In our fast-paced world of technology and conveniences, the biological origins of women's inequality can be forgotten. This book offers a richer understanding of gender inequality by explaining a key cause-women's reproductive and lactation patterns. Until about 1900, infants nursed every fifteen minutes on average for two years because very frequent suckling prevented pregnancy. The practice evolved because it maximized infant survival. If a forager child was born before its older sibling could take part in the daily food search, the older one died. This practice persisted until the modern era because until after the discovery of the germ theory of disease, human milk was the only food certain to be unspoiled. Lactation patterns excluded women from the activities that led to political leadership. During the twentieth century the ancient mode declined and women entered the labor market en masse. Joan Huber challenges feminists toward a richer understanding of biological origins of inequality-knowledge that can help women achieve greater equality today.

'Stylish and exhilarating... from a wide-ranging mind and a profound humanity... inspiring' Hilary Mantel 'A wonderful series of meditations - clinical, anthropological, literary and deeply humane - on his patients and their illnesses.' Henry Marsh Timely, thought-provoking and eloquent, brimming both with warmth and insight, he puts himself among the ranks of ... Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande.' The Times Unreliable bodies and shifting symptoms are all in a day's work for a GP. In his years of practising, Gavin Francis has seen it all: the promising law student trapped under the spell of anorexia; the bodybuilder whose use of illegal steroids threatens his fertility; the teenager agonising over the perplexing physical dramas of puberty; and the surprisingly upbeat woman growing a horn in the centre of her forehead. In Shapeshifters he draws on his patients' bodily transformations, both welcome and unwelcome, bringing together case histories and accounts from the history of medicine, art, literature, myth and magic to show how the very essence of being human is change.

'A stunner ... If you haven't got this book in your house, I don't know why' Chris Evans 'A startling wake-up call . . . Writing with the vim of a Bill Bryson and the technical knowledge of a scientist, Steele gives us a chance to grasp what's at stake' Independent 'An exhilarating journey . . . Steele is a superb guide' Telegraph 'A fascinating read with almost every page bursting with extraordinary facts . . . Read it now' Mail on Sunday Ageless is a guide to the biggest issue we all face. Ageing - not cancer, not heart disease - is the world's leading cause of death and suffering. What would the world be like if we could cure it? Living disease-free until the age of 100 is achievable within our lifetimes. In prose that is lucid and full of fascinating facts, Ageless introduces us to the cutting-edge research that is paving the way for this revolution. Computational biologist Andrew Steele explains what occurs biologically as we age, as well as practical ways we can slow down the process. He reveals how understanding the scientific implications of ageing could lead to the greatest discovery in the history of civilisation - one that has the potential to improve billions of lives, save trillions of dollars, and transform the human condition.

The twenty-first century presents an increasing number of environmental problems, including toxic pollution, global warming, destruction of tropical forests, extinction of biological diversity, and depletion of natural resources. These environmental problems are generally due to human behavior, namely over-consumption of resources and overpopulation. Designing effective policies to address these problems requires a deep understanding of human behavior as well as ecology. This in turn requires considerations of human nature, and the evolutionary "design" of the human mind.
Evolutionary research on human behavior has profound implications for the environmental sciences. The aim of this collection is to bring together a variety of chapters that show how and why. Part 1, "Human Nature and Resource Conservation," addresses environmental problems from different evolutionary perspectives. Part 2, "The Ecological Noble Savage Hypothesis," examines the notion that our environmental problems are due to Western culture, and that our ancestors and people in indigenous societies lived in harmony with nature until the corrupting influences of Western culture. Part 3, "The Tragedy of the Commons," explores the conservation of common-pool or open-access natural resources, such as fisheries, forests, grazing lands, freshwater, and clean air. Part 4, "The Evolution of Discounting and Conspicuous Consumption," looks at the problem of explaining why people are so ecologically short-sighted and why people in developed countries consume so many resources. Part 5, "Overpopulation and Fertility Declines," addresses the evolution of human reproductive decisions. Part 6, "Biophilia," aims to explain why people cherish nature as well as destroy it.
The goal of this volume is to introduce environmental thinkers to evolutionary perspectives on human behavior, and the new interdisciplinary sciences of evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology. This reader aims to help bridge the artificial division between the biological and social sciences, and provide a synthesis between evolutionary sciences of human behavior and environmental sciences.
Dustin J. Penn is director, Konrad Lorenz Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. Iver Mysterud is biologist and researcher at the Department of Biology, University of Oslo, Norway.

