In this comprehensive account of olfactory communication and territorial behavior in the Mongolian gerbil, Del Thiessen and PaulineYahr provide the first detailed study of the neurological and physiological mechanisms that control these basic functions. In addition to explaining the links between hormones, genes, olfactory cues, and territorial acts, they also offer a more general picture of gerbil behavior, as well as a brief look at other mammalian species that communicate social status by way of olfactory messages.
Territorial behavior, as defined by the authors, includes all acts that are restricted to a particular area and are crucial for successful reproduction. In the Mongolian gerbil, and probably in other mammals as well, territoriality is controlled by sex hormones acting on specific areas of the central nervous system. Hormones from the gonads apparently act in the brain by altering the genetic apparatus controlling biochemicals used in neural communication. Without these hormones, the animal is socially inert and unable to transmit genes to the next generation. The authors conclude from the results of over ten years of investigation that the most complex social interactions depend on the integrity of the hormone system and its constant tuning by olfactory stimuli.
The book incorporates a review of all previously known studies of gerbil behavior and representative data for many other scent-marking species. A stereotaxic brain atlas for the gerbil is a feature that will be especially helpful to other researchers. The book's eclectic nature should make it valuable to anyone concerned with territorial behavior, hormones and behavior, or brain processes, as well as to those who are specifically interested in the Mongolian gerbil.
Stalin ordered his execution, but here Peter Palchinsky has the last word. As if rising from an uneasy grave, Palchinsky’s ghost leads us through the miasma of Soviet technology and industry, pointing out the mistakes he condemned in his time, the corruption and collapse he predicted, the ultimate price paid for silencing those who were not afraid to speak out. The story of this visionary engineer’s life and work, as Loren Graham relates it, is also the story of the Soviet Union’s industrial promise and failure.
We meet Palchinsky in pre-Revolutionary Russia, immersed in protests against the miserable lot of laborers in the tsarist state, protests destined to echo ironically during the Soviet worker’s paradise. Exiled from the country, pardoned and welcomed back at the outbreak of World War I, the engineer joined the ranks of the Revolutionary government, only to find it no more open to criticism than the previous regime. His turbulent career offers us a window on debates over industrialization. Graham highlights the harsh irrationalities built into the Soviet system—the world’s most inefficient steel mill in Magnitogorsk, the gigantic and ill-conceived hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River, the infamously cruel and mislocated construction of the White Sea Canal. Time and again, we see the effects of policies that ignore not only the workers’ and consumers’ needs but also sound management and engineering precepts. And we see Palchinsky’s criticism and advice, persistently given, consistently ignored, continue to haunt the Soviet Union right up to its dissolution in 1991.
The story of a man whose gifts and character set him in the path of history, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer is also a cautionary tale about the fate of an engineering that disregards social and human issues.
Subramaniam reveals the histories of eugenics and genetics and their impact on the metaphorical understandings of difference and diversity that permeate common understandings of differences among people exist in contexts that seem distant from the so-called objective hard sciences. Journeying into interdisciplinary areas that range from the social history of plants to speculative fiction, Subramaniam uncovers key relationships between the life sciences, women's studies, evolutionary and invasive biology, and the history of ecology, and how ideas of diversity and difference emerged and persist in each field.
Every night, astronomers use a new generation of giant telescopes at observatories around the world to study phenomena at the forefront of science. By focusing on the history of the Gemini Observatory—twin 8-meter telescopes located on mountain peaks in Hawaii and Chile—Giant Telescopes tells the story behind the planning and construction of modern scientific tools, offering a detailed view of the technological and political transformation of astronomy in the postwar era.
Drawing on interviews with participants and archival documents, W. Patrick McCray describes the ambitions and machinations of prominent astronomers, engineers, funding patrons, and politicians in their effort to construct a modern facility for cutting-edge science—and to establish a model for international cooperation in the coming era of “megascience.” His account details the technological, institutional, cultural, and financial challenges that scientists faced while planning and building a new generation of giant telescopes. Besides exploring how and why scientists embraced the promise and potential of new technologies, he considers how these new tools affected what it means to be an astronomer. McCray’s book should interest anyone who desires a deeper understanding of the science, technology, and politics behind finding our place in the universe.
Every night, astronomers use a new generation of giant telescopes at observatories around the world to study phenomena at the forefront of science. By focusing on the history of the Gemini Observatory—twin 8-meter telescopes located on mountain peaks in Hawaii and Chile—Giant Telescopes tells the story behind the planning and construction of modern scientific tools, offering a detailed view of the technological and political transformation of astronomy in the postwar era.
Drawing on interviews with participants and archival documents, W. Patrick McCray describes the ambitions and machinations of prominent astronomers, engineers, funding patrons, and politicians in their effort to construct a modern facility for cutting-edge science—and to establish a model for international cooperation in the coming era of “megascience.” His account details the technological, institutional, cultural, and financial challenges that scientists faced while planning and building a new generation of giant telescopes. Besides exploring how and why scientists embraced the promise and potential of new technologies, he considers how these new tools affected what it means to be an astronomer. McCray’s book should interest anyone who desires a deeper understanding of the science, technology, and politics behind finding our place in the universe.
