The mind-body problem cannot be confined to the relation between animal minds and animal bodies. If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. No such explanation is available, and the physical sciences, including molecular biology, cannot be expected to provide one. The book explores these problems through a general treatment of the obstacles to reductionism, with more specific application to the phenomena of consciousness, cognition, and value. The conclusion is that physics cannot be the theory of everything.

    Cognitive Science draws upon many academic disciplines, including Psychology, Computer Science, Philosophy, Linguistics and Neuroscience. This is the first textbook to present a unified view of Cognitive Science as a discipline in its own right, with a distinctive approach to studying the mind. Students are introduced to the cognitive scientist's 'toolkit' - the vast range of techniques and tools that cognitive scientists can use to study the mind. The book presents the main theoretical models that cognitive scientists are currently using, and shows how those models are being applied to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. Cognitive Science is replete with examples, illustrations, and applications, and draws on cutting-edge research and new developments to explore both the achievements that cognitive scientists have made, and the challenges that lie ahead.

    It avoids overburdening the reader with topographical detail that is unnecessary for the medical student. Minimum assumptions are made of existing knowledge of the subject.'Key point' boxes for reinforcement and quick revision Glossary of important terms 'Clinical detail' boxes closely integrated with relevant neuroanatomyComplete revision and updating of text. Revision nad expansion of summary chapter, providing overview of entire subject. Clinical material updated to reflect current prevalence of neurological disease. Artwork entirely redrawn for improved clarity and closer integration with text.

    Yet underlying these subtle differences, Simon Baron-Cohen believes, there is one essential difference, and it affects everything we do: Men have a tendency to analyze and construct systems while women are inclined to empathize. With fresh evidence for these claims, Baron-Cohen explores how these sex differences arise more from biological than cultural causes and shows us how each brain type contributes in various ways to what we think of as "intelligence." Emphasizing that not all men have the typically "male" brain, which he calls Type "S," and not all women have the typically female brain (Type "E"), Baron-Cohen explores the cutting-edge research that illuminates our individual differences and explains why a truly "balanced" brain is so rare. Filled with surprising and illuminating case studies, many from Baron-Cohen's own clinical practice, The Essential Difference moves beyond the stereotypes to elucidate over twenty years of groundbreaking research. From gossip to aggression, Baron-Cohen dissects each brain type and even presents a new theory that autism (as well as its close relative, Asperger's syndrome) can be understood as an extreme form of the male brain. Smart and engaging, this is the thinking person's guide to gender difference, a book that promises to change the conversation about-and between-men and women.

    More than 35,000 entries. Pronunciations provided for all entries. Covers brand names and generic equivalents of common drugs.

    How many of us understand the way seizures affect the brain, how the heart is connected to wellbeing, or the why the foot carries the key to our humanity? In Adventures in Human Being, award-winning author Gavin Francis leads readers on a journey into the hidden pathways of the human body, offering a guide to its inner workings and a celebration of its marvels.Drawing on his experiences as a surgeon, ER specialist, and family physician, Francis blends stories from the clinic with episodes from medical history, philosophy, and literature to describe the body in sickness and in health, in living and in dying. At its heart, Adventures in Human Being is a meditation on what it means to be human. Poetic, eloquent, and profoundly perceptive, this book will transform the way you view your body.

    Today, says Dale Purves, the dominant research agenda may have taken us as far as it can--and neuroscientists may be approaching a paradigm shift. In this highly personal book, Purves reveals how we got to this point and offers his notion of where neuroscience may be headed next. Purves guides you through a half-century of the most influential ideas in neuroscience and introduces the extraordinary scientists and physicians who created and tested them. Purves offers a critical assessment of the paths that neuroscience research has taken, their successes and their limitations, and then introduces an alternative approach for thinking about brains. Building on new research on visual perception, he shows why common ideas about brain networks can't be right and uncovers the factors that determine our subjective experience. The resulting insights offer a deeper understanding of what it means to be human. - Why we need a better conception of what brains are trying to do and how they do it Approaches to understanding the brain over the past several decades may be at an impasse - The surprising lessons that can be learned from what we see How complex neural processes owe more to trial-and-error experience than to logical principles - Brains--and the people who think about them Meet some of the extraordinary individuals who've shaped neuroscience - The -ghost in the machine- problem The ideas presented further undermine the concept of free will

    Drawing from Scientific American's "Fact or Fiction" and "Strange But True" columns, we've selected fifty-eight of the most surprising, fascinating, useful, and just plain wacky topics confronted by our writers over the years.

