eloquently describes how the species of the world became diverse and why that diversity is threatened today as never before. A great spasm of extinction — the disappearance of whole species — is occurring now, caused this time entirely by humans. Unlike the deterioration of the physical environment, which can be halted, the loss of biodiversity is a far more complex problem — and it is irreversible. Defining a new environmental ethic, Wilson explains why we must rescue whole ecosystems, not only individual species. He calls for an end to conservation versus development arguments, and he outlines the massive shift in priorities needed to address this challenge. No writer, no scientist, is more qualified than Edward O. Wilson to describe, as he does here, the grandeur of evolution and what is at stake. "Engaging and nontechnical prose. . . . Prodigious erudition. . . . Original and fascinating insights." — John Terborgh, New York Review of Books, front page review "Eloquent. . . . A profound and enduring contribution." — Alan Burdick, Audubon

    An x-ray microscope would do the trick, or since we're dreaming, perhaps an Asimov-style nanosubmarine (unfortunately, neither is currently feasible). Think of the wonders we could witness firsthand: antibodies atta- ing a virus, electrical signals racing down nerve fibers, proteins building new strands of DNA. Many of the questions puzzling the current cadre of sci- tists would be answered at a glance. But the nanoscale world of molecules is separated from our everyday world of experience by a daunting million-fold difference in size, so the world of molecules is completely invisible. I created the illustrations in this book to help bridge this gulf and allow us to see the molecular structure of cells, if not directly, then in an artistic rendition. I have included two types of illustrations with this goal in mind: watercolor paintings which magnify a small portion of a living cell by one million times, showing the arrangement of molecules inside, and comput- generated pictures, which show the atomic details of individual molecules. In this second edition of The Machinery of Life, these illustrations are presented in full color, and they incorporate many of the exciting scientific advances of the 15 years since the first edition.

    Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

    It features over 900 photos, annotations and descriptions highlighting chief characteristics and distinguishing marks which help you to identify different whale, dolphin or porpoise species quickly.

    Molecular Cell Biology stands out from its peers in this course in that it provides a clear introduction to the techniques and experiments of scientists past and present, not just an "encyclopedia" of information.  This experimental emphasis, together with a solid pedagogical framework in the chapters, provides the clearest, most cutting-edge text available.

    A field guide to trees around the world, each depicted by a full-color photograph with a caption that describes key features and points of differentiation

    Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture. The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture.

     Beginning with the basics, the text describes what characterizes an insect, including anatomy and the life cycle. It takes an order-by-order look at insects, explaining how each group differs from another and why certain types of insects have been classified together. The book shows you not only what to look for but how and where to look for it -- from capturing and keeping live insects to ways of making a collection and taking photographs. Tips on keeping a field notebook are also included. Packed with more than 200 full-color illustrations, this comprehensive guide is a valuable reference tool for nature enthusiasts.

    Rarely do readers have an opportunity to comprehend the exhilaration and sense of awe scientists feel as they finally make a breakthrough in understanding the complex web of nature. The Transformed Cell changes all that. Dr. Steven Rosenberg, one of the world's leading surgeons, provides an extraordinary glimpse inside the workings of the scientific process. Moreover, he tells a story of hope: of a devoted doctor's exciting advances in halting the spread of cancer. Dr. Rosenberg's quest began in 1968, when he encountered a patient whose cancer had mysteriously disappeared. Could the body itself, he wondered, have mounted a massive immune response to the cancer? From that point on, Dr. Rosenberg set out to see if immunotherapy, and later gene therapy, could succeed where surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation had failed. The setting for this powerful human drama is the National Cancer Institute, where Dr. Rosenberg became chief of surgery at the age of thirty-four. In easy-to-understand language, he takes the reader inside one of the most important medical institutions in the world - and inside the laboratory - as he leads a team of dedicated investigators. Dr. Rosenberg describes the heartbreaks along the way, as well as the first successes in 1985, when he viewed a patient's X ray and saw evidence of tumor shrinkage. Since then, Dr. Rosenberg has made headlines around the world for his pioneering treatments that have saved many lives. With a cautious optimism, he tells of the potential of these treatments and of his most recent experiments, the first in history in which foreign genes were inserted into humans. Deeply personal, often anecdotal, The Transformed Cell is written with an unusual clarity and vision. Dr. Rosenberg describes his progress with contagious excitement, and compassionately relates the stories of those patients selec

    What these collections say about the collectors, and about human beings in general, is the subject of this strangely beautiful and rich compendium. Here are Purcell's wonderfully exotic photographs of teeth and other human artifacts from the collection of Peter the Great; moles, pigs, and dogs from van Heurn's many boxes of perfectly preserved skins; and all manner of preserved life from Rothschild's Birds of Paradise to the fish of Agassiz. Here also is Gould at his best, delighting in the unusual and making connections to our own history and evolution that only the most fertile and whimsical mind could imagine - and that few will be able to resist. This is a book for those with a craving for beauty, knowledge, and a fascination with the unusual.

