A one-stop resource that provides the most frequently needed information on the human genome What are the genes that manke-up the human genome, what do the genes do when they are acting properly, and what happens when these genes are damaged? Designed for today's reader who demands quick answers to a wide range of questions, The Human Genome Sourcebook is intended to offer the non-specialist an accessible but detailed guide to the genome. The information it provides is given context: namely, the basic scientific principles of genome research, the new knowledge unearthed or created by this research, and the social and ethical implications of this knowledge. The Human Genome Sourcebook is organized in several sections to simplify the location of pertinent information: an extensive section that comprises an in-depth catalogue of human genes listed according to the roles they play in life; a chapter that relates genetic diseases to the specific genes that cause the disease; a detailed glossary giving readers a deeper understanding of genetic terms and concepts; an overview or roadmap of the physical layout of the genome sections. provides both information as well as the tools necessary to access that information.. Provides in-depth information on the relationships between our genes and all aspects of our daily lives. Addresses health issues that are related to genetic abnormalities

Converging evidence from disciplines including sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and human biology forces us to adopt a new idea of what it means to be a human. As cherished concepts such as free will, naive realism, humans as creation's crowning glory fall and our moral roots in ape group dynamics become clearer, we have to take leave of many concepts that have been central to defining our humanness. What emerges is a new human, the homo novus, a human being without illusions. Leading authors from many different fields explore these issues by addressing a range of illusions and providing evidence for the need, despite considerable reluctance, to relinquish some of our most cherished ideas about ourselves.

In Human Cloning a panel of distinguished philosophers, medical ethicists, religious thinkers, and social critics tackle the thorny problems raised by the now real possibility of human cloning. In their wide ranging reviews, the distinguished contributors critically examine the major arguments for and against human cloning, probe the implications of such a procedure for society, and critically evaluate the "Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission." The debate includes both religious and secular arguments, as well as an outline of the history of the cloning debate and a discussion of human cloning's impact on our sense of self and our beliefs about the meaning of life.

This series presents reviews covering all aspects of haemodynamics and haemorheology. Topics covered include the complexities of microcirculation, the rheology of blood and blood vessels, and the mechanics of blood flow in arteries and veins. The contributions aim to reflect the advances being made in experimental techniques and instrumentation for laboratory and clinical measurements and in numerical and mathematical modelling. Emphasis is placed on the scientific and engineering principles involved, but particular attention is also given to the clinical significance of this area of research. Topics covered by this volume include viscoelastic properties of blood and blood analogues; blood flow through narrow tubes; and numerical modelling of blood flow.

'Jackie Higgins's lyrical, literate style will charm you while her book stuns your imagination with strange, other-worldly truths' Richard Dawkins Sentient assembles a menagerie of zoological creatures - from land, air, sea and all four corners of the globe - to understand what it means to be human. Through their eyes, ears, skins, tongues and noses, the furred, finned and feathered reveal how we sense and make sense of the world, as well as the untold scientific revolution stirring in the field of human perception. The harlequin mantis shrimp can throw a punch that can fracture aquarium walls but, more importantly, it has the ability to see a vast range of colours. The ears of the great grey owl have such unparalleled range and sensitivity that they can hear twenty decibels lower than the human ear. The star-nosed mole barely fills a human hand, seldom ventures above ground and poses little threat unless you are an earthworm, but its miraculous nose allows it to catch those worms at astonishing speed - as little as one hundred and twenty milliseconds. Here, too, we meet the four-eyed spookfish and its dark vision; the vampire bat and its remarkable powers of touch; the bloodhound and its hundreds of millions of scent receptors, as well as the bar-tailed godwit, the common octopus, giant peacocks, cheetahs and golden orb-weaving spiders. Each of these extraordinary creatures illustrates the sensory powers that lie dormant within us. In this captivating book, Jackie Higgins explores this evolutionary heritage and, in doing so, enables us to subconsciously engage with the world in ways we never knew possible.