    The book has undergone three editions, several reprints, and revised reprints in a span of 13 years. There are many biochemistry textbooks in the market. Some of them are purely basic while others are applied, and there are very few books which cover both these aspects together. For this reason, the students learning biochemistry in their undergraduate courses have to depend on multiple books to acquire a sound knowledge of the subject. This book, ‘Biochemistry’ is unique with a simultaneous and equal emphasis on basic and applied aspects of biochemistry. This textbook offers an integration of medical and pure sciences, comprehensively written to meet the curriculum requirements of undergraduate courses in medical, dental, pharmacy, life-sciences and other categories (agriculture, veterinary, etc.). This book is designed to develop in students a sustained interest and enthusiasm to learn and develop the concepts in biochemistry in a logical and stepwise manner. It incorporates a variety of pedagogic aids, besides colour illustrations to help the students understand the subject quickly and to the maximum. The summary and biomedical/clinical concepts are intended for a rapid absorption and assimilation of the facts and concepts in biochemistry. The self-assessment exercises will stimulate the students to think rather than merely learn the subject. In addition, these exercises (essays, short notes, fill in the blanks, multiple choice questions) set at different difficulty levels, will cater to the needs of all the categories of learners.New to This Edition The book offers an integration of medical and pure sciences, and is comprehensively written, revised and updated to meet the curriculum requirements of Medical, Pharmacy, Dental, Veterinary, Biotechnology, Agricultural Sciences, Life Sciences, and others studying Biochemistry as one of the subjects. It is the first text book on Biochemistry in English with multi-colour illustrations by an author from Asia. The use of multicolours is for a clearer understanding of the complicated biochemical reactions. It is written in a lucid style with the subject being presented as an engaging story growing from elementary information to the most recent advances, and with theoretical discussions being supplemented with illustrations, flowcharts, and tables for easy understanding of Biochemistry. It has each chapter beginning with a four-line verse followed by the text, biomedical concepts, a summary, and self-assessment exercises. The lively illustrations and text with appropriate headings and sub-headings in bold type faces facilitate reading path clarity and quick recall. It provides the most recent and essential information on Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Diabetes, Cancer, Free Radicals, Free radicals and Antioxidants, Prostaglandins, etc. It describes a wide variety of case studies and biochemical correlations and several newer biomedical aspects- Metabolic syndrome, Therapeutic diets, Atkins diet, Trans fatty acids, Epigenetics, Nutrigenomics, Recombinant ribozymes, Membrane transport disorders, Pleural fluid etc. It contains the basics (Bioorganic and Biophysical Chemistry, Tools of Biochemistry, Immunology, and Genetics) for beginners to learn easily Biochemistry, origins of biochemical words, confusables in Biochemistry, principles of Practical Biochemistry, and Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory.

    This is not a learned behavior, psychologist Michael Tomasello argues. Through observations of young children in experiments he himself has designed, Tomasello shows that children are naturally--and uniquely--cooperative. Put through similar experiments, for example, apes demonstrate the ability to work together and share, but choose not to. As children grow, their almost reflexive desire to help--without expectation of reward--becomes shaped by culture. They become more aware of being a member of a group. Groups convey mutual expectations, and thus may either encourage or discourage altruism and collaboration. Either way, cooperation emerges as a distinctly human combination of innate and learned behavior. In Why We Cooperate, Tomasello's studies of young children and great apes help identify the underlying psychological processes that very likely supported humans' earliest forms of complex collaboration and, ultimately, our unique forms of cultural organization, from the evolution of tolerance and trust to the creation of such group-level structures as cultural norms and institutions. Scholars Carol Dweck, Joan Silk, Brian Skyrms, and Elizabeth Spelke respond to Tomasello's findings and explore the implications.

    Guyton & Hall's Textbook of Medical Physiology covers all of the major systems in the human body, while emphasizing system interaction, homeostasis, and pathophysiology. This very readable, easy-to-follow, and thoroughly updated, 11th Edition features a new full-color layout, short chapters, clinical vignettes, and shaded summary tables that allow for easy comprehension of the material.The smart way to study!Elsevier titles with STUDENT CONSULT will help you master difficult concepts and study more efficiently in print and online! Perform rapid searches. Integrate bonus content from other disciplines. Download text to your handheld device. And a lot more. Each STUDENT CONSULT title comes with full text online, a unique image library, case studies, USMLE style questions, and online note-taking to enhance your learning experience.Presents short, easy-to-read chapters in keeping with the Guyton and Hall tradition.Provides shaded summary tables for easy reference.Includes clinical vignettes, which allow readers to see core concepts applied to real-life situations.Offers specific discussions of pathophysiology in most clinical areas of medicine.Ensures a strong grasp of physiology concepts through well-illustrated discussions of the most essential principles.Now in full color! Offers access to the full text and other valuable features online via the STUDENT CONSULT website.Uses full-color illustrations throughout, including 486 figures, 277 charts and graphs, 100 brand-new line drawings, and 36 ECGs.Features a new full-color design that makes information more engaging and even easier to read.Updated throughout to reflect the latest knowledge in the field.

