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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > General
This book discusses the European Union's approach to governance reform in its development assistance relationships with various groups of developing countries. A group of expert authors outline the general features of the position on governance taken by the EU, which is currently the major multilateral donor of development assistance, and discuss the implementation of EU policies in a set of cases: the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, the Euro-Mediterranean, Latin America and fragile states. The contributions to the book argue that the EU's position on governance reform, particularly since the adoption of the European Consensus on Development in 2005, has had distinctly neoliberal overtones. The EU's governance-related strategies have been instrumental to deepening market-based reform in aid-receiving countries. Policies on state-building adopted by the EU reflect mainly the interests of and ideas embraced by the EU and its member states. To an important extent, the rhetoric accompanying EU policies does not match with the political and social dynamics inherent in governance structures on the ground in many of its aid-recipient partner countries. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.
Recent empirical and philosophical research into the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, the origins of the mind/brain, and the development of human culture has sparked heated debates about what it means to be human and how knowledge about humans from the sciences and humanities should be understood. Conversations on Human Nature, featuring 20 interviews with leading scholars in biology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and theology, brings these debates to life for teachers, students, and general readers. The book-outlines the basic scientific, philosophical and theological issues involved in understanding human nature;-organizes material from the various disciplines under four broad headings: (1) evolution, brains and human nature; (2) biocultural human nature; (3) persons, minds and human nature, (4) religion, theology and human nature; -concludes with Fuentes and Visala's discussion of what researchers into human nature agree on, what they disagree on, and what we need to learn to resolve those differences.
Technology and animals often serve as the boundaries by which we define the human. In this issue contributors explore these categories as necessary supplements or as porous membranes which disturb the scaffolding of how the human is constructed. A lingering question throughout is whether we have ever been human or if such a category is a non-localizable ideal or perhaps a misnomer. In this collection of essays, internationally known theorists muddle the categorical boundaries such that animals and technologies become necessary components rather than limits for what it means to be human. They examine a range of subjects, including apophatic animality, critical media objects-to-think-with, biosemiotic insect resonances, the monstrous and horrific which dislodges our cultural animals, and the problem of thinking of animality as stupidity. Novels, films, digital objects, scientific laboratories, philosophical texts, animals on the road and in the fields serve as sites for inquiry. The result of these investigations is the spectral possibility that we are not the humans we make ourselves out to be. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.
National Book Award finalist
One of a series of more than 20 volumes resulting from the World Archaeological Congress, September 1986, which brought together archaeologists and anthropologists from many parts of the world, academics from contingent disciplines, and non-academics from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. This book considers prehistoric and more recent manifestations of human hunting behaviour, with a general emphasis on communal hunting. It demonstrates that the combination of archaeological, ethnographic and ethnohistorical approaches provides a researched basis for consideration of the topic on worldwide, regional, and local scales. It includes theoretical and methodological issues, within a context of enquiry, original data presentation, and discussion. It is of interest to archaeologists, anthropologists and ethnohistorians.
The Diabetes LIFEMAP changes the way chronic diabetes care is delivered forever. The LIFEMAP raises diabetes care for the primary care and ancillary healthcare provider to the level of world renown diabetes expert, David Bleich, MD. For patients, the LIFEMAP provides real-time diabetes care that changes a "tough-to-manage" disease into a shared, personal, and efficient management experience. The LIFEMAP can be used as a stand-alone diabetes management tool or can be combined with our cloud based LIFEMAP platform through GoMo Health. Now care can be delivered seamlessly at home for both provider and patient. The Diabetes LIFEMAP is the playbook for 21st century diabetes care. It starts with an understanding of the basic principles of insulin secretion and moves to a discussion of how the LIFEMAP evolved and why it is such a powerful management tool. Finally, case studies are provided to reinforce basic concepts of LIFEMAP diabetes care with real world examples. Taken together, The Diabetes LIFEMAP succeeds in helping healthcare providers overcome a difficult to manage disease and provides patients with an optimal diabetes outcome with the least amount of effort necessary to achieve high level results.
As many as 100 billion neurons make up the human nervous system - a system that is incredibly complex, and a fundamental part of what makes us who we are. But there is far more to human beings than biology. Many academic disciplines study the human condition and there are many schools of thought within that study. We must also appreciate that the study of human nature did not begin in contemporary times. History is full of texts that offer detailed explorations of the human condition. However, no consensus has yet emerged. Consensus or not, those working towards religious and spiritual formation pursue the transformation of their communities. This book offers a fuller understanding of some of the common views of human nature and also insights into how we might utilise this knowledge in our ministries - ministries that strive towards the spiritual being and becoming of our world.
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.
