What can economics, the natural and the social sciences learn from each other in better understanding complex forms of change? How far can models, methodologies or metaphors that have been used successfully in one disciplinary field be 'exported' and meaningfully applied to other fields? Distinguished researchers from across the globe assess, in a rare example of successful cross-disciplinary engagement, the explanatory power of chaos theory, new evolutionary theory, path dependency, neo-institutional economics, multiple modernities and historical institutionalism. The book provides an exciting panorama of state of the art thinking and new avenues to combining the power of various traditions of thought.

This book challenges the assumption that morphological data are inherently unsuitable for phylogeny reconstruction, argues that both molecular and morphological phylogenies should play a major role in systematics, and provides the most comprehensive review of the comparative anatomy, homologies and evolution of the head, neck, pectoral and upper limb muscles of primates. Chapters 1 and 2 provide an introduction to the main aims and methodology of the book. Chapters 3 and 4 and Appendices I and II present the data obtained from dissections of the head, neck, pectoral and upper limb muscles of representative members of all the major primate groups including modern humans, and compare these data with the information available in the literature. Appendices I and II provide detailed textual (attachments, innervation, function, variations and synonyms) and visual (high quality photographs) information about each muscle for the primate taxa included in the cladistic study of Chapter 3, thus providing the first comprehensive and up to date overview of the comparative anatomy of the head, neck, pectoral and upper limb muscles of primates. The most parsimonious tree obtained from the cladistic analysis of 166 head, neck, pectoral and upper limb muscle characters in 18 primate genera, and in representatives of the Scandentia, Dermoptera and Rodentia, is fully congruent with the evolutionary molecular tree of Primates, thus supporting the idea that muscle characters are particularly useful to infer phylogenies. 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 origin, evolution, homology and variations of the muscles of modern humans. Contains 132 color plates.

Since its inception, paleoanthropology has been closely wedded to the idea that big-game hunting by our hominin ancestors arose, first and foremost, as a means for acquiring energy and vital nutrients. This assumption has rarely been questioned, and seems intuitively obvious-meat is a nutrient-rich food with the ideal array of amino acids, and big animals provide meat in large, convenient packages. Through new research, the author of this volume provides a strong argument that the primary goals of big-game hunting were actually social and political-increasing hunter's prestige and standing-and that the nutritional component was just an added bonus.
Through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary research approach, the author examines the historical and current perceptions of protein as an important nutrient source, the biological impact of a high-protein diet and the evidence of this in the archaeological record, and provides a compelling reexamination of this long-held conclusion. This volume will be of interest to researchers in Archaeology, Evolutionary Biology, and Paleoanthropology, particularly those studying diet and nutrition.

The study of religion by the humanities and social sciences has become receptive for an evolutionary perspective. Some proposals model the evolution of religion in Darwinian terms, or construct a synergy between biological and non-Darwinian processes. The results, however, have not yet become truly interdisciplinary. The biological theory of evolution in form of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) is only sparsely represented in theories published so far by scholars of religion. Therefore this book reverses the line of view and asks how their results assort with evolutionary biology: How can the subject area "religion" integrated into behavioral biology? How is theory building affected by the asymmetry between the scarce empirical knowledge of prehistoric religion, and the body of knowledge about extant and historic religions? How does hominin evolution in general relate to the evolution of religion? Are there evolutionary pre-adaptations? Subsequent versions of evolutionary biology from the original Darwinism to EES are used in interdisciplinary constructs. Can they be integrated into a comprehensive theory? The biological concept most often used is co-evolution, in form of a gene-culture co-evolution. However, the term denotes a process different from biological co-evolution. Important EES concepts do not appear in present models of religious evolution: e.g. neutral evolution, evolutionary drift, evolutionary constraints etc. How to include them into an interdisciplinary approach? Does the cognitive science of religion (CSR) harmonize with behavioral biology and the brain sciences? Religion as part of human culture is supported by a complex, multi-level behavioral system. How can it be modeled scientifically? The book addresses graduate students and researchers concerned about the scientific study of religion, and biologist interested in interdisciplinary theory building in the field.