    Gentle Bridges is a chronicle of this extraordinary exchange of ideas. The book not only shows the insight and interest of the Dalai Lama in the sciences but also demonstrates the ways that Tibetan Buddhism can contribute to modern research on the mind.

    Volume 1 (Ostrich to Ducks)

    The book offers an up-to-date description of the analytical tools used in evolutionary explanation: demographics, quantitative genetics, reaction norms, trade-offs, and phylogenetic/comparative analysis. It goes on to discuss the evolution of such major life-history traits as age and size at maturity; clutch size, reproductive investment and size of offspring; reproductive lifespan; and aging. This is an essential text for biologists wishing to understand the evolution of the life cycle and the causes of phenotypic variation in fitness. It is additionally the only book available designed specifically for teaching the subject, with problems and discussion questions at the end of each chapter.

    This guide has over 400 color illustrations, including 140 completely new plates, up-to-date color maps, and a fully revised text. With species accounts, distribution maps, and illustrations on facing pages, it is practically designed and easy to use.

    An overview of recombitant DNA techniques and surveys advances in recombinant molecular genetics, experimental methods and their results.

    Depicts different habitats and the animals that live there, including the Rocky Mountains, Amazon, European woodlands, and Himalayas.

    Text and labeled illustrations depict a variety of plants and their parts, including woody, flowering, desert, and tropical plants.Contents:•     Plant varieties•     Fungi and lichens•     Algae and seaweed—Liverworts and mosses•     Horsetails, club mosses, and ferns—Gymnosperms•     Monocotyledons and dicotyledons•     Herbaceous flowering plants•     Woody flowering plants•     Roots•     Stems•     Leaves—Photosynthesis•     Flowers•     Pollination•     Fertilization•     Succulent fruits•     Dry fruits•     Germination•     Vegetative reproduction—Dryland plants•     Wetland plants•     Carnivorous plants•     Epiphytic and parasitic plants•     Plant classification

    This book describes the behaviour and properties of neurons and glia and how these arise from the molecules that constitute them. Major sections focus on the signals that neurons use and how they are produced, the molecular and cellular organization of neurons and glia, neuronal differentiation, synaptic plasticity, and the molecular basis of neuronal diseases. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field and gives an up-to-date account of major questions, experimental approaches, the present state of knowledge, and future directions. Boxes provide historical, technical, or biographical notes, and expand on points of particular interest to contemporary research. The book has been carefully edited to give uniformity of style and coverage, and is illustrated in two colours.

    The text also contains a complete atlas of ultrastructure.

    This manual is a well-illustrated key, useful for identifying mammals through cranial characteristics. It also contains line-drawings, and many photographs to aid in identifying related genera. The distribution, diversity, and characteristics of each order and family of land mammals found in North American and to the north of Mexico are briefly discussed. J. Knox Jones, Jr., has been a practicing mammalogist for more than 40 years. Currently he is a Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech and a Curator in the Museum there. Jones has authored or edited 14 books among is more than 350 publications, and has studied mammals on five continents. He is a past president of the American Society of Mammalogists and has been awarded the C. Hart Merriam Award, the H. H. T. Jackson Award, and Honorary Membership by that society. In 1992, he was selected as Texas Distinguished Scientist of the Year by the Texas Academy of Science, and was awarded the Donald W. Tinkle Research Excellence Award by the Southwestern Association of Naturalists.Richard W. Manning is a member of the faculty of Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. He has authored more than 40 publications, most of which deal with mammals. Manning has had considerable instructional experience in laboratories in mammalogy, and has been cited for his excellence in teaching. He is also an avid field biologist, and thus has studied mammals in their natural habitats as well. Manning took most of the photographs used in this laboratory manual and made many of the line drawings.