As recent articles about "the graying of America" suggest, a demographic revolution is well underway. The number of people living into extreme old age is increasing dramatically. By the year 2050 one in five of the world's population, including the developing countries, will be 65 or older, a fact which presages profound medical, biological, philosophical, and political changes in the coming century. In Time of Our Lives, Tom Kirkwood unfolds some of the deepest mysteries of medical science while demolishing some of the most persistent misconceptions. He overturns the almost universally held belief that aging is either necessary or inevitable--it isn't--and debunks the idea that there exists a "death gene" that evolved to inhibit population growth. Instead, Kirkwood shows that we age because our genes, evolving at a time when life was "nasty, brutish, and short," placed little priority on the long-term maintenance of our bodies. With such knowledge, along with new insights from genome research, we can devise ways to target the root causes of aging and of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and osteoporosis. Expanding the thesis of the "disposable soma," developed over twenty years of research, Kirkwood makes sense of the evolution of aging, explains how aging occurs, and answers fundamental questions like why women live longer than men. He even considers the possibility that human beings will someday have greatly extended life spans or even be free from senescence altogether. Beautifully written by one of the world's pioneering researchers into the science of aging, Time of Our Lives is a clear, original and, above all, inspiring investigation of a process all of us experience but few of us understand.
When you were a baby, you didn't have any teeth at all. Then as you grew, your teeth started to come in. First one, then two - and finally, twenty teeth in all! But you won't keep these teeth forever. First one, then two, will wiggle loose. Maybe you've lost some of your first teeth already. When the little teeth come out and the big teeth come in, everyone can see - you're growing up.
It is said that the skull is the only human body part that is as powerful dead as it was when living. Skulls takes the reader on an eerie journey through history seen through the hollow eye sockets of this crown jewel of the human skeleton. The book is made up of a series of short illustrated stories laced with fascinating facts, historical and medical references and compelling anecdotes. The testimonials of thirty-plus skull collectors reveal what is known of - or speculated about - the often gruesome history of the skulls, as well as how they were acquired and what makes them so highly prized.
Focusing on the roles of different segments of DNA, Statistics in Human Genetics and Molecular Biology provides a basic understanding of problems arising in the analysis of genetics and genomics. It presents statistical applications in genetic mapping, DNA/protein sequence alignment, and analyses of gene expression data from microarray experiments. The text introduces a diverse set of problems and a number of approaches that have been used to address these problems. It discusses basic molecular biology and likelihood-based statistics, along with physical mapping, markers, linkage analysis, parametric and nonparametric linkage, sequence alignment, and feature recognition. The text illustrates the use of methods that are widespread among researchers who analyze genomic data, such as hidden Markov models and the extreme value distribution. It also covers differential gene expression detection as well as classification and cluster analysis using gene expression data sets. Ideal for graduate students in statistics, biostatistics, computer science, and related fields in applied mathematics, this text presents various approaches to help students solve problems at the interface of these areas.
A biology professor's illuminating tour of the physical imperfections--from faulty knees to junk DNA--that make us human. "A funny, fascinating catalog of our collective shortcomings that's tough to put down."--Discover We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often--two hundred times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? Why is the vast majority of our genetic code pointless? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake? As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is indeed nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last. The human body is one big pile of compromises. But that is also a testament to our greatness: as Lents shows, humans have so many design flaws precisely because we are very, very good at getting around them. A rollicking, deeply informative tour of humans' four-billion-year-and-counting evolutionary saga, Human Errors both celebrates our imperfections and offers an unconventional accounting of the cost of our success.
Parasites have been infecting humans throughout our evolution. When complex societies developed, the greater population density provided new opportunities for parasites to spread. In this interdisciplinary volume, the author brings his expertise in medicine, archaeology and history to explore the contribution of parasites in causing flourishing past civilizations to falter and decline. By using cutting edge methods, Mitchell presents the evidence for parasites that infected the peoples of key ancient civilizations across the world in order to understand their impact upon those populations. This new understanding of the archaeological and historical evidence for intestinal worms, ectoparasites, and protozoa shows how different cultures were burdened by contrasting types of diseases depending upon their geographical location, endemic insects, food preferences and cultural beliefs.
"Fascinating and exhilarating-Sean B. Carroll at his very best."-Bill Bryson, author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants From acclaimed writer and biologist Sean B. Carroll, a rollicking, awe-inspiring story of the surprising power of chance in our lives and the world Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world. Like every other species, we humans are here by accident. But it is shocking just how many things-any of which might never have occurred-had to happen in certain ways for any of us to exist. From an extremely improbable asteroid impact, to the wild gyrations of the Ice Age, to invisible accidents in our parents' gonads, we are all here through an astonishing series of fortunate events. And chance continues to reign every day over the razor-thin line between our life and death. This is a relatively small book about a really big idea. It is also a spirited tale. Drawing inspiration from Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut, and other great thinkers, and crafted by one of today's most accomplished science storytellers, A Series of Fortunate Events is an irresistibly entertaining and thought-provoking account of one of the most important but least appreciated facts of life.
