This volume collects essays from prominent intellectuals and public figures based on talks given at the 2015 Darwin College Lectures on the theme of 'development'. The writers are world-renowned experts in such diverse fields as architecture, astronomy, biology, climate science, economy, psychology, sports and technology. Development includes contributions from developmental biologist and Nobel laureate John B. Gurdon, Olympic gold medallist Katherine Grainger, astronomer and cosmologist Richard Ellis, developmental psychologist Bruce Hood, former Met Office Chief Scientist Julia Slingo, architect Michael Pawlyn, development economist Ha-Joon Chang and serial entrepreneur Hermann Hauser. While their perspectives and interpretations of development vary widely, their essays are linked by a common desire to describe and understand how things change, usually in the direction of ever-increasing complexity. Written with the lay reader in mind, this interdisciplinary book is a must-read for anybody interested in the mechanisms underlying the changes we see in the world around us.

This book addresses the biological effects of the reasonably large number of classes of compounds that have been recognized as endocrine disrupters. These compounds have been found to persist as pollutants in the environment, and have been blamed for causing developmental disorders and/or fertility problems in fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and possibly humans. This book presents the relevant fundamentals of the endocrine systems of animals and humans, the toxicology, developmental toxicology, ecology, and risk assessment methods, and lays out the current state of understanding for the whole field, organized by the classes of compounds that have been identified as endocrine disrupters.

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work on the language capabilities of the bonobo Kanzi has intrigued the world because of its far-reaching implications for understanding the evolution of the human language. This book takes the reader behind the scenes of the filmed language tests. It argues that while the tests prove that Kanzi has language, the even more remarkable manner in which he originally acquired it - spontaneously, in a culture shared with humans - calls for a re-thinking of language, emphasizing its primal cultural dimensions.

West-Eberhard is widely recognized as one of the most incisive thinkers in evolutionary biology. This book assesses all the evidence for our current understanding of the role of changes in body plan and development for the process of speciation. The process of evolution is systematically reassessed to integrate the insights coming from developmental genetics. Every serious student of evolution, and a substantial share of developmental biologists and geneticists, will need to take note of this contribution. The timing is clearly ripe for the synthesis that this work will help bring about.

A revelatory tale of how the human brain develops, from conception to birth and beyond By the time a baby is born, its brain is equipped with billions of intricately crafted neurons wired together through trillions of interconnections to form a compact and breathtakingly efficient supercomputer. Zero to Birth takes you on an extraordinary journey to the very edge of creation, from the moment of an egg's fertilization through each step of a human brain's development in the womb-and even a little beyond. As pioneering experimental neurobiologist W. A. Harris guides you through the process of how the brain is built, he takes up the biggest questions that scientists have asked about the developing brain, describing many of the thrilling discoveries that were foundational to our current understanding. He weaves in a remarkable evolutionary story that begins billions of years ago in the Proterozoic eon, when multicellular animals first emerged from single-cell organisms, and reveals how the growth of a fetal brain over nine months reflects the brain's evolution through the ages. Our brains have much in common with those of other animals, and Harris offers an illuminating look at how comparative animal studies have been crucial to understanding what makes a human brain human. An unforgettable chronicle of one of nature's greatest achievements, Zero to Birth describes how the brain's incredible feat of orchestrated growth ensures that every brain is unique, and how breakthroughs at the frontiers of science are helping us to decode many traits that only reveal themselves later in life.

Transcription factors are essential mediators of the genetic programs that control development and physiology. This exciting book presents current knowledge of transcription factors from two viewpoints. First, the basic science of transcriptional regulation is discussed. Second, inherited human diseases attributable to mutations in DNA sequences encoding transcription factors or their cognate binding sites are described. Readers are also introduced to the involvement of transcription factors in somatic cell genetic disease (cancer) and epigenetic disease (teratogenesis).

Leading gender and science scholar Sarah S. Richardson charts the untold history of the idea that a woman's health and behavior during pregnancy can have long-term effects on her descendants' health and welfare. The idea that a woman may leave a biological trace on her gestating offspring has long been a commonplace folk intuition and a matter of scientific intrigue, but the form of that idea has changed dramatically over time. Beginning with the advent of modern genetics at the turn of the twentieth century, biomedical scientists dismissed any notion that a mother-except in cases of extreme deprivation or injury-could alter her offspring's traits. Consensus asserted that a child's fate was set by a combination of its genes and post-birth upbringing. Over the last fifty years, however, this consensus was dismantled, and today, research on the intrauterine environment and its effects on the fetus is emerging as a robust program of study in medicine, public health, psychology, evolutionary biology, and genomics. Collectively, these sciences argue that a woman's experiences, behaviors, and physiology can have life-altering effects on offspring development. Tracing a genealogy of ideas about heredity and maternal-fetal effects, this book offers a critical analysis of conceptual and ethical issues-in particular, the staggering implications for maternal well-being and reproductive autonomy-provoked by the striking rise of epigenetics and fetal origins science in postgenomic biology today.