Showing that paleoanthropology is a progressive and dynamic field, this book argues that all debates and hypotheses spring from a single general theory: the theory of biological evolution. It presents the debates and research from 150 scholars in the field, and separates the resolution of these debates through three different time periods: 1860-1890, 1890-1935, and post-1935. Topics include: the history of the field; comparative anatomy; the human fossil record; primate phylogeny; human phylogeny; and the nature of paleoanthropology. A book that will appeal to anyone interested in anthropology, it will also interest historians and others in the social sciences.

This book has been developed from a core of papers selected for the paleodemographic session of the 25th World Population Congress (July 2005, Tours, France). It covers recent paleodemographic innovations, in terms of data, techniques and the detection of patterns making it possible to highlight hitherto unknown prehistoric demographic processes.

Much of what we are comes from our ancestors. Through cultural and biological inheritance mechanisms, our genetic composition, instructions for constructing artifacts, the structure and content of languages, and rules for behavior are passed from parents to children and from individual to individual. "Mapping Our Ancestors" demonstrates how various genealogical or "phylogenetic" methods can be used both to answer questions about human history and to build evolutionary explanations for the shape of history.
Anthropologists are increasingly turning to quantitative phylogenetic methods. These methods depend on the transmission of information regardless of mode and as such are applicable to many anthropological questions. In this way, phylogenetic approaches have the potential for building bridges among the various subdisciplines of anthropology; an exciting prospect indeed. The structure of "Mapping Our Ancestors" reflects the editors' goal of developing a common understanding of the methods and conditions under which ancestral relations can be derived in a range of data classes of interest to anthropologists. Specifically, this volume explores the degree to which patterns of ancestry can be determined from artifactual, genetic, linguistic, and behavioral data and how processes such as selection, transmission, and geography impact the results of phylogenetic analyses.
"Mapping Our Ancestors" provides a solid demonstration of the potential of phylogenetic methods for studying the evolutionary history of human populations using a variety of data sources and thus helps explain how cultural material, language, and biology came to be as they are.
Carl P. Lipo is assistant professor of anthropology at California State University in Long Beach. Michael O'Brien is professor of anthropology and director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. Mark Collard is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Stephen J. Shennan is a professor and director of the Institute of Archaeology at the University College London. Niles Eldredge is a curator in the department of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and adjunct professor at the City University of New York.

Informed by the author's extensive fieldwork in Iraq, this work is an invaluable resource for those interested in the anthropology of Iraq. Providing the reader first with important background information about the geography and climate of Iraq, the author goes on to give a detailed account of its peoples, presenting information on their physical characteristics and health in clear prose as well as in numerous readable tables. The work is supplemented by appendices which describe Iraq's mammals, insects and plants.

Of recent, the structure of the complement system has received considerable attention, including the publication of several three-dimensional structures of complement proteins. This has led to the need for an authoritative resource to provide a complete overview of the basics, as well as an explanation of the cutting-edge work being accomplished in this emerging science. Structural Biology of the Complement System is devoted to the full exploration of structural aspects of the complement system, with special consideration of the links between molecular structure and function. Containing the work of leading authorities across the disciplines of immunology and structural biology, the book serves both as an introductory volume for newcomers to the field and as a comprehensive reference for established researchers, in particular those whose goal is the discovery of anticomplement drugs. Written in a didactic style, this volume is an appropriate resource for students in the fields of immunology and structural biology. Structural Biology of the Complement System comes with downloadable resources containing color figures, a molecular structure visualization program, and files with three-dimensional coordinates of the structures described in the book. These tools allow readers to perform tailored structural manipulation and analysis, while also serving as a starting point for further research.