This book covers the main aspects of biological rhythms. It focuses on the evolution and basic features of the biorhythms in organisms, deals with the circadian system at the genetic, molecular and cellular levels, and describes the mechanisms involved in the perception and light entrainment of the biological clock in vertebrates and invertebrates. The most important features of the biological clock are summarized on the level of whole organisms, from fish to mammals, and long-term (seasonal) rhythms in plants and higher vertebrates are discussed. Finally, the book concentrates on short-term rhythms, the significance of having a biological clock system in animals living in extreme (Arctic) environments, and on the diversity of circadian responses to melatonin, one of the key endocrine elements involved in the regulation of biological rhythms.

Advances in sensing, signal processing, and computer technology during the past half century have stimulated numerous attempts to design general-purpose ma chines that see. These attempts have met with at best modest success and more typically outright failure. The difficulties encountered in building working com puter vision systems based on state-of-the-art techniques came as a surprise. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the problem is that machine vision sys tems cannot deal with numerous visual tasks that humans perform rapidly and effortlessly. In reaction to this perceived discrepancy in performance, various researchers (notably Marr, 1982) suggested that the design of machine-vision systems should be based on principles drawn from the study of biological systems. This "neuro morphic" or "anthropomorphic" approach has proven fruitful: the use of pyramid (multiresolution) image representation methods in image compression is one ex ample of a successful application based on principles primarily derived from the study of biological vision systems. It is still the case, however, that the perfor of computer vision systems falls far short of that of the natural systems mance they are intended to mimic, suggesting that it is time to look even more closely at the remaining differences between artificial and biological vision systems."

The aim of this text is to provide reviews and monographs on topics involving molecular similarity, ranging from the fundamental physical properties underlying molecular behaviour to applications in industrially important fields such as pharmaceutical drug design and molecular engineering. The editors hope that this series will encourage new ideas and approaches, help to systematize the rapidly accumulating new chemical information, and make chemistry better understood and better applied.

Human factors, also known as human engineering or human factors engineering, is the application of behavioral and biological sciences to the design of machines and human-machine systems. Automation refers to the mechanization and integration of the sensing of environmental variables, data processing and decision making and mechanical action. This book deals with all the issues involved in human-automation systems from design to control and performance of both humans and machines.

This volume of Progress in Inflammation Research is a unique compilation of work performed by a wide spectrum of investigators from different medical disciplines. It is fascinating that dietary alterations of fatty acid intake can result in a range of salutory changes in a great variety of medical conditions. Most of the good scien tific work which has led to these observations has been performed over just the last two decades. This is of course not a very long time in the context of the history of the human species. Recently performed analysis of fat intake from paleolithic times has indicated that our hunter-gatherer ancestors consumed as much cholesterol as modern Western man, but strikingly less saturated fatty acid and more polyunsatu rates, including n-3 fatty acids. Wild game has the terrestrial source of n-3 incorpo rated in its fat since browsing animals derive 18:3n-3 (alpha-linolenic acid) natural ly from leafy plants. There is, however, little opportunity for modern Western man to get n-3 fatty acids from the diet if one does not consume fish. Modern agribusiness provides ani mal feeds high in n-6 fatty acids, mostly derived from linoleic acid (18:2n-6) in corn feed. Therefore, grazing animals have no access to alternative fatty acids in either feed or grasses, the latter containing little or none of these potentially beneficial highly polyunsaturated fatty acids."

The Proceedings of the Fourth International Metallothionein Meeting (MT-97) feature the latest research on metallothionein. The book covers a broad range of topics which provide important information for both basic and clinical investigators. The selected 94 articles in this book are written by the leading scientists in the field around the world. This is an increasingly important, multi-disciplinary area of study that has benefitted from recent advances in concepts and methodologies from other fields.

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.

Advances in fossil studies relating to the origin of Homo sapiens have strengthened the hypothesis that our direct ancestors originated on the African continent. Most researchers also agree that the time when prehumans diverged from the last common ancestor was in the early part of the Late Miocene epoch.