The front pages of our newspapers and the lead stories on the evening news bear witness to the divorce of law from justice. The rich and famous get away with murder; Fortune 500 corporations operate sweatshops with impunity; blue-chip energy companies that spoil the environment and sicken communities face mere fines that don't dent profits. In The Gift of Science, a bold, revisionist account of 300 years of jurisprudence, Roger Berkowitz looks beyond these headlines to explore the historical and philosophical roots of our current legal and ethical crisis.
Moving from the scientific revolution to the nineteenth-century rise of legal codes, Berkowitz tells the story of how lawyers and philosophers invented legal science to preserve law's claim to moral authority. The "gift" of science, however, proved bittersweet. Instead of strengthening the bond between law and justice, the subordination of law to science transformed law from an ethical order into a tool for social and economic ends. Drawing on major figures from the traditions of law, philosophy, and history, The Gift of Science is not only a mesmerizing and original intellectual history of law; it shows how modern law remains imprisoned by a failed scientific metaphysics.
“For every plant enthusiast in the Great Lakes State, and . . . in the adjoining ones as well.”
—John J. Pipoly III, SIDA
“A very handy field guide . . . this book will be of use to anyone in northeastern North America.”
—C. Barre Hellquist, Rhodora
“It can be used to identify most of the plants . . . in Michigan and adjacent areas.”
—James E. Eckenwalder, Wildflower
Gleason’s Plants of Michigan is a major revision and expansion of The Plants of Michigan by Henry A. Gleason—the 1918 classic field guide to the flowering plants and trees found in Michigan, neighboring Great Lakes States, and southern Ontario. Richard K. Rabeler has completely updated the family descriptions and added easy-to-use keys. Information on habitats and geographical distribution is now included as well as a comprehensive index of plant names, an illustrated section on terminology, a glossary, and an introduction to botany in Michigan.
Gleason’s Plants of Michigan will be useful to naturalists, environmental specialists, botanists, and everyone who loves the wildflowers and native flora of Michigan and the surrounding areas.
While a number of gases are implicated in global warming, carbon dioxide is the most important contributor, and in one sense the entire phenomena can be seen as a human-induced perturbation of the carbon cycle. The Global Carbon Cycle offers a scientific assessment of the state of current knowledge of the carbon cycle by the world's leading scientists sponsored by SCOPE and the Global Carbon Project, and other international partners. It gives an introductory over-view of the carbon cycle, with multidisciplinary contributions covering biological, physical, and social science aspects. Included are 29 chapters covering topics including: an assessment of carbon-climate-human interactions; a portfolio of carbon management options; spatial and temporal distribution of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide; socio-economic driving forces of emissions scenarios.
Throughout, contributors emphasize that all parts of the carbon cycle are interrelated, and only by developing a framework that considers the full set of feedbacks will we be able to achieve a thorough understanding and develop effective management strategies.
The Global Carbon Cycle edited by Christopher B. Field and Michael R. Raupach is part of the Rapid Assessment Publication series produced by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), in an effort to quickly disseminate the collective knowledge of the world's leading experts on topics of pressing environmental concern.
After explaining the greenhouse effect, Pilkey, writing with son Keith, turns to the damage it is causing: sea level rise, ocean acidification, glacier and sea ice melting, changing habitats, desertification, and the threats to animals, humans, coral reefs, marshes, and mangroves. These explanations are accompanied by Mary Edna Fraser’s stunning batiks depicting the large-scale arenas in which climate change plays out.
The Pilkeys directly confront and rebut arguments typically advanced by global change deniers. Particularly valuable are their discussions of “Climategate,” a manufactured scandal that undermined respect for the scientific community, and the denial campaigns by the fossil fuel industry, which they compare to the tactics used by the tobacco companies a generation ago to obfuscate findings on the harm caused by cigarettes.
Global Marine Biological Diversity presents the most up-to-date information and view on the challenge of conserving the living sea and how that challenge can be met.
Gathering thinkers from ten countries and various scientific and spiritual backgrounds, Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality leads readers on a fascinating tour of distinctly non-Western approaches to topics in these two fields. These voices add fresh and invigorating input to a dialogue that has thus far been predominantly guided by scholars from the United States or Western Europe.
The award-winning researchers in this volume were selected from a pool of over one hundred and fifty applications. They offer the very best scholarship from underrepresented regions around the globe. The essays cover a broad spectrum of scientific fields, spanning mathematical physics, robotics, biosemiotics and other new schools of theoretical biology, embryonic stem cells, cognitive science, and the concept of opening the human mind to broader ideas of reality. Hailing from some of the top research institutions in India, Japan, Russia, Korea, China, and a variety of Eastern European nations, contributors offer unique insights into their cultures' spiritual and philosophical traditions. At the same time, they deftly engage concepts from the ongoing Western dialogue in its terms, delving deeply, at times, into schools of thought like phenomenology or process thought.