Many multicellular animals do not require oxygen to live but respire anaerobically. Some of these have adapted to "hostile" environments, such as sulphide rich habitats, others live as parasites within host organisms, while others still can perhaps be said to look back on the early days of life on earth before anaerobic respiration had evolved. This comprehensive volume lays out detailed summaries of the strategies for anero- or anoxy-biosis employed by each major group of metazoan animals. It begins with a description of the physical chemistry of oxygen, followed by a dissertation on the perils - and opportunities - created for life by oxygen derived free radicals. It moves on to examine the geochronology of the accumulation of oxygen in the environment and to analyze the first explosive adaptive radiation of the Metazoa in the Ediacarian and early Cambrian. It then explores the biochemistry of sulphide dependent organisms and follows with a detailed account of the evolution of fumarate reductase, the enzyme system that makes anaerobiosis possible in many invertebrate phyla. After the survey of invertebrate phyla, there is a chapter concerned with the strategies adopted by various vertebrates for anoxybiotic survival, and one on the dependence of many vertebrates on anaerobic processes. The contributors are authorities from around the world. The approach to the subject is an evolutionary one, drawing from many fields in biology. This book should be of interest to parasitologists, comparative biochemists, evolutionary biologists, palaeontologists and geochemists.

The present book gives an overview on the similarities and differences of the various translation systems. Moreover, it highlights the mechanisms and control of translation in mitochondria and other organelles such as chloroplasts, plastids and apicoplasts in different organisms. Lastly, it offers an outlook on future developments and applications that might be made possible by a better understanding of translation in mitochondria and other organelles. "

Evolution: The Basics is an engaging introduction to the history, development and science of the theory of evolution. Beginning pre-Darwin and concluding with the latest research and controversies, readers are introduced to the origins of the idea of evolution, the ways in which it has developed and been adapted over time and the science underpinning it all. Topics addressed include:

? early theories of evolution
? the impact of Darwin's On the Origin of Species
? the discovery of genetics and Mendel's experiments
? molecular evolution and the discovery of DNA
? the expansion of life and the persistence of disease
? revisiting evolutionary ethics and the development of empathy.

Evolution: The Basics examines the role of evolution in current debates and discusses the possible future developments in the field. This book is invaluable reading for all students and individuals seeking to understand the wide ranging sphere of evolutionary theory.

Chronic inflammation is one of the major pathological bases manifesting the development of gastric cancers, hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma, cervical cancer, ulcerative colitis and colorectal cancer [1]. Microbial infections, viral infections and autoimmune responses can lead to chronic inflammation-associated cancer formation. Human herpesviruses, such as human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) are known to be associated with tumorigenesis and tumor progression. HCMV infection potentiates malignancies of colon cancer and malignant glioma [2,3]. KSHV was initially discovered from Kaposi's sarcoma lesion of an AIDS patient [4]. It was subsequently discovered that KSHV contributed to the pathogenesis of KS, primary effusion lymphoma [5] and lymphoproliferative disorder multicentric Castleman's disease. Emerging evidence shows that herpesvirus infection interferes or inhibits host cell immune defense and maintains a tumor-promoting microenvironment by expressing virulent homologues of host cell proteins that disturb normal cell cycle progression and leads to apoptosis of the host cells. For example, cellular growth and transformation are induced by viral-encoded homologues of cytokines, chemokines or chemokine receptors [6]. The constitutive expression of viral chemokine GPCRs triggers prolonged activation of G protein signaling and eventually becomes the major inputs for chronic leukocyte infiltration and cancer development. GPCRs can serve as proto-oncogenes since overexpression of various wild type GPCRs can transform cells in the presence of their specific ligands. Mutations on GPCRs may result in constitutive signaling and oncogenesis [7]. Naturally occurring mutations in GPCRs have been identified in human tumors [8,9].

Originally published in 1969, the aim of this book is to tell the story of the major discoveries which have been made and the attitude of the world at large to these discoveries during the ten decades since Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. For anyone interested in man's past and in understanding the significance of each new discovery relating to human evolution, this reissue will be of great value.

Renowned science writer L. Sprague de Camp studies our global "wrong-headedness" by examining our primitive past. Writing with insight and humor, de Camp explores what makes us tick as the products - and victims - of our prehuman past. He delves into the legacy of evolution and shows how it has affected our historical and social development. The survival traits of our ancestors, which include foraging in bands, scrounging for food, and chasing other scavengers away from the kill, are at the heart of our highly competitive and combative nature - the tendency to view others as adversaries. Are we "only monkeys shaved"? Can we overcome our prehuman character? The Ape-Man Within answers these and other fundamental questions facing our global society.

'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer, juggling humour, precision, polemic and poetry to enrich his impossibly telescoped account . . . [making] clear sense out of very complex narratives' - The Times 'Henry Gee makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? - Everybody!' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee's lyrical prose - colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.