    In Sexual Strategies, science journalist Mary Batten presents a provocative exploration of female/male behavior in the animal kingdom and its powerful implications for human relationships. Science increasingly acknowledges that much of human behavior is influenced by biology as well as culture. Human reproductive strategies in particular have come to look more like those of the birds and the bees than anyone imagined. In actuality, it is the females, not the males, of many species that actively select their mates. Although Charles Darwin introduced the theory of female mate choice more than a century ago, only in recent years has this controversial idea been appreciated by the scientific community. Studies of female choice are demolishing the age-old myth of the passive female. From fruitflies to primates, Batten shows how female choice truly plays a pivotal role in the evolution of species. By understanding female mate choice and the female's true power in evolution, we see our own complex species with greater clarity. We gain greater insight into why males and females, including men and women, have built-in conflicts in their mating behavior. In addition, Batten illuminates the roots of current social problems related to gender competition and shows that they cannot be fully understood outside a biological context.

    Every painting, 300 in all, from Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds and Field Guide to Western Birds is reproduced at full size in these stunning books. Each book is signed by the author.

    This book explores in detail how and why animals, including humans, cooperate with one another in conflicts with other members of their own species, and examines the difference such help makes to their lives and to the nature of the societies in which they live.

    Brent Berlin maintains that these patterns can best be explained by the similarity of human beings' largely unconscious appreciation of the natural affinities among groupings of plants and animals: people recognize and name a grouping of organisms quite independently of its actual or potential usefulness or symbolic significance in human society. Berlin's claims challenge those anthropologists who see reality as a set of culturally constructed, often unique and idiosyncratic images, little constrained by the parameters of an outside world. Part One of this wide-ranging work focuses primarily on the structure of ethnobiological classification inferred from an analysis of descriptions of individual systems. Part Two focuses on the underlying processes involved in the functioning and evolution of ethnobiological systems in general.Originally published in 1992.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

    Development from egg to adult involves the sequential expression of virtually the whole of an organism's genetic instructions both in the mother as she lays down developmental cues in the egg, and in the embryo itself. Most of our present information on the role of genes in development comes from the invertebrate fruit fly, "Drosophila." The two authors of this text (amongst the foremost authorities in the world) follow the developmental process from fertilization through the primitive structural development of the body plan of the fly after cleavage into the differentiation of the variety of tissues, organs and body parts that together define the fly. The developmental processes are fully explained throughout the text in the modern language of molecular biology and genetics. This text represents the vital synthesis of the subject that many have been waiting for and it will enable many specific courses in developmental biology and molecular genetics to focus on it. It will appeali to 2nd and 3rd year students in these disciplines as well as in biochemistry, neurobiology and zoology. It will also have widespread appeal among researchers. Authored by one of the foremost authorities in the world. A unique synthesis of the developmental cycle of "Drosophila" - our major source of information on the role of genes in development. Designed to provide the basis of new courses in developmental biology and molecular genetics at senior undergraduate level. A lucid explanation in the modern language of the science.

    --American Journal of Human Biology This excellent book can serve both as a text1/4book and as a scholarly reference. --American Scientist

    Outdoor Life Book Club Selection and Nature Book Society Selection.

    Leonardo was among the first artists to study human anatomy in great detail, and his anatomical drawings reveal him to be a gifted observer of the human body. He studied not only living men and women but cadavers, which he dissected with painstaking care in order to draw each vessel, muscle, and organ with ultimate precision. The Royal Library at Windsor Castle houses the finest private collection of drawings in the world, and its greatest treasure is a magnificent group of more than six hundred sheets by Leonardo. Reproduced here are forty-one of his finest anatomical drawings, incorporating countless studies and commentaries in the artist's hand. The sheets, dating from 1489 to c. 1513, show the remarkable evolution, of his drawing style as well as his anatomical knowledge. Images of great beauty and scientific interest, they herald Leonardo as one of the most accomplished artists in the history of anatomy.

    By retracing the steps of men who developed the theory of biological evolution, we see how scientists came to recognize the nature and importance of natural selection. The journey begins in the seventeenth century, when even the most accomplished naturalists knew next to nothing of biology as we understand it today. Steadily increasing knowledge and the quickening pace of research began to uncover much new evidence, and in the middle of the century Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace incorporated this evidence in a comprehensive theory of evolution. In the twentieth century biology has become steadily more specialized, so the book picks out some of the main developments that bring us to studies of evolution being carried out today.