Scholars, students, researchers, and anyone seeking new ways of understanding the interplay of spirituality and science will discover a multitude of windows into previously underexplored research areas in these truly interdisciplinary essays. Indeed, any of these pieces could serve as the basis for entirely new long-term study programs.
As new networks of railways, steamships, and telegraph communications brought distant places into unprecedented proximity, previously minor discrepancies in local time-telling became a global problem. Vanessa Ogle’s chronicle of the struggle to standardize clock times and calendars from 1870 to 1950 highlights the many hurdles that proponents of uniformity faced in establishing international standards.
Time played a foundational role in nineteenth-century globalization. Growing interconnectedness prompted contemporaries to reflect on the annihilation of space and distance and to develop a global consciousness. Time—historical, evolutionary, religious, social, and legal—provided a basis for comparing the world’s nations and societies, and it established hierarchies that separated “advanced” from “backward” peoples in an age when such distinctions underwrote European imperialism.
Debates and disagreements on the varieties of time drew in a wide array of observers: German government officials, British social reformers, colonial administrators, Indian nationalists, Arab reformers, Muslim scholars, and League of Nations bureaucrats. Such exchanges often heightened national and regional disparities. The standardization of clock times therefore remained incomplete as late as the 1940s, and the sought-after unification of calendars never came to pass. The Global Transformation of Time reveals how globalization was less a relentlessly homogenizing force than a slow and uneven process of adoption and adaptation that often accentuated national differences.
As the world transitions from an industrial society to an information society, agriculture has undergone a dramatic transformation. Food production in the twentieth century was transformed by three revolutions: first mechanical, then genetic, and finally chemical. Now, in the twenty-first century, agriculture is going through at least two more revolutions: an information technology revolution leading to precision farming, and a biotechnology revolution leading to genetically engineered crops.
Organized by Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies with the collaboration of the Scientific Committee for Problems of the Environment, this interdisciplinary volume examines the impact of a variety of new technological, social, and economic trends on the rural environment.
Nominee, 2023 Wallace Award, Agricultural History Society
In The Globalization of Wheat, Marci R. Baranski explores Norman Borlaug’s complicated legacy as godfather of the Green Revolution. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his role in fighting global hunger, Borlaug, an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, left a legacy that divides opinions even today. His high-yielding dwarf wheat varieties, known as miracle seeds, effectively doubled and tripled crop yields across the globe, from Kenya to India and Argentina to Mexico due to their wide adaptation. But these modern seeds also required expensive chemical fertilizers and irrigation, both of which were only available to wealthier farmers. Baranski argues that Borlaug’s new technologies ultimately privileged wealthier farmers, despite assurances to politicians that these new crops would thrive in diverse geographies and benefit all farmers. As large-scale monocultures replaced traditional farming practices, these changes were codified into the Indian wheat research system, thus limiting attention to traditional practices and marginal environments. In the shadow of this legacy, and in the face of accelerating climate change, Baranski brings new light to Borlaug’s role in a controversial concept in agricultural science.
Upon its publication in 1957 A Glossary of Mycology was acclaimed by scientific and medical journals throughout the United States and Britain. The International Record of Medicine called it "a valuable reference book for every mycologist." Antibiotics and Chemotherapy recommended it as essential for all scientific libraries. The Bryologist said, "The authors are to be congratulated upon the wealth of information . . . the book is highly recommended in every respect."
Nearly 7000 terms--technical terms and their derivations; common or popular, vernacular, and obsolete terms; terms used in the field of medical mycology and antibiotics; names of the originators of terms; folklore terms; and color terms--were covered by the original edition. Also included were terms which, though not strictly mycological, occur frequently in literature of particular interest to mycologists.
This revision brings the work up to date with the considerable developments in the field since its first publication. Nearly 350 terms have been added, and new definitions for many of the original terms supplied. Excellent diagrammatic line drawings by Henry A. C. Jackson illustrate 191 of the terms.
God, Sex, Science, Gender: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Christian Ethics is a timely, wide-ranging attempt to rescue dialogues on human sexuality, sexual diversity, and gender from insular exchanges based primarily on biblical scholarship and denominational ideology. Too often, dialogues on sexuality and gender devolve into the repetition of party lines and defensive postures, without considering the interdisciplinary body of scholarly research on this complex subject. This volume expands beyond the usual parameters, opening the discussion to scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to foster the development of Christian sexual ethics for contemporary times.
Essays by prominent and emerging scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, literary studies, theology, and ethics reveal how faith and reason can illuminate our understanding of human sexual and gender diversity. Focusing on the intersection of theology and science and incorporating feminist theory, God, Science, Sex, Gender is a much-needed call for Christian ethicists to map the origins and full range of human sexual experience and gender identity. Essays delve into why human sexuality and gender can be so controversial in Christian contexts, investigate the complexity of sexuality in humans and other species, and reveal the implications of diversity for Christian moral theology.
