Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Life Sciences - Evolution

A short biography of a creature that changed science.

There's a buzz in the air, the sound of a billion wings vibrating to the tune of scientific success. For generations, the fruit fly has been defining biology's major landmarks. From genetics to development, behavior to aging, and evolution to the origin of the species, it has been a key and, outside academic circles, an unaccredited player in some of the twentieth century's greatest biological discoveries. In fact, everything from gene therapy to cloning and the Human Genome Project is built on the foundation of...

Charles Darwin's Origin of Species is one of the most widely cited books in modern science. Yet tackling this classic can be daunting for students and general readers alike because of Darwin's Victorian prose and the complexity and scope of his ideas. The "Origin" Then and Now is a unique guide to Darwin's masterwork, making it accessible to a much wider audience by deconstructing and reorganizing the Origin in a way that allows for a clear explanation of its key concepts. The Origin is examined within the historical context in which it was written, and modern...

The combined anatomical materials provided in this book point out that modern humans have fewer head, neck, pectoral and upper limb muscles than most other living primates, but are consistent with the proposal that facial and vocal communication and specialized thumb movements have probably played an important role in recent human evolution. This book will be of interest to primatologists, comparative anatomists, functional morphologists, zoologists, physical anthropologists, and systematicians, as well as to medical students, physicians and researchers interested in understanding the...

In this short but wide-ranging book, philosopher Ronald de Sousa looks at the twin set of issues surrounding the power of natural selection to mimic rational design, and rational thinking as itself a product of natural selection.

While we commonly deem ourselves superior to other species, the logic of natural selection should not lead us to expect that nature does everything for the best. Similarly, rational action does not always promote the...

Spanning evolutionary science from its inception to its latest findings, from discoveries and data to philosophy and history, this book is the most complete, authoritative, and inviting one-volume introduction to evolutionary biology available. Clear, informative, and comprehensive in scope, Evolution opens with a series of major essays dealing with the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology, with major empirical and theoretical questions in the science, from speciation to adaptation, from paleontology to evolutionary development (evo devo), and concluding with essays on the...

All animals and plants form associations with hundreds or thousands of different beneficial microorganisms. These symbiotic microbes play an important role in the development, adaptation, health and evolution of their hosts. This book brings together a group of diverse biologists to discuss microbial interactions with multicellular life forms including insects, corals, plants, and mammals, including humans. The various mechanisms by which microorganisms benefit their hosts are discussed, including providing essential nutrients, preventing disease, inducing the immune system, and combating...