Vitamins and Hormones serial highlights new advances in the field with this new volume presenting interesting chapters. Each chapter is written by an international board of authors.

Plants provide the food, shelter, medicines, and biomass that underlie sustainable life. One of the earliest and often overlooked uses of plants is the production of smoke, dating to the time of early hominid species. Plant-derived smoke has had an enormous socio-economic impact throughout human history, being burned for medicinal and recreational purposes, magico-religious ceremonies, pest control, food preservation, and flavoring, perfumes, and incense. In ten illustrated chapters, this global compendium documents and describes approximately 2,000 global uses for over 1,400 plant species. The Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke is accessibly written and provides a wealth of information not only on human uses, but also on conservation issues and the role of smoke, fire, and heat in promoting seed germination in biodiversity hot spots. Divided into nine main categories of use, the compendium lists plant-derived smoke's the medicinal, historical, ceremonial, ritual and recreational uses. Plant use in the production of incense and to preserve and flavor foods and beverages is also included. Each entry includes full binomial names and family, an identification of the person who named the plant, as well as numerous references to and other scholarly texts. Of particular interest will be plants such as Tobacco (Nicotiana tabaccum), Boswellia spp (frankincense), and Datura stramonium (smoked as a treatment for asthma all over the world), all of which are described in great detail. In addition, this is one of the first ethnobotanical books to include a section on plant conservation. It addresses issues of over-harvest and invasiveness, the two primary conservation concerns with human-exploited species.

Neural Development and Disease, Volume 142 in the Current Topics in Developmental Biology series highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters by one or more members of an international board of authors. Sections in this new release cover The role of primary cilia in neural development and disease, Mechanisms of axon guidance receptor regulation and signaling, Synaptic recognition molecules in development and disease, The regulation of cortical neurogenesis, Axon guidance in the developing spinal cord, The role of astrocytes in synapse formation and maturation, Development of motor circuits, Molecular mechanisms that mediate dendrite morphogenesis, and more.

Advances in CRISPR/Cas and related technologies, Volume 179, the latest release in this ongoing series, deals with a wide variety of research topics related to recent advancement in the genome editing techniques. Associated chapters in this new release include Challenges for Therapeutic application of CRISPR Cas techniques, Mitochondrial DNA modification by CRISPR Cas System: Challenges and future direction, Trends in CRISPR Cas technology application in cancer, Modified CRISPR-Cas for next generation application, Application of CRISPR Cas in Synthetic Biology: Challenges and Scopes, History of CRISPR Cas system from bacterial Adaptive Immune System to research application, and more.

Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy IV, Volume 162, a new volume in the Methods in Cell Biology series, continues the legacy of this premier serial with quality chapters authored by leaders in the field. Besides the detailed description of protocols for CLEM technologies including time-resolution, Super resolution LM and Volume EM, new chapters cover Workflow (dis)-advantages/spiderweb, Serial section LM + EM, Platinum clusters as CLEM probes, Correlative Light Electron Microscopy with a transition metal complex as a single probe, SEM-TEM-SIMS, HPF-CLEM, A new workflow for high-throughput screening of mitotic mammalian cells for electron microscopy using classic histological dyes, and more.

Wild Germplasm for Genetic Improvement in Crop Plants addresses the need for an integrated reference on a wide variety of crop plants, facilitating comparison and contrast, as well as providing relevant relationships for future research and development. The book presents the genetic and natural history value of wild relatives, covers what wild relatives exist, explores the existing knowledge regarding specific relatives and the research surrounding them and identifies knowledge gaps. As understanding the role of crop wild relatives in plant breeding expands the genetic pool for abiotic and biotic stress resistance, this is an ideal reference on this important topic.

Pore Forming Toxins, Volume 649 in the Methods in Enzymology series continues the legacy of this premier serial with quality chapters authored by field leaders. Chapters in this new release include X-ray crystallography shines a light on pore-forming toxins, Giant unilamellar vesicles for studying activity of pore forming proteins, Combined applications of fluorescence spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations in studies of Diphtheria Toxin translocation domain, Biophysical approaches to study actinoporin-lipid interactions, Molecular basis for activation of Actinoporins by lipids, Engineered ClyA for detection of biological molecules, Pore-forming Toxins for the Size-Discrimination of Polymers and Biopolymers: Towards Biomolecules Sequencing, and much more.

States and Processes for Mental Health: Advancing Psychotherapy Effectiveness presents a novel mechanism of action for psychotherapy, revealing how psychotherapy actually works by advancing key states and processes characterizing mental health. This new understanding is presented in three sections. The first section identifies 7 states and processes for mental health. The second section examines 15 major forms of psychotherapy and non-specific factors with a comprehensive overview of each, followed by an empirical and theoretical proof of concept showing how they do indeed enhance the states and processes for mental health. In the third section, the author explores conceptual and practical problems in the current approach to psychotherapy, whereby discrete forms of psychotherapy are oriented to remedying psychopathology. Dr. Bowins then offers a new trans-therapy approach applying general strategies and those derived from existing forms of psychotherapy, to advance each of the states and processes characterizing mental health.