Contributors are Joel Brown, James Calcagno, Francis J. Catania, Pamela L. Caughie, Robin Colburn, Robert Di Vito, Terry Grande, Frank Fennell, Anne E. Figert, Patricia Beattie Jung, Fred Kniss, John McCarthy, Jon Nilson, Stephen J. Pope, Susan A. Ross, Joan Roughgarden, and Aana Marie Vigen.
With exoplanets being discovered daily, Earth is still the only planet we know of that is home to creatures who seek a coherent explanation for the structure, origins, and fate of the universe, and of humanity’s place within it. Today, science and religion are the two major cultural entities on our planet that share this goal of coherent understanding, though their interpretation of evidence differs dramatically. Many scientists look at the known universe and conclude we are here by chance. The renowned astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich looks at the same evidence—along with the fact that the universe is comprehensible to our minds—and sees it as proof for the planning and intentions of a Creator-God. He believes that the idea of a universe without God is an oxymoron, a self-contradiction. God’s Planet exposes the fallacy in thinking that science and religion can be kept apart.
Gingerich frames his argument around three questions: Was Copernicus right, in dethroning Earth from its place at the center of the universe? Was Darwin right, in placing humans securely in an evolving animal kingdom? And was Hoyle right, in identifying physical constants in nature that seem singularly tuned to allow the existence of intelligent life on planet Earth? Using these episodes from the history of science, Gingerich demonstrates that cultural attitudes, including religious or antireligious beliefs, play a significant role in what passes as scientific understanding. The more rigorous science becomes over time, the more clearly God’s handiwork can be comprehended.
In October 2014, a group of mathematicians, physicists, ecologists, philosophers, and theologians gathered at a special conference in Berkeley, California, to present the results of a two-year research program dubbed “Project SATURN.” This program explored many rich avenues of thought at the intersection of modern science and Christian theology. Chief among them is the possibility that specific processes might be so complex that they do not have sufficient physical causes. Known as “ontological indeterminism,” this idea has profound implications for theology. Specifically, it allows God to be thought of as acting providentially within nature without violating the laws and processes of nature.
Such a momentous insight could influence how we understand free will, natural evil, suffering in nature, and the relation between divine providence and human evolution. The essays collected here discussed these topics and were initially presented at the 2014 conference. Part I establishes the scientific basis for conceptualizing specific processes in the universe as inherently random and possibly indeterministic. Part II discusses the philosophical and theological issues that spring from this understanding. Together they represent the cutting edge of thought in the increasingly productive dialogue between science and theology.
Short for the “Scientific and Theological Understandings of Randomness in Nature,” Project SATURN was created by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, a Program of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. It was funded with a grant administered by Calvin College and provided by the John Templeton Foundation.
We live in a universe with a very long history, a vast cosmos where things are being worked out over unimaginably long ages. Stars and galaxies have formed, and elements come forth from great stellar cauldrons. The necessary elements are present, the environment is fit for life, and slowly life forms have populated the earth. Are the creative forces purposeful, and in fact divine?
Owen Gingerich believes in a universe of intention and purpose. We can at least conjecture that we are part of that purpose and have just enough freedom that conscience and responsibility may be part of the mix. They may even be the reason that pain and suffering are present in the world. The universe might actually be comprehensible.
Taking Johannes Kepler as his guide, Gingerich argues that an individual can be both a creative scientist and a believer in divine design—that indeed the very motivation for scientific research can derive from a desire to trace God’s handiwork. The scientist with theistic metaphysics will approach laboratory problems much the same as does his atheistic colleague across the hall. Both are likely to view the astonishing adaptations in nature with a sense of surprise, wonder, and mystery.
In God’s Universe Gingerich carves out “a theistic space” from which it is possible to contemplate a universe where God plays an interactive role, unnoticed yet not excluded by science.
Grab your tackle and hit the road with Ron Bern and Manny Luftglass as they take you to the choicest places to fish in New York in Gone Fishin': The 100 Best Spots in New York, their follow-up to the highly successful Gone Fishin': The 100 Best Spots in New Jersey.
Truly great freshwater and saltwater fishing abounds throughout the state, from the classic Catskills trout streams to the mighty Hudson and Delaware rivers; from Lake Ontario to the Finger Lakes; from Long Island Sound to the bluewater canyons off the coast; from saltwater bays to artificial reefs; from the smaller sweetwater rivers and New York City reservoirs to surprising trout streams and bass ponds on Long Island.
Luftglass and Bern provide readers with immediately useful insights into each of the 100 best sites. They furnish easy-to-follow directions, descriptions of the body of water, boat launch information, and detailed advice on live and artificial bait, fishing methods, equipment, depths, best times of day and year, secret tips particular to each site, and even specific places to work bait or lures. Gone Fishin' also includes places that are good for children, as well as those which are handicapped accessible.
Throughout the book, Bern and Luftglass share anecdotes about their own fishing adventures and some of the big ones that didn't get away in their more than 33 years of fishing together. The information they cram into every chapter will help you find the spot, fish it more effectively, and catch more fish.
Whether you fish 150 times a year or you are planning to fish for the first time, you're sure to fall hook, line, and sinker for this entertaining and educational guide.