Focus must now shift from determining the times and places of hominid origins to clarifying hominid evolutionary problems, such as the selective factors and acquisition processes of hominid bipedalism. In March of 2003, researchers from Africa, Europe, Japan and the United States convened in Kyoto for a symposium on Human Origins and Environmental Backgrounds, an interdisciplinary effort to consider these evolutionary puzzles, to report current research and to exchange thoughts towards better understanding the relationship among environmental changes, adaptive mechanisms and human origins. This book is the result of that symposium, and includes a diverse and unique set of papers on topics such as hominid evolution, dispersal and morphology, and the origins of bipedalism.

Venous Ulcers, Second Edition, provides a comprehensive synthesis of evidence-based recommendations and the highest level of expertise from a leading group of doctors, which is a fundamental constituent for the appropriate management of nonhealing venous wounds in everyday practice. This book offers a fertile environment for a complete understanding of genetics and molecular and biochemical mechanisms that lead to the development and progression of venous ulcers, which is essential for elucidating the underlying pathophysiology and can be utilized for developing novel therapies and accessing previously inaccessible areas of research. Socioeconomic impact, impact on health-related quality of life, the clinical course of the disease, and diagnostic algorithms are elaborated in detail. All currently available treatment modalities are explained in a clinically applicable approach with particular emphasis on operative technique, technical feasibility, success rates (both clinical and technical), and side effects. Lastly, this book elaborates on special diagnostic considerations and management of the most complex patients, often requiring the highest level of expertise for successful treatment.

The Liver in Biology and Disease was conceived as a sequel in the series "Principles of Medical Biology," whose general aim continues to be the integration of human biology and molecular cell biology into modern molecular medicine. It is a volume molded by the Information Revolution which few will deny has forced the teaching faculties in our medical schools to curtail and prune the teaching load and focus on fundamentals and principles. With this intention in mind, a volume of this nature takes into account the close dependence of progress in the medical sciences on bioinformatics (gene and protein analysis) or more precisely, computational biology and of course, the Internet. In general, it follows the pattern of its predecessors.
*Chapters are illustrated with numerous figures and references are current
*Clear, concise and accurate text about a large number of liver diseases
*Describes the liver's histology, biochemistry, and pathology in molecular terms

This monograph provides a comprehensive overview of the latest advances in the field of vasopressin and oxytocin. In the summer of 1997, scientists from over 20 countries congregated in Montreal for the 1997 World Congress of Neurohypophysial Hormones, a conference that united the fields of vasopressin, neurohypophysis, and oxytocin in a single joint meeting that gave rise to this book. The organization of a joint meeting was prompted by several developments. Specifically the molecular characterization of the vasopressin/oxytocin receptor family made it mandatory to adopt an integrated view and to discuss the vasopressin/oxytocin ligand/receptor family as a whole. To ensure emphasis on novelty, the conference focused on advances made in the late-1990s and also included important contributions by scientist that had not previously been associated with the vasopressin/oxytocin field.

The book that you hold in your hands is the second in a series. The two titles in the series are the following: Genetic Influences on Human Fertility and Sexuality: Theoretical and Empirical Contributions from the Biological and Behavior Sciences Edited by Joseph Lee Rodgers, David C. Rowe, & Warren B. Miller Published by Kluwer Academic Press, 2000 The Biodemography of Human Reproduction and Fertility Edited by Joseph Lee Rodgers & Hans-Peter Kohler Published by Kluwer Academic Press, 2002 The series has published chapters by researchers who study human fertility, from a particular perspective: Biodemography. We welcome your interest and participation in this developing subfield. Or, perhaps, biodemography may be better referred to as a "superfield. " Because biodemography so naturally crosses interdisciplinary boundaries, and because its application draws together researchers from disparate disciplines, it may well be more appropriate to consider that biodemography subsumes a number of other disciplines, rather than the other way around. In this preface, we will describe our own efforts and those of many others to promote and develop the study of human fertility, using methods, models, and theories from both biological and demographic domains. In December, 1997, 25 participants from three different countries gathered in Tucson, Arizona for a small conference with the title "Genetic Influences on Fertility-Related Processes. " That conference represented a fascinating blending of research from two apparently separate domains.