The order Rodentia is the most abundant and successful group of mammals, and it has been a focal point of attention for compar ative and evolutionary biologists for many years. In addition, rodents are the most commonly used experimental mammals for bio medical research, and they have played a central role in investi gations of the genetic and molecular mechanisms of speciation in mammals. During recent decades, a tremendous amount of new data from various aspects of the biology of living and fossil rodents has been accumulated by specialists from different disciplines, ranging from molecular biology to paleontology. Paradoxically, our understanding of the possible evolutionary relationships among different rodent families, as well as the possible affinities of rodents with other eutherian mammals, has not kept pace with this information "explosion. " This abundance of new biological data has not been incorporated into a broad synthesis of rodent phylo geny, in part because of the difficulty for any single student of rodent evolution to evaluate the phylogenetic significance of new findings from such diverse disciplines as paleontology, embryology, comparative anatomy, molecular biology, and cytogenetics. The origin and subsequent radiation of the order Rodentia were based primarily on the acquisition of a key character complex: specializations of the incisors, cheek teeth, and associated mus culoskeletal features of the jaws and skull for gnawing and chewing."

Through a series of essays concerning human eating seen from the perspective of contemporary biology/medicine and recent research articles, the book explores the links between food and Man's cultural and physical evolution. Each chapter has an introduction summarizing the basic knowledge in the field, discusses the recent research results, and confirms or challenges the established concepts, which opens new aspects and leads to new questions. This book catalyzes discussion between scientists working on one side in food science and on the other side in biological and biomedical research.

It has become received wisdom that our world is doomed, that we live in the End of Days. Bleak predictions by psychics and scientists alike portend extreme weather, droughts, famines and floods that will overtake humanity within the century, or sooner. If not global warming, then supervolcanoes, meteoric impacts, nuclear war, bioterrorism, or natural plagues will get us. But whatever happens, Michael Hanlon believes that humankind will go on...and on. The shape of things to come will be strange, and somewhat terrifying, but will very likely seem banal to the people who inhabit it in the future. Humankind may be thrown back to the Stone Age on hundreds of occasions and may come close to extinction. But recovery will follow--each time more rapidly than the last. The world of 10,000 years hence, let alone 100,000,000 years hence, will be strange and almost unrecognizable. But no matter how battered and re-born, it will still be "our" world, populated by "us" through eternity.

The book is a telepathic communication between myself and Dar, a evolved human from 23 million years in the future, as well as several other guides, spiritual and otherwise, from various future time periods. Although most of the contact is through Dar, several of his companions, from various timelines from a few centuries to over 1000 million years in the future have made some observations about various time periods. The book covers technology, spirit guides, singularities, timelines, evolution, time travel, parallel worlds, future cities and other realities. It also covers altered states of consciousness, the 2012 event, space travel, time lines, advanced data storage, power generation, future history and my notes. There is discussion in time and the nature of reality, as well as technological development and where it is leading us into the future. It is about possibilities, and I do not mean it to be either a positive or negative statement, but an observation of what is. I hope the book will encourage some people to objectively seek out alternative possibilities.

Since the publication of The New Science of Astrobiology in the year 2001 the first edition of the present book two significant events have taken place raising the subject from the beginning of the present century to its present maturity. Firstly, in 2001 the Galileo Mission still had two years to complete its task, which turned out to be an outstanding survey of the Jovian system, especially of its intriguing satellite Europa. Secondly, the Cassini Huygens Mission was still on its way to Saturn. Its present success has surpassed all expectations of ESA and NASA. Astrobiologists still did not know that Titan was the fifth body in the Solar System that possibly contained a water ocean (including the Earth and the three Galilean satellites other than Io). For these reasons the book includes overviews of the evolutionary and molecular biology that are necessary. There is a discussion of other sectors of culture that are the natural frontiers of astrobiology, especially the humanities."

This is the only English-language publication devoted exclusively to extensive reviews and synthesis of topics on the biology of birds. The current volume includes articles on sibling competition, predation and the limitation of bird numbers, and population trends in birds of eastern North America.

This book is a collection of original research papers given at a symposium entitled "Sensory Systems and Behavior of Aquatic Mammals", hosted by the USSR Academy of Sciences. The meeting was held in Moscow from 16 to 25 October, 1991 and involved nearly 100 scientists from around the world. The major headings of the book correspond to the session topics at the symposium. This meeting was not the first dedicated to problems of sensory systems in aquatic mammals. Experts in this field met several times previously to discuss important problems of sensory functions in echolocating animals. symposia on biosonar systems were held in Frascati, Italy in 1966, then in Jersey, France in 1978, and in Helsingor, Denmark in 1986. Papers presented at these meetings were pUblished in books that advanced significantly the understanding of sensory systems (Busnel and Fish, 1980; Nachtigall and Moore, 1988). Initially, echolocating bats were the main subjects of consideration. However, studies on echolocating aquatic mammals, whales and dolphins, increased from one meeting to the next. Indeed, aquatic mammals are of exceptional interest for studying the adaptation of sensory functions for echolocation in specific aquatic environments. As a natural consequence of these developments, the 1989 symposium in Rome was devoted specifically to the sensory systems of cetaceans (Thomas and Kastelein, 1990). This symposium was held within the Fifth International Theriological Congress and was attended by many scientists.