In this spirited and irreverent critique of Darwin’s long hold over our imagination, a distinguished philosopher of science makes the case that, in culture as well as nature, not only the fittest survive: the world is full of the “good enough” that persist too.
Why is the genome of a salamander forty times larger than that of a human? Why does the avocado tree produce a million flowers and only a hundred fruits? Why, in short, is there so much waste in nature? In this lively and wide-ranging meditation on the curious accidents and unexpected detours on the path of life, Daniel Milo argues that we ask these questions because we’ve embraced a faulty conception of how evolution—and human society—really works.
Good Enough offers a vigorous critique of the quasi-monopoly that Darwin’s concept of natural selection has on our idea of the natural world. Darwinism excels in accounting for the evolution of traits, but it does not explain their excess in size and number. Many traits far exceed the optimal configuration to do the job, and yet the maintenance of this extra baggage does not prevent species from thriving for millions of years. Milo aims to give the messy side of nature its due—to stand up for the wasteful and inefficient organisms that nevertheless survive and multiply.
But he does not stop at the border between evolutionary theory and its social consequences. He argues provocatively that the theory of evolution through natural selection has acquired the trappings of an ethical system. Optimization, competitiveness, and innovation have become the watchwords of Western societies, yet their role in human lives—as in the rest of nature—is dangerously overrated. Imperfection is not just good enough: it may at times be essential to survival.
Amid the unrest, dislocation, and uncertainty of seventeenth-century Europe, readers seeking consolation and assurance turned to philosophical and scientific books that offered ways of conquering fears and training the mind—guidance for living a good life.
The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution presents a triptych showing how three key early modern scientists, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Leibniz, envisioned their new work as useful for cultivating virtue and for pursuing a good life. Their scientific and philosophical innovations stemmed in part from their understanding of mathematics and science as cognitive and spiritual exercises that could create a truer mental and spiritual nobility. In portraying the rich contexts surrounding Descartes’ geometry, Pascal’s arithmetical triangle, and Leibniz’s calculus, Matthew L. Jones argues that this drive for moral therapeutics guided important developments of early modern philosophy and the Scientific Revolution.
To observe a dog's guilty look.
to witness a gorilla's self-sacrifice for a wounded mate, to watch an elephant herd's communal effort on behalf of a stranded calf--to catch animals in certain acts is to wonder what moves them. Might there he a code of ethics in the animal kingdom? Must an animal be human to he humane? In this provocative book, a renowned scientist takes on those who have declared ethics uniquely human Making a compelling case for a morality grounded in biology, he shows how ethical behavior is as much a matter of evolution as any other trait, in humans and animals alike.
World famous for his brilliant descriptions of Machiavellian power plays among chimpanzees-the nastier side of animal life--Frans de Waal here contends that animals have a nice side as well. Making his case through vivid anecdotes drawn from his work with apes and monkeys and holstered by the intriguing, voluminous data from his and others' ongoing research, de Waal shows us that many of the building blocks of morality are natural: they can he observed in other animals. Through his eyes, we see how not just primates but all kinds of animals, from marine mammals to dogs, respond to social rules, help each other, share food, resolve conflict to mutual satisfaction, even develop a crude sense of justice and fairness.
Natural selection may be harsh, but it has produced highly successful species that survive through cooperation and mutual assistance. De Waal identifies this paradox as the key to an evolutionary account of morality, and demonstrates that human morality could never have developed without the foundation of fellow feeling our species shares with other animals. As his work makes clear, a morality grounded in biology leads to an entirely different conception of what it means to he human--and humane.
Societies develop as a result of the interactions of individuals as they compete and cooperate with one another in the evolutionary struggle to survive and reproduce successfully. Gorilla society is arranged according to these different and sometimes conflicting evolutionary goals of the sexes. In seeking to understand why gorilla society exists as it does, Alexander H. Harcourt and Kelly J. Stewart bring together extensive data on wild gorillas, collected over decades by numerous researchers working in diverse habitats across Africa, to illustrate how the social system of gorillas has evolved and endured.
Gorilla Society introduces recent theories explaining primate societies, describes gorilla life history, ecology, and social systems, and explores both sexes’ evolutionary strategies of survival and reproduction. With a focus on the future, Harcourt and Stewart conclude with suggestions for future research and conservation. An exemplary work of socioecology from two of the world’s best known gorilla biologists, Gorilla Society will be a landmark study on a par with the work of George Schaller—a synthesis of existing research on these remarkable animals and the societies in which they live.
Dawn Prince-Hughes is an extraordinary researcher. She does not experiment or measure but instead sits on a wooden bench for hours each day, watching captive gorillas through the enclosure where other visitors average five-second stops. Her patience is rewarded with astounding observations—she watches gorillas make and use tools, bury a dead crow, give birth, and comfort and care for each other.
In Gorillas among Us, Prince-Hughes has compressed years of gorilla observation into a composite diary chronicling the days of one gorilla family. She creates a blended portrait of both peoples—gorilla and human. The entries capture significant observations, which often prompt brief discussions of gorillas’ captivity, diet, communication, aesthetic preferences, social behavior, and play. Several chapters end with thought-provoking meditations on human values. The final section, “More about Gorillas,” provides a concise, accessible introduction to gorilla natural history.