    What makes you so different to your siblings? Why do you vote a certain way, remain faithful for twenty years, believe in God, love salads, be heterosexual, get cancer or depression, dislike sport or never put on weight? Using fascinating case studies of identical twins, Tim Spector draws gems from his exhaustive research project that has spanned twenty years to show how even real-life 'clones' with the same upbringing turn out in reality to be very different. Based on cutting-edge discoveries that are pushing the frontiers of our knowledge of genetics, he show us that - contrary to recent scientific teaching - nothing is completely hard-wired or pre-ordained. Challenging, enlightening and entertaining, Tim Spector explains theories such as why the Dutch have become the tallest nation in the world, why autism is more heritable than breast cancer and what could cause a fit and healthy man to have a heart attack within weeks of his overweight, heavy drinking, heavy smoking identical twin. Conceptually, he argues, we are not just skin and bones controlled by our genes but minds and bodies made of plastic. This plastic is dynamic - slowly changing shape and evolving, driven by many processes we still cannot comprehend. Many of the subtle differences between us appear now to be due to chance or fate, but as science rapidly evolves and explains current mysteries we will be able to become more active participants in this human moulding process. Then we can really begin to understand why we are who we are and what makes each of us so unique and quintessentially human.

    In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but rather a “kluge,” a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind -- think duct tape, not supercomputer -- that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.Taking us on a tour of the fundamental areas of human experience -- memory, belief, decision-making, language, and happiness -- Marcus reveals the myriad ways our minds fall short. He examines why people often vote against their own interests, why money can’t buy happiness, why leaders often stick to bad decisions, and why a sentence like “people people left left” ties us in knots even though it’s only four words long.Marcus also offers surprisingly effective ways to outwit our inner kluge, for the betterment of ourselves and society. Throughout, he shows how only evolution -- haphazard and undirected -- could have produced the minds we humans have, while making a brilliant case for the power and usefulness of imperfection.

    Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and linguistics, Torey reconstructs the sequence of events by which "Homo erectus" became "Homo sapiens." He describes the augmented functioning that underpins the emergent mind -- a new ("off-line") internal response system with which the brain accesses itself and then forms a selection mechanism for mentally generated behavior options. This functional breakthrough, Torey argues, explains how the animal brain's "awareness" became self-accessible and reflective -- that is, how the human brain acquired a conscious mind. Consciousness, unlike animal awareness, is not a unitary phenomenon but a composite process. Torey's account shows how protolanguage evolved into language, how a brain subsystem for the emergent mind was built, and why these developments are opaque to introspection. We experience the brain's functional autonomy, he argues, as free will. Torey proposes that once life began, consciousness had to emerge -- because consciousness is the informational source of the brain's behavioral response. Consciousness, he argues, is not a newly acquired "quality," "cosmic principle," "circuitry arrangement," or "epiphenomenon," as others have argued, but an indispensable working component of the living system's manner of functioning.

    Every day, we break our fast. Hunger explores the range of this primal experience. Sharman Apt Russell, the highly acclaimed author of Anatomy of a Rose and An Obsession with Butterflies, here takes us on a tour of hunger, from eighteen hours without food to thirty-six hours to seven days and beyond. What Russell finds-both in our bodies and in cultures around the world-is extraordinary. It is a biological process that transcends nature to shape the very of fabric of societies. In a fascinating survey of centuries of thought on hunger's unique power, she discovers an ability to adapt to it that is nothing short of miraculous. From the fasting saints of the early Christian church to activists like Mahatma Gandhi, generations have used hunger to make spiritual and political statements. Russell highlights these remarkable cases where hunger can inspire and even heal, but she also addresses the devastating impact of starvation on cultures around the world today. Written with consummate skill, a compassionate heart, and stocked with facts, figures, and fascinating lore, Hunger is an inspiring window on history and the human spirit.