Symbiotic interactions are those relationships between organisms that permit some species to overcome their physiological limitations by exploiting the capacities of others. This volume presents a modern synthesis of scientific knowledge of symbiosis, from the molecular mechanisms underlying its function to the ecological and evolutionary impact of such associations. With an emphasis on basic principles, the book takes the novel approach that symbiosis is a vehicle by which many organisms have gained access to complex metabolic capabilities. Examples are offered to illustrate this concept, including photosynthetic algae in corals, nitrogen-fixing bacteria in plant roots, and cellulose-degrading micro-organisms in herbivorous mammals. The traditional view of symbioses as mutually beneficial relationships is explicitly abandoned. The book draws together the wide-ranging literature on the topic, providing an integrated introduction that is accessible to undergraduates. The work serves as an excellent text for courses in symbiosis, and as a supplementary resource for students in ecology, evolutionary biology, and parasitology. As an up-to-date review of the field, the book will also be valued by graduate students and researchers.

This book offers the first comprehensive summary of life-history evolution, a field that holds a central position in modern ecology and evolutionary biology. Structured for teaching, with problem sets at the end of each chapter, the contents will interest all biologists wishing to understand the evolution of the life cycle and the causes of phenotypic variation in fitness.

The book focuses on the lymphatic vascular system from a developmental biologist's point of view. It provides an overview on the many recent advances in understanding the development of lymphatic vessels, using advanced genetic models in conjunction with state of the art imaging. For each chapter a synopsis is provided, highlighting the main points in a concise manner. The book is intended for professors and researchers in vascular biology, angiogenesis research and developmental biology. It furthermore offers an excellent basis for entry level researchers and newcomers to this field, as well as for teachers, graduate students, advanced science and medical students.

All being done, we went to Mrs Shipmans, who is a great butter-woman; and I did see there the most of milke and cream, and the cleanest, that I ever saw in my life (29 May 1661). Among others, Sir Wm. Petty did tell me that in good earnest, he hath in his will left such parts of his estate to him that could invent such and such things -as among others, that could discover truly the way of milk coming into the breasts of a woman ... (22 March 1665). My wife tells me that she hears that my poor aunt James hath had her breast cut off here in tow- her breast having long been out of order (5 May 1665). From the Diary of Samuel Pepys, published as The Shorter Pepys (edited by R. Latham), Penguin Books (1987) The long-standing ultimate importance of research on the mammary gland is illustrated by the importance attached to cows' milk for human consumption, to human lactation and to breast cancer by Samuel Pepys and his contemporaries in the middle of the 17th century. Research has tended to develop in isolation in these three areas of continuing contemporary importance largely because in most countries, the underlying science of agricultural productivity is funded separately from the underlying science of human health and welfare.

Developmental biology is seemingly well understood, with development widely accepted as being a series of programmed changes through which an egg turns into an adult organism, or a seed matures into a plant. However, the picture is much more complex than that: is it all genetically controlled or does environment have an influence? Is the final adult stage the target of development and everything else just a build-up to that point? Are developmental strategies the same in plants as in animals? How do we consider development in single-celled organisms? In this concise, engaging volume, Alessandro Minelli, a leading developmental biologist, addresses these key questions. Using familiar examples and easy-to-follow arguments, he offers fresh alternatives to a number of preconceptions and stereotypes, awakening the reader to the disparity of developmental phenomena across all main branches of the tree of life.

The vertebrate retina has a form that is closely and clearly linked to its func tion. Though its fundamental cellular architecture is conserved across verte brates, the retinas of individual species show variations that are also of clear and direct functional utility. Its accessibility, readily identifiable neuronal types, and specialized neuronal connectivity and morphology have made it a model system for researchers interested in the general questions of the genet ic, molecular, and developmental control of cell type and shape. Thus, the questions asked of the retina span virtually every domain of neuroscientific inquiry-molecular, genetic, developmental, behavioral, and evolutionary. Nowhere have the interactions of these levels of analysis been more apparent and borne more fruit than in the last several years of study of the develop ment of the vertebrate retina. Fields of investigation have a natural evolution, rdoving through periods of initial excitement, of framing of questions and controversy, to periods of synthesis and restatement of questions. The study of the development of the vertebrate retina appeared to us to have reached such a point of synthesis. Descriptive questions of how neurons are generated and deployed, and ques tions of mechanism about the factors that control the retinal neuron's type and distribution and the conformation of its processes have been posed, and in good part answered. Moreover, the integration of cellular accounts of development with genetic, molecular, and whole-eye and behavioral accounts has begun."