This book will delight and move anyone with an interest in animals, and it also makes a significant contribution to the scarce literature on captive gorillas. Prince-Hughes's observations of tool use by gorillas will interest scientists, and even a casual reader will come away with a new sense of the power of observation. The author hopes to change the way we look at animals in the wild and in captivity, and laments that zoo visitors pause so briefly in front of the gorilla enclosure, rushing on with their assumptions unchanged, without really seeing the gorillas.
By turns opinionated and descriptive, quirky and authoritative, Prince-Hughes draws us into the family life of captive gorillas and into a consideration of our own culture. Readers will learn something new about gorillas and themselves on every page of this poignant story. The book testifies to the potential for interspecies compassion and the love that one person can find in a family of gorillas.
AIDS. Ebola. "Killer microbes." All around us the alarms are going off, warning of the danger of new, deadly diseases. And yet, as Nancy Tomes reminds us in her absorbing book, this is really nothing new. A remarkable work of medical and cultural history, The Gospel of Germs takes us back to the first great "germ panic" in American history, which peaked in the early 1900s, to explore the origins of our modern disease consciousness.
Little more than a hundred years ago, ordinary Americans had no idea that many deadly ailments were the work of microorganisms, let alone that their own behavior spread such diseases. The Gospel of Germs shows how the revolutionary findings of late nineteenth-century bacteriology made their way from the laboratory to the lavatory and kitchen, with public health reformers spreading the word and women taking up the battle on the domestic front. Drawing on a wealth of advice books, patent applications, advertisements, and oral histories, Tomes traces the new awareness of the microbe as it radiated outward from middle-class homes into the world of American business and crossed the lines of class, gender, ethnicity, and race.
Just as we take some of the weapons in this germ war for granted--fixtures as familiar as the white porcelain toilet, the window screen, the refrigerator, and the vacuum cleaner--so we rarely think of the drastic measures deployed against disease in the dangerous old days before antibiotics. But, as Tomes notes, many of the hygiene rules first popularized in those days remain the foundation of infectious disease control today. Her work offers a timely look into the history of our long-standing obsession with germs, its impact on twentieth-century culture and society, and its troubling new relevance to our own lives.
From simple reflexes to complex choreographies of movement, all animal behavior is governed by a nervous system. But what kind of government is it—a dictatorship or a democracy?
Nervous systems consist of circuits of interconnected nerve cells (neurons) that transmit and receive information via electrical signals. Every moment, each neuron adds up stimulating and inhibiting inputs from many other neurons to determine whether to send an electrical signal to its recipients. Some circuits are dominated by a single “dictator” neuron that gathers information from many sources and then issues commands, such as the Mauthner neuron that triggers escape in fish. In other more “democratic” circuits, such as those mediating eye movements in monkeys, the outcome is determined by a tally of “votes” from a large population of neurons. Rhythmic movements like breathing and locomotion are generated by “government programs” within the central nervous system, but modified by a soup of chemicals and by free market–like feedback from sensory neurons. Nervous systems also use sophisticated surveillance of the surrounding environment and keep track of their own decisions in order to avoid internal conflicts. Nervous systems are not restricted to using one set of procedures at a time. They have evolved over long periods to control behaviors in whichever ways are most effective, and they essentially combine multiple forms of government simultaneously.
Engaging and accessible, Governing Behavior explains the variety of structures and strategies that control behavior, while providing an overview of thought-provoking debates and cutting-edge research in neurobiology.
Take four emblematic American scenes: the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park in Orlando; an ecotour of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; the film An Inconvenient Truth. Other than expressing a common interest in the environment, they seem quite dissimilar.
And yet, as Governing the Wild makes clear, these sites are all manifestations of green governmentality, each seeking to define and regulate our understanding, experience, and treatment of nature. Stephanie Rutherford shows how the museum presents a scientized assessment of global nature under threat; the Animal Kingdom demonstrates that a corporation can successfully organize a biopolitical project; the ecotour, operating as a school for a natural aesthetic sensibility, provides a visual grammar of pristine national nature; and the film offers a toehold on a moral way of encountering nature. But one very powerful force unites the disparate “truths” of nature produced through these sites, and that, Rutherford tells us, is their debt to nature’s commodification.
Rutherford’s analysis reveals how each site integrates nature, power, and profit to make the buying and selling of nature critical to our understanding and rescuing of it. The combination, she argues, renders other ways of encountering nature—particularly more radically environmental ways—unthinkable.
This original study considers the effects of language and meaning on the brain. Jens Erik Fenstad—an expert in the fields of recursion theory, nonstandard analysis, and natural language semantics—combines current formal semantics with a geometric structure in order to trace how common nouns, properties, natural kinds, and attractors link with brain dynamics.
By the year 2030, the average life expectancy of women in industrialized countries could reach ninety—exceeding that of men by about ten years. At the present time, postmenopausal women represent more than fifteen percent of the world’s population and this figure is likely to grow.