This volume is an up-to-date treatise of chemosensory vertebrate research performed by over 200 scientists from 22 countries. Importantly, data from over 25 taxa of vertebrates are presented, including those from human beings. Unlike other volumes on this topic, a significant nurober of the contributions come from leading workers in the former Soviet Union and reflect studies within a wide variety of disciplines, including behavior, biochemistry, ecology, endocrinology, genetics, psychophysics, and morphol ogy. Most of the studies described in this volume were presented at the Chemical Signals in Vertbrates VI (CSV VI) symposium held at the University of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1991. This international symposium was the largest and the most recent of a series of six such symposia, the first of which was held in Saratoga Springe, New York (June 6-9, 1976) and the last in Oxford, England (August 8-10, 1988). Unlike the previous symposia, Chemical Signals in Vertabrates VI lasted a full week, reflecting the increased number of participants and the desire of many to present their research findings orally to the group as a whole."

This volume provides in-depth reviews of model systems that exemplify the arms race in host-pathogen interactions. Somatic adaptations are responsible for the individualization of biological responses to the environment, and the continual struggle between host immune systems and invading pathogens has given rise to corresponding processes that produce molecular variation. Whether in mollusks or human beings, various host somatic mechanisms have evolved independently, providing responses to counter rapidly-changing pathogens. The pathways they utilize can include non-heritable changes involving RNA and post-translational modifications, or changes that produce somatic DNA recombination and mutation. For infectious organisms such as protozoans and flatworms, antigenic variation is central to their survival strategy. Evolving the ability to evade the host immune system not only increases their chances of survival but is also necessary for successful re-infection within the host population.

Researchers now recognize that above- and belowground communities are indirectly linked to one another, often by plant-mediated mechanisms. To date, however, there has been no single multi-authored edited volume on the subject. This book remedies that gap, and offers state-of-the art insights into basic and applied research on aboveground-belowground interactions and their functional consequences. Drawing on a diverse pool of global expertise, the authors present diverse approaches that span a range of scales and levels of complexity. The respective chapters provide in-depth information on the current state of research, and outline future prospects in the field of aboveground-belowground community ecology. In particular, the book's goal is to expand readers' knowledge of the evolutionary, community and ecosystem consequences of aboveground-belowground interactions, making it essential reading for all biologists, graduate students and advanced undergraduates working in this rapidly expanding field. It touches on multiple research fields including ecology, botany, zoology, entomology, microbiology and the related applied areas of biodiversity management and conservation.

From reviews of the series: 'Evolutionary Biology occupies a unique and valuable place in the evolutionary literature...The editors are to be congratulated on their continuing ability to attract interesting articles.'--The Journal of Evolutionary Biology 'The scope of Evolutionary Biology is vast...This series is...excellent; we should all press for its maintenance in our institutions, libraries.'--Biologist

In this book, the editors present a view of the socioecology of primates and cetaceans in a comparative perspective to elucidate the social evolution of highly intellectual mammals in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Despite obvious differences in morphology and eco-physiology, there are many cases of comparable, sometimes strikingly similar patterns of sociobehavioral complexity. A number of long-term field studies have accumulated a substantial amount of data on the life history of various taxa, foraging ecology, social and sexual relationships, demography, and various patterns of behavior: from dynamic fission-fusion to long-term stable societies; from male-bonded to bisexually-bonded to matrilineal groups. Primatologists and cetologists have come together to provide four evolutionary themes: (1) social complexity and behavioral plasticity, (2) life history strategies and social evolution, (3) the interface between behavior, demography, and conservation, and (4) selected topics in comparative behavior. These comparisons of taxa that are evolutionarily distant but live in comparable complex sociocognitive environments boost our appreciation of their sophisticated mammalian societies and can advance our understanding of the ecological factors that have shaped their social evolution. This knowledge also facilitates a better understanding of the day- to-day challenges these animals face in the human-dominated world and may improve the capacity and effectiveness of our conservation efforts.