Would you ask a honeybee to point at a screen and recognise a facial expression? Or ask an elephant to climb a tree? While humans and non-human species may inhabit the same world, it's likely that our perceptual worlds differ significantly. Emphasising Uexkull's concept of 'umwelt', this volume offers practical advice on how animal cognition can be successfully tested while avoiding anthropomorphic conclusions. The chapters describe the capabilities of a range of animals - from ants, to lizards to chimpanzees - revealing how to successfully investigate animal cognition across a variety of taxa. The book features contributions from leading cognition researchers, each offering a series of examples and practical tips drawn from their own experience. Together, the authors synthesise information on current field and laboratory methods, providing researchers and graduate students with methodological advice on how to formulate research questions, design experiments and adapt studies to different taxa.

The architecture of an embryo results from complex molecular interactions in time and space. The secrets of these processes are yielding quickly to genetic and cellular dissection in flies, mice, and other species, and finding application to human embryology. This remarkable volume presents the most current and authoritative survey of the induction of axes, control of cell migration, and the development of nervous system, limbs, wings, and other organs, seen through the perspective of sixty-one renowned investigators. Completed by a summary that charts the future of this dynamic field, this is a volume no laboratory interested in genes and development can afford to be without.

Beyond Biofatalism is a lively and penetrating response to the idea that evolutionary psychology reveals human beings to be incapable of building a more inclusive, cooperative, and egalitarian society. Considering the pressures of climate change, unsustainable population growth, increasing income inequality, and religious extremism, this attitude promises to stifle the creative action we require before we even try to meet these threats. Beyond Biofatalism provides the perspective we need to understand that better societies are not only possible but actively enabled by human nature. Gillian Barker appreciates the methods and findings of evolutionary psychologists, but she considers their work against a broader background to show human nature is surprisingly open to social change. Like other organisms, we possess an active plasticity that allows us to respond dramatically to certain kinds of environmental variation, and we engage in niche construction, modifying our environment to affect others and ourselves. Barker uses related research in social psychology, developmental biology, ecology, and economics to reinforce this view of evolved human nature, and philosophical exploration to reveal its broader implications. The result is an encouraging foundation on which to build better approaches to social, political, and other institutional changes that could enhance our well-being and chances for survival.

Signaling by diffusible morphogens, such as Hedgehog, Wingless, TGF-ss, and various growth factors, is essential during embryogenesis. The establishment of concentration gradients of these morphogens is vital for developmental patterning, ensuring that distinct differentiated cell types appear in the right place and at the right time in forming tissues.
Written and edited by experts in the field, this collection from Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology explores how morphogen gradients are generated and interpreted during development. The contributors examine the regulation of morphogen synthesis, trafficking, and diffusion, as well as the complex webs of signaling mechanisms and transcriptional responses in recipient cells --whose fates are dictated by these morphogens. Including discussion of the roles of morphogen gradients in various tissues in organisms from yeast to humans, the volume is a vital reference for developmental biologists and cell biologists wishing to know how cell fate is determined during embryogenesis

Franklin M. Harold's On Life reveals what science can tell us about the living world. All creatures, from bacteria and redwoods to garden snails and humans, belong to a single biochemical family. We all operate by the same principles and are all made up of cells, either one or many. We flaunt capacities that far exceed those of inanimate matter, yet we stand squarely within the material world. So what is life, anyway? How do living things function, and how did they come into existence? Questions like these have baffled philosophers and scientists since antiquity, but over the past half-century answers have begun to emerge. Offering an inside look, Franklin M. Harold makes life accessible to readers interested in the biological big picture. The book traces how living things operate, focusing on the interplay of biology with physics and chemistry. He asserts that biology stands apart from the physical sciences because life revolves around organization- that is, purposeful order. On Life aims to make life intelligible by giving readers an understanding of the biological landscape; it sketches the principles as biologists presently understand them and highlights major unresolved issues. What emerges is a biology bracketed by two stubborn mysteries: the nature of the mind and the origin of life. This portrait of biology is comprehensible but inescapably complex, internally consistent, and buttressed by a wealth of factual knowledge.

A provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal society In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health-and in ways that matter for educational and economic success in our current society. In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces readers to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society. Reclaiming genetic science from the legacy of eugenics, this groundbreaking book offers a bold new vision of society where everyone thrives, regardless of how one fares in the genetic lottery.