From an evolutionary perspective, these demographic numbers pose some intriguing questions. Darwinian theory holds that a successful life is measured in terms of reproduction. How is it, then, that a woman’s lifespan can greatly exceed her childbearing and childrearing years? Is this phenomenon simply a byproduct of improved standards of living, or do older women—grandmothers in particular—play a measurable role in increasing their family members’ biological success?
Until now, these questions have not been examined in a thorough and comprehensive manner. Bringing togethertheoretical and empirical work byinternationally recognized scholars in anthropology, psychology, ethnography, and the social sciences, Grandmotherhood explores the evolutionary purpose and possibilities of female post-generative life. Students and scholars of human evolution, anthropology, and even gerontology will look to this volume as a major contribution to the current literature in evolutionary studies.
The stormy life of one of the most colorful and complex characters in early 19th-century medicine
Since the publication of the first edition of Grasses: Bromus to Paspalumin 1972, twenty-two additional taxa of grasses have been discovered in Illinois that are properly placed in this volume. In addition, numerous nomenclatural changes have occurred for plants previously discovered, and many distributional records have been added. New keys have been prepared for each genus where additional species from Illinois are known. For new species, full-page illustrations are provided. This second edition updates the status of Illinois grasses. The book features 263 figures from the first edition plus 21 new figures for this edition by Paul W. Nelson.
Genera of grasses included in this work are Aegilops, Agropyron, Agrostis, Aira, Alopecurus, Anthoxanthum, Avena, Beckmannia, Briza, Bromus, Calamagrostis, Cinna, Dactylis, Deschampsia, Elyhordeum, Elymus, Elytrigia, Festuca, Hierochloe, Holcus, Hordeum, Koeleria, Lolium, Milium, Paspalum, Pennisetum, Phalaris, Phleum, Poa, Puccinellia, Sclerochloa, Secale, Sphenopholis, Torreyochloa, Triticum, and Vulpia.
Since the publication of the first edition of Grasses: Panicum to Danthonia in 1973, twenty additional taxa of grasses have been discovered in Illinois that are properly placed in this volume. In addition, numerous nomenclatural changes have occurred for plants already known from the state, and many distributional records have been added. This second edition updates the status of grasses in Illinois. Paul W. Nelson has provided illustrations for all of the additions.
Because the nature of grass structures is generally so different from that of other flowering plants, a special terminology is applied to them. In his introduction, Robert H. Mohlenbrock cites these terms, with descriptions that make the identification of unknown specimens possible. Mohlenbrock’s division of the grass family into subfamilies and tribes is a major departure from the sequence usually found in most floristic works in North America.
Synonyms that have been applied to species in the northeastern United States are given under each species. A description based primarily on Illinois material covers the more important features of the species. The common names—Paflic Grass, Billion Dollar Grass or Japanese Millett, Thread Love Grass, and Goose Grass—are the ones used locally in the state. The habitat designation and dot maps showing county distribution of each grass are provided only for grasses in Illinois, but the overall range for each species is also given.
A sweeping account of the century of experimentation that confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity, bringing to life the science and scientists at the origins of relativity, the development of radio telescopes, the discovery of black holes and quasars, and the still unresolved place of gravity in quantum theory.
Albert Einstein did nothing of note on May 29, 1919, yet that is when he became immortal. On that day, astronomer Arthur Eddington and his team observed a solar eclipse and found something extraordinary: gravity bends light, just as Einstein predicted. The finding confirmed the theory of general relativity, fundamentally changing our understanding of space and time.
A century later, another group of astronomers is performing a similar experiment on a much larger scale. The Event Horizon Telescope, a globe-spanning array of radio dishes, is examining space surrounding Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. As Ron Cowen recounts, the foremost goal of the experiment is to determine whether Einstein was right on the details. Gravity lies at the heart of what we don’t know about quantum mechanics, but tantalizing possibilities for deeper insight are offered by black holes. By observing starlight wrapping around Sagittarius A*, the telescope will not only provide the first direct view of an event horizon—a black hole’s point of no return—but will also enable scientists to test Einstein’s theory under the most extreme conditions.
Gravity’s Century shows how we got from the pivotal observations of the 1919 eclipse to the Event Horizon Telescope, and what is at stake today. Breaking down the physics in clear and approachable language, Cowen makes vivid how the quest to understand gravity is really the quest to comprehend the universe.
In theory, at least, gravitational waves do exist. We are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation, which is generated when stars explode or collide and a portion of their mass becomes energy that ripples out like a disturbance on the surface of a serene pond. But unfortunately no gravitational wave has ever been directly detected even though the search has lasted more than forty years.