Race, while drawn from the visual cues of human diversity, is an idea with a measurable past, an identifiable present, and an uncertain future. The concept of race has been at the center of both triumphs and tragedies in American history and has had a profound effect on the human experience. "Race Unmasked" revisits the origins of commonly held beliefs about the scientific nature of racial differences, examines the roots of the modern idea of race, and explains why race continues to generate controversy as a tool of classification even in our genomic age. Through rigorous historical research, "Race Unmasked" reveals how genetics and related biological disciplines formed and preserved ideas of race and, at times, racism throughout the twentieth century. Surveying the work of some of the twentieth century's most notable scientists, the book tests and then proves the limitations of a racial worldview. This new work is a gripping history of science and scientists that throws the contours of our current and evolving understanding of human diversity into sharp relief.
Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Physiology is the science of life, and sets out to understand how living things work and what makes them distinct from the non-living. It considers how our bodies are supplied with energy, how they maintain their internal parameters, the ways in which we gather and process information, the ways we take action, and the creation of new generations. This Very Short Introduction explores the field of human physiology, considering how the body works, senses, reacts, and defends itself. As Jamie A. Davies shows, human life (and indeed, all life) is sustained by the interplay of a wide variety of physiological mechanisms and principles. He discusses the physiological experiments and research undertaken to understand these processes, and analyses the ethical issues involved. He also considers the evolution of the scientific field itself, showing how enhanced understandings of physiological knowledge can help inform medical research and care. 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.
With 2003 being the 100th anniversary of modern aviation, Passenger Behaviour was published at a milestone for the aviation industry. Remarkable achievements in engineering have made air travel highly accessible within the span of a single lifetime. However, when evolutionary barriers are exceeded various penalties are exacted. The most common experienced by air passengers include motion sickness, jetlag and increased arousal and stress at different stages of flight. Air travel also brings us into closer contact with strangers, making our examination and understanding of the social psychology of behaviour within groups (among passengers) especially relevant. This book examines a wide range of topics that help the reader to acquire a psychological understanding of how air travel impacts on human relationships; behaviour as well as physiological functions. Written by leading authorities in their areas, it is intended primarily for those with an interest in passenger behaviour and those who work professionally in commercial aviation. This includes pilots, cabin crew, ground staff, airline and airport managers, aviation psychologists, human factors specialists, aerospace medical/nursing personnel and aircraft designers and manufacturers. As air travel being an integral part of most people's lives, this book will also be of interest to anyone who travels either on a frequent or infrequent basis.
Bio-Architecture studies the natural principles of animal and human
constructions from several different perspectives, and presents a
great part of the knowledge that gives origin and shape to built
form.
The genome's been mapped. Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life. "Genome" offers extraordinary insight into the ramifications of this incredible breakthrough. By picking one newly discovered gene from each pair of chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine. From Huntington's disease to cancer, from the applications of gene therapy to the horrors of eugenics, Matt Ridley probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome. It will help you understand what this scientific milestone means for you, for your children, and for humankind.
Evolutionary science is critical to an understanding of integrated human biology and is increasingly recognised as a core discipline by medical and public health professionals. Advances in the field of genomics, epigenetics, developmental biology, and epidemiology have led to the growing realisation that incorporating evolutionary thinking is essential for medicine to achieve its full potential. This revised and updated second edition of the first comprehensive textbook of evolutionary medicine explains the principles of evolutionary biology from a medical perspective and focuses on how medicine and public health might utilise evolutionary thinking. It is written to be accessible to a broad range of readers, whether or not they have had formal exposure to evolutionary science. The general structure of the second edition remains unchanged, with the initial six chapters providing a summary of the evolutionary theory relevant to understanding human health and disease, using examples specifically relevant to medicine. The second part of the book describes the application of evolutionary principles to understanding particular aspects of human medicine: in addition to updated chapters on reproduction, metabolism, and behaviour, there is an expanded chapter on our coexistence with micro-organisms and an entirely new chapter on cancer. The two parts are bridged by a chapter that details pathways by which evolutionary processes affect disease risk and symptoms, and how hypotheses in evolutionary medicine can be tested. The final two chapters of the volume are considerably expanded; they illustrate the application of evolutionary biology to medicine and public health, and consider the ethical and societal issues of an evolutionary perspective. A number of new clinical examples and historical illustrations are included. This second edition of a novel and popular textbook provides an updated resource for doctors and other health professionals, medical students and biomedical scientists, as well as anthropologists interested in human health, to gain a better understanding of the evolutionary processes underlying human health and disease. |
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