Much of what we are comes from our ancestors. Through cultural and biological inheritance mechanisms, our genetic composition, instructions for constructing artifacts, the structure and content of languages, and rules for behavior are passed from parents to children and from individual to individual. "Mapping Our Ancestors" demonstrates how various genealogical or "phylogenetic" methods can be used both to answer questions about human history and to build evolutionary explanations for the shape of history.
Anthropologists are increasingly turning to quantitative phylogenetic methods. These methods depend on the transmission of information regardless of mode and as such are applicable to many anthropological questions. In this way, phylogenetic approaches have the potential for building bridges among the various subdisciplines of anthropology; an exciting prospect indeed. The structure of "Mapping Our Ancestors" reflects the editors' goal of developing a common understanding of the methods and conditions under which ancestral relations can be derived in a range of data classes of interest to anthropologists. Specifically, this volume explores the degree to which patterns of ancestry can be determined from artifactual, genetic, linguistic, and behavioral data and how processes such as selection, transmission, and geography impact the results of phylogenetic analyses.
"Mapping Our Ancestors" provides a solid demonstration of the potential of phylogenetic methods for studying the evolutionary history of human populations using a variety of data sources and thus helps explain how cultural material, language, and biology came to be as they are.
Carl P. Lipo is assistant professor of anthropology at California State University in Long Beach. Michael O'Brien is professor of anthropology and director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. Mark Collard is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Stephen J. Shennan is a professor and director of the Institute of Archaeology at the University College London. Niles Eldredge is a curator in the department of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and adjunct professor at the City University of New York.

Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche called "the rainbow colours" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Edward O. Wilson bridges science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence. Once criticised for his over-reliance on genetics, Wilson unfurls his most expansive and advanced theories on human behaviour. Whether attempting to explicate "the Riddle of the Human Species", warning of "the Collapse of Biodiversity" or creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.", Wilson believes that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. Alarmed, however, that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma in millennia.

This volume gives the reader a comprehensive overview of the fundamental and biological aspects of aging. First, the field is described from a historical perspective. Then, the author analyzes the three fundamental mechanisms of survival: energy utilization, molecular and cellular redundancy, and the organization of information. The genetics of aging is reviewed rejecting some simple-minded interpretations. A bridge is established between the molecular, cellular, and tissue modifications that have been reported in the literature, and the clinical manifestations of the aging syndrome. Special relevance is given to the problem of the supposed association between cancers and aging, giving a new interpretation of that relationship.

The major significance of the German naturalist-physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) as a topic of historical study is the fact that he was one of the first anthropologists to investigate humankind as part of natural history. Moreover, Blumenbach was, and continues to be, a central figure in debates about race and racism. How exactly did Blumenbach define race and races? What were his scientific criteria? And which cultural values did he bring to bear on his scheme? Little historical work has been done on Blumenbach's fundamental, influential race work. From his own time till today, several different pronouncements have been made by either followers or opponents, some accusing Blumenbach of being the fountainhead of scientific racism. By contrast, across early nineteenth-century Europe, not least in France, Blumenbach was lionized as an anti-racist whose work supported the unity of humankind and the abolition of slavery. This collection of essays considers how, with Blumenbach and those around him, the study of natural history and, by extension, that of science came to dominate the Western discourse of race.

This reference dictionary takes a new approach to the study of physical anthropology by focusing on the concepts involved. As Stevenson notes at the outset, physical or biological anthropology is a synthetic discipline which has borrowed much from evolutionary biology, anatomy, genetics, medicine, zoology, paleontology, and demography. Thus, although none of the concepts are unique to the discipline, their relative importance and the contexts in which they are used may be. Here, Stevenson presents concise entries describing the development of physical anthropological concepts followed by bibliographies including most of the major works in the field. The history of the usage of each concept is traced from its origins--often outside the discipline of physical anthropology--to the contemporary and usually multidisciplinary contexts in which physical anthropologists participate. Entries clearly delineate both the theoretical development of the concepts under discussion and their applications in physical anthropological practice. The comprehensive bibliographies enable the reader to pursue further study of concepts of particular interest. Indispensable to students just beginning their studies in the field, the dictionary will also be an invaluable reference for scholars and researchers.

The "New York Times" bestseller - with a new afterword about early specialization in youth sports.
The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put on Earth to dominate their respective sports? Or are they simply normal people who overcame their biological limits through sheer force of will and obsessive training?
In this controversial and engaging exploration of athletic success and the so-called 10,000-hour rule, David Epstein tackles the great nature vs. nurture debate and traces how far science has come in solving it. Through on-the-ground reporting from below the equator and above the Arctic Circle, revealing conversations with leading scientists and Olympic champions, and interviews with athletes who have rare genetic mutations or physical traits, Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of athleticism.