As the leading chronicler of the search for gravitational waves, Harry Collins has been right there with the scientists since the start. The result of his unprecedented access to the front lines of physical science is Gravity’s Ghost, a thrilling chronicle of high-stakes research and cutting-edge discovery. Here, Collins reveals that scientific discovery and nondiscovery can turn on scientific traditions and rivalries, that ideal statistical analysis rests on impossible procedures and unattainable knowledge, and that fact in one place is baseless assumption in another. He also argues that sciences like gravitational wave detection, in exemplifying how the intractable is to be handled, can offer scientific leadership a moral beacon for the twenty-first century. In the end, Gravity’s Ghost shows that discoveries are the denouements of dramatic scientific mysteries.
Winner, 2022 Outstanding Academic Title, CHOICE Awards
Health practitioners working in gray zones, or between official and unofficial medicines, played a fundamental role in shaping Latin America from the colonial period onward. The Gray Zones of Medicine offers a human, relatable, complex examination of the history of health and healing in Latin America across five centuries. Contributors uncover how biographical narratives of individual actors—outside those of hegemonic biomedical knowledge, careers of successful doctors, public health initiatives, and research and medical institutions—can provide a unique window into larger social, cultural, political, and economic historical changes and continuities in the region. They reveal the power of such stories to illuminate intricacies and resilient features of the history of health and disease, and they demonstrate the importance of escaping analytical constraints posed by binary frameworks of legality/illegality, learned/popular, and orthodoxy/heterodoxy when writing about the past. Through an accessible and story-like format, this book unlocks the potential of historical narratives of healings to understand and give nuance to processes too frequently articulated through intellectual medical histories or the lenses of empires, nation-states, and their institutions.
Established by the USDA Forest Service in 1993, the Great Basin Ecosystem Management Project for Restoring and Maintaining Sustainable Riparian Ecosystems is a large-scale research study that uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the effects of climate change and human disturbance on riparian areas. Structured as a collaborative effort between management and research, the project focuses on understanding the geomorphic, hydrologic, and biotic processes that underlie riparian structure and function and the interrelated responses of those processes to disturbances, both natural and anthropogenic.
Great Basin Riparian Ecosystems, edited by Jeanne C. Chambers and Jerry R. Miller, presents the approach used by the researchers to study and understand riparian areas in the Great Basin region. It summarizes the current state of knowledge about those areas and provides insights into the use of the information generated by the project for the restor-ation and management of riparian ecosystems. Because semi-arid ecosystems like the Great Basin are highly sensitive to climate change, the study considered how key processes are affected by past and present climate. Great Basin Riparian Ecosystems also examines the processes over a continuum of temporal and spatial scales.
Great Basin Riparian Ecosystems addresses restoration over a variety of scales and integrates work from multiple disciplines, including riparian ecology, paleoecology, geomorphology, and hydrology. While the focus is on the Great Basin, the general approach is widely applicable, as it describes a promising new strategy for developing restoration and management plans, one based on sound principles derived from attention to natural systems.
For hundreds of years, the New England cod fishery was one of the most productive in the world, with higher average annual landings than any comparable ocean area. But in the late 1980s, fish catches dropped precipitously, as the cod, flounder, and other species that had long dominated the region seemed to lose their ability to recover from the massive annual harvests. Even today, with fishing sharply restricted, populations have not recovered.
Largely overlooked in this disaster is the intriguing human and scientific puzzle that lies at its heart: an anguished, seemingly inexplicable conflict between government scientists and fishermen over how fish populations are assessed, which has led to bitter disputes and has crippled efforts to agree on catch restrictions. In The Great Gulf, author David Dobbs offers a fascinating and compelling look at both sides of the conflict.
With great immediacy, he describes the history of the fisheries science in this most studied of oceans, and takes the reader on a series of forays over the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank on both fishing boats and research vessels. He introduces us to the challenges facing John Galbraith, Linda Despres, and Jay Burnett, passionate and dedicated scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service who spend countless hours working to determine how many fish there really are, and to the dilemma of Dave Goethel, a whipsmart, conscientious fisherman with 20 years's experience who struggles to understand the complex world he works in while maintaining his livelihood in an age of increasing regulation.
Dobbs paints the New England fishery problem in its full human and natural complexity, vividly portraying the vitality of an uncontrollable, ultimately unknowable sea and its strange, frightening, and beautiful creatures on the one hand, and on the other, the smart, irrepressible, unpredictable people who work there with great joy and humor, refusing to surrender to the many reasons for despair or cynicism. For anyone who read Cod or The Perfect Storm, this book offers the next chapter of the story -- how today's fishers and fisheries scientists are grappling with the collapse of this fishery and trying to chart, amid uncertain waters, a course towards its restoration.
To maintain thriving, sustainable fisheries in the Laurentian Great Lakes, an understanding of the numerous and complex ecological, societal, economic, management, and policy issues surrounding them is critical. This incisive study provides a collaborative, interjurisdictional, and multi-use perspective that is shaped by the United states and Canada together as part of their shared governance of these waters. This book offers an informed look at the Great Lakes fisheries and their ecosystems, as the contributors examine both the threats they have faced and the valuable opportunities they provide for basin citizens and industries. Divided into four sections—the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes Fisheries, Fisheries case studies, and outlook for the Future—this is a valuable and up-to-date tool for students, researchers, policymakers, and managers alike.
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