If you’ve ever wished you could teach with tarantulas—or roly polys, or Madagascar hissing cockroaches—this is the resource for you. It tells how to help middle schoolers get up close and personal with amazing arthropods, the bugs that make up more than 75% of Earth’s animal species.

Nature's Machines: An Introduction to Organismal Biomechanics presents the fundamental principles of biomechanics in a concise, accessible way while maintaining necessary rigor. It covers the central principles of whole-organism biomechanics as they apply across the animal and plant kingdoms, featuring brief, tightly-focused coverage that does for biologists what H. M. Frost's 1967 Introduction to Biomechanics did for physicians. Frequently encountered, basic concepts such as stress and strain, Young's modulus, force coefficients, viscosity, and Reynolds number are introduced in early chapters in a self-contained format, making them quickly available for learning and as a refresher. More sophisticated, integrative concepts such as viscoelasticity or properties of hydrostats are covered in the later chapters, where they draw on information from multiple earlier sections of the book. Animal and plant biomechanics is now a common research area widely acknowledged by organismal biologists to have broad relevance. Most of the day-to-day activities of an animal involve mechanical processes, and to the extent that organisms are shaped by adaptive evolution, many of those adaptations are constrained and channelized by mechanical properties. The similarity in body shape of a porpoise and a tuna is no coincidence. Many may feel that they have an intuitive understanding of many of the mechanical processes that affect animals and plants, but careful biomechanical analyses often yield counterintuitive results: soft, squishy kelp may be better at withstanding pounding waves during storms than hard-shelled mollusks; really small swimmers might benefit from being spherical rather than streamlined; our bones can operate without breaking for decades, whereas steel surgical implants exhibit fatigue failures in a few months if not fully supported by bone.

Erythropoietin, Volume 105, the latest release in the Vitamins and Hormones series first published in 1943, and the longest-running serial published by Academic Press, provides up-to-date information on crystal structures and basic structural studies on neurotrophins and their receptors, neurotrophin functions and the biological actions of neurotrophins related to clinical conditions and disease. Topics covered in this new volume include Erythropoietin Receptor Structural Domains, Analysis of the Asymmetry of Activated EPO Receptor Enables Designing Small Molecule Agonists, Endogenous Erythropoietin, Erythropoietin Receptor Signaling and Lipid Rafts, and Erythropoietin and Hypothalamic-Pituitary Axis. Each thoroughly reviewed volume focuses on a single molecule or disease that is related to vitamins or hormones, with the topic broadly interpreted to include related substances, such as transmitters, cytokines, growth factors and others. This volume documents the activities of this vital molecule, also describing the structure and function of erythropoietin and its receptor.

Bioassays: Advanced Methods and Applications provides a thorough understanding of the applications of bioassays in monitoring toxicity in aquatic ecosystems. It reviews the newest tests and applications in discovering compounds and toxins in the environment, covering all suitable organisms, from bacteria, to microorganisms, to higher plants, including invertebrates and vertebrates. By learning about newer tests, water pollution control testing can be less time and labor consuming, and less expensive. This book will be helpful for anyone working in aquatic environments or those who need an introduction to ecotoxicology or bioassays, from investigators, to technicians and students.

From world renowned photographer Michio Hoshino, and with half a million copies sold in Japan, this enduringly popular collection recounts Hoshino's experiences with the wildlife and offers his reflections of our place within it.

First published in 1994, and reprinted 57 times (with half a million copies sold), The Travelling Tree by world renowned photographer Michio Hoshino is a literary classic of nature writing. In this enduringly popular collection, naturalist, mystic and adventurer Michio Hoshino recounts his experiences with the wildlife and reflects on and our place within it.

Michio Hoshino's life was changed after coming across a book containing an aerial photograph of the tiny Inupuiak (Eskimo) village, Shishmaref, in a used bookstore in Tokyo. The teenager was immediately enchanted by this tiny cluster of dwellings on the Arctic Sea. What sort of people lived in such a desolate place, seemingly at the ends of the Earth? The photograph intrigued him so much that he decided to write a letter asking if he could visit the village. Not knowing to whom he should address the letter, he made it out to simply, "Mayor, Shishmaref." To his surprise, he received a response from an Inupiak family willing to host him and spent the next summer, at the age of 19, immersed in their way of life.

After this introduction to Alaska, Hoshino was smitten with America's northernmost state and dedicated the remainder of his life to photographing and writing about it. The Travelling Tree is a collection of his writing published at the peak of his artistic prowess, only two years before his career was tragically cut short at the age of 43 by a fatal bear attack while on a shoot in the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The Travelling Tree has gained increasing popularity in the more than 20 years since Hoshino's untimely death. His work has been featured in numerous Japanese television specials and documentaries and an exhibition of his photography has travelled to cities and communities across Japan