Diversity within and among living organisms is both a biological impera tive and a biological conundrum. Phenotypic and genotypic diversity is the critical currency ofecological interactions and the evolution of life. Thus, it is not unexpected to find vast phytochemical diversity among plants. However, among the most compelling questions which arise among those interested in ecological phytochemistry is the extent, nature, and reasons for the diversity of chemieals in plants. The idea that natural products (secondary metabolites) are accidents of metabolism and have no biological function is...

During the last twenty years the lifestyle of a large portion of the inhabitants of our planet has changed dramatically. This would never have been possible without the massive use of electronic and photonic technology, telecommuni cations, and computers. These disciplines are designed to code, transmit, detect, decode, and process signals and related information, and can be broadly addressed as information science and technology. In the sophisticated society in which we live and operate, this science is diffused transversely and plays a major role in almost every human activity. Information...

The current edition of Video Microscopy has been totally revised to reflect the advances in the tools for electronic imaging, processing, recording, and analysis, as well as applications that are being made in video microscopy and related modes of electronic imaging. The less spiral organization of the revised edition reflects an audience expected to be more experi- enced in video and computer image processing than in the earlier days when coupling of video equipment and computers to the light microscope was still considered to be a novelty. Nevertheless, we have emphasi2;ed the how-tos, as...

With all the enormous resources that are invested in medicine, it is sometimes a mystery why there is so much sickness still in evidence. Our life span, though higher than at any time in history, has now leveled off and has not significantly increased in the last two generations. There is a one-third increase in long-term illness in the last 20 years and a 44% increase in cancer incidence, which are not related to demographic issues. In some modern countries, the level of morbidity (defined as days off work because of sickness) has increased by two thirds in this time. Despite $1 trillion...

The completion of this volume would not have been possible without the generous and dedicated help of numerous people. The book had its genesis in a conference held at Cornell University in the fall of 1990 that was organized by Dudley Poston, Paul Eberts, and Michael Hannan, all professors at the time at Cornell. With the very generous financial assistance of David Call, then the dean of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Poston, Eberts, and Hannan put together a two-day conference oflectures and papers by human ecologists from Cornell University and elsewhere. The...

Inheritance and Wealth in America is a superb collection of original essays, written in nontechnical language by experts in sociology, economics, anthropology, history, law, and other disciplines. Notable chapters provide - an outstanding interpretative history of inheritance in American legal thought - a critical review of the literature on the economics of inheritance at the household and societal levels - a superb history of Federal taxation of wealth transfers, and - a sociological examination of inheritance and its role in class reproduction and stratification. This...

History has many voices. In the words of Russian fur merchant Grigorii Shelikhov, who led the conquest of Kodiak Island, Alaska, in 1784 and sought to subjugate its indigenous Qikertarmiut population, "the arrival of the Russians in their land had brought them innumerable advantages, security, and prosperity" (Shelikhov 1981:121). Arsenti Aminak, a Qiker- tarmiut elder in 1851, held a different view. He recalled a Russian ship that visited the island several years before Shelikhov as a "strange monster, never seen before, which we feared and whose stench made us sick. " In 1784, the dead of...

The introduction of the concept of managed care into mental and physical health care appears to be a juggernaut of unparalleled impact. The two extremes of thought about this impact are (I) that managed care is a villainous foe to be resisted in order to bring back the earlier halcyon years of independence in practice decisions with greater reimbursement for psychologists' services or (2) that managed care is a laudatory attempt to restrain health care costs that are out of control and spiraling upward by rooting out mismanagement and reversing financial incentives to provide unnecessary...

Koval provides an interdisciplinary forum for the diverse studies involved in the stress biology of eukaryotic cells. Readers gain access to the most recent information available for eukaryotic systems ranging from plants to humans. For the student, this format introduces a source of potentially unifying concepts and hypotheses. Scientists will find a unique opportunity to conveniently examine the similarities among inducible responses initiated by a variety of agents.

Endophytic fungi belonging to the Balansieae tribe were first hypothesized to cause poor livestock performance in 1977 and, in 1980, the association was validated. The fungi were extensively studied and classified according to morphology, their life cycles exam ined to determine methods to eliminate the fungi in grasses, and practical methods devel oped for livestock producers to eliminate endophyte-infected plants from pastures and establish endophyte-free plants. Hindsight illustrates how primitive was our understanding of the associations between endophyte, grass plant, and animal. The...