Intended for undergraduate and graduate courses in plant development, this book explains how the cells of a plant acquire and maintain their specific fates. Plant development is a continuous process occurring throughout the life cycle, with similar regulatory mechanisms acting at different stages and in different parts of the plant. Rather than focussing on the life cycle, the book is structured around these underlying mechanisms, using case studies to provide students with a framework to understand the many factors, both environmental and endogenous, that combine to regulate development and generate the enormous diversity of plant forms.
New approach to the study of plant development and a refreshing look at this fast-moving area.
Authors focus their discussion on the basic mechanisms which underpin plant development, tackling the fundamental question of how a single cell becomes a complex flowering plant from a cellular perspective.
An up-to-date, modern text in plant development for advanced level undergraduates and postgraduates in plant science.
Thought-provoking treatment of a difficult subject, the text will satisfy the needs of advanced level undergraduates and postgraduates in plant science.
Experimental case studies throughout.
The artwork from the book is available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/leyser

Thoroughly updated, streamlined, and enhanced with pedagogical features, the twelfth edition of Barresi and Gilbert's Developmental Biology engages students and empowers instructors to effectively teach both the stable principles and the newest front-page research of this vast, complex, and multi-disciplinary field. This much loved, well-illustrated, and remarkably well written textbook invigorates the classical insights of embryology with cutting edge material, and makes the most complex topics understandable to a new generation of students. Designed with the undergraduate student in mind, this new, streamlined edition now contains studies of plant development, expanded coverage of regeneration, over a hundred new and revised illustrations, and deeply integrated active learning resources that build on the text's enthusiasm and accuracy. This is a text designed to make students become excited about how animals and plants develop their complex bodies from simple origins. The new edition makes it easier to customize one's developmental biology course to the needs and interests of today's students, integrating the printed book with electronic interviews, videos, and tutorials. Michael J. F. Barresi brings his creativity and expertise as a teacher and as an artist of computer-mediated learning to the book, allowing the professor to use both standard and alternative ways of teaching animal and plant development.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a high production volume endocrine-disrupting chemical present in numerous consumer products. Extensive use of BPA has led to wide-spread contamination in the air, soil, and water, leading to ubiquitous human exposure. Research into BPA has grown exponentially over the past ten years, with numerous modes of action being identified that impact human health and disease development. While BPA has estrogenic effects, emerging literature has identified several non-receptor mediated modes of action, such as epigenetic reprogramming, that can affect the long-term health of the population. This book highlights the multiple modes of action BPA can use to reprogram cells genetically and metabolically. By compiling critical studies in BPA and outlining the connections and disparities in the literature to build a broader understanding of this complex endocrine-disrupting chemical and its impact on the environment and human health, this book is an ideal resource for postgraduates and researchers in a range of disciplines from toxicology to epigenetics and cancer epidemiology.

From a single cell - a fertilized egg - comes an elephant, a fly, or a human. How does this astonishing feat happen? How does the egg 'know' what to become? How does it divide into the different cells, the separate tissues, the brain, the fingernail - every tiniest detail of the growing foetus? These are the questions that the field of developmental biology seeks to answer. It is an area that is closely linked to genetics, evolution, and molecular biology. The processes are deeply rooted in evolutionary history; the information is held in genes whose vital timings in switching on and off is orchestrated by a host of proteins expressed by other genes. Timing is of the essence. Here, the distinguished developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert gives a concise account of what we now know about development, discussing the first vital steps of growth, the patterning created by Hox genes and the development of form, embryonic stem cells, the timing of gene expression and its management, chemical signalling, and growth. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Noted biologist and author John Tyler Bonner has experimented with cellular slime molds for more than sixty years, and he has done more than anyone else to raise these peculiar collections of amoebae from a minor biological curiosity to a major model organism--one that is widely studied for clues to the development and evolution of all living things. Now, five decades after he published his first pioneering book on cellular slime molds, Bonner steps back from the proliferating and increasingly specialized knowledge about the organism to provide a broad, nontechnical picture of its whole biology, including its evolution, sociobiology, ecology, behavior, and development. "The Social Amoebae" draws the big lessons from decades of research, and shows how slime molds fit into and illuminate biology as a whole.

Slime molds are very different from other organisms; they feed as individual amoebae before coming together to form a multicellular organism that has a remarkable ability to move and orient itself in its environment. Furthermore, these social amoebae display a sophisticated division of labor; within each organism, some cells form the stalk and others become the spores that will seed the next generation. In "The Social Amoebae," Bonner examines all these parts together, giving a balanced, concise, and clear overview of slime mold biology, from molecules to cells to multicells, as he advances some unconventional and unexpected insights.