Plomp's "Aspects of Tone Sensation"--published 25 years ago--dealt with the psychophysics of simple and complex tones. Since that time, auditory perception as a field of study has undergone a radical metamorphosis. Technical and methodological innovations, as well as a considerable increase in attention to the various aspects of auditory experience, have changed the picture profoundly. This book is an attempt to account for this development by giving a comprehensive survey of the present state of the art as a whole. Perceptual aspects of hearing, particularly of understanding speech as the main auditory input signal, are thoroughly reviewed.

Nitric oxide is involved in the regulation of the circulation in physiologic and pathophysiological conditions. Evidence indicates that alterations in endothelial production of nitric oxide may be involved in the pathogenesis of central hypertension, pulmonary hypertension, renal disease and coronary vasopastic disorders. In addition to being involved in regulation of the circulation in physiologic and pathophysiologic conditions, the inducible form of the enzyme may play a role in the refractory hypertension.

The diversity of contemporary investigative approaches included in this volume provides an exciting account of our current understanding of brain mechanisms responsible for sensory and perceptual experience in the areas of touch, kinesthesia, and pain. Postgraduate research students in sensory physiology, neurology, psychology and anatomy, and researchers themselves will find that this volume addresses many of the key issues in our attempts to understand the neural mechanisms that mediate sensory experience arising from the body as a whole, the so-called somatic senses, in particular for touch and pain. The volume provides a record of the occasion of the St Petersburg IUPS symposium, chaired by the editors of this volume, and includes some added recent contributions from other leading international figures in the field. Brought together under the sponsoring banner of the IUPS Commission for Somatosensory Physiology and Pain, these scientists with their different experimental approaches seek collectively to understand the brain mechanisms that underlie our own nature and experience.

Human Biological Diversity is an introductory textbook designed to cover the key contemporary topics in the study of human variation and human biology within the field of physical anthropology. Easily accessible for students with no background in anthropology or biology, this second edition includes two new chapters, one on human variation in the skeleton and dentition and the other on tracing human population affinities. All other chapters have been fully updated to reflect advances in the field and now include pedagogical features to aid readers in their understanding. Written for an introductory level but still containing valuable information that will be of interest to students on upper-level courses, Brown's textbook should be essential reading for all students taking courses on human variation, human biology, human evolution, race, anthropology of race, and general introductions to biological/physical anthropology.

Series Information:
Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society

From a biomedical engineering perspective, this book takes an analytic, quantitative approach to describing the basic components of physiological regulators and control systems (PRCs). In Endogenous and Exogenous Regulation and Control of Physiological Systems, the author provides grounding in the classical methods of designing linear and nonlinear systems. He also offers state-of-the-art material on the potential of PRCs to treat immune system ailments, most notably AIDS and cancer.

The book focuses on certain "wet" physiological regulators, such as those using endocrine hormones as parametric control substances. Endogenous and Exogenous Regulation and Control of Physiological Systems includes simulations that illustrate model validations and the putative control of cancer and HIV proliferation. It explores novel, untried immunotherapies on the cutting-edge of PRC treatment and explores the latest technologies.

This work contributes to a better understanding of the growing subnational involvement in foreign affairs. It offers a general view of the most prominent aspects in the development of subnational foreign action around the world, dealing with topics such as the repercussions upon subnational autonomy of the progressive constitution of diverse international regimes like the European Union, NAFTA, and APEC, or the complex relation between the growing subnational foreign action and the contemporary conditions for the formulation and implementation of foreign policy in federal and quasifederal states.

This work contributes to a better understanding of the growing subnational involvement in foreign affairs. It offers a general view of the most prominent aspects in the development of subnational foreign action around the world, dealing with topics such as the repercussions upon subnational autonomy of the progressive constitution of diverse international regimes like the European Union, NAFTA, and APEC, or the complex relation between the growing subnational foreign action and the contemporary conditions for the formulation and implementation of foreign policy in federal and quasifederal states.

Originally published in 1957, The Uniqueness of the Individual is a collection of 9 essays published from the ten years preceding publication. The essays deal with some of the central problems of biology. These are among the questions put and answered from the standpoint of modern experimental biology. What is ageing and how is it measured? What theories have been held to account for it, and with what success? Did ageing evolve, and if so how? Is Lamarckism and adequate explanation of evolutionary process? Does evolution sometimes go wrong? Do human beings evolve in a way peculiar to themselves? Other essays touch upon the problems of scientific method and of growth and transformation. This book will be of interest to natural historians, evolutionists and anthropologists.