This volume features a collection of essays by primatologists, anthropologists, biologists, and psychologists who offer some answers to the question of what makes us human, i. e. , what is the nature and width of the gap that separates us from other primates? The chapters of this volume summarize the latest research on core aspects of behavioral and cognitive traits that make humans such unusual animals. All contributors adopt an explicitly comparative approach, which is based on the premise that comparative studies of our closest biological relatives, the nonhuman primates, provide the logical foundation for identifying human univ- sals as well as evidence for evolutionary continuity in our social behavior. Each of the chapters in this volume provides comparative analyses of relevant data from primates and humans, or pairs of chapters examine the same topic from a human or primatological perspective, respectively. Together, they cover six broad topics that are relevant to identifying potential human behavioral universals. Family and social organization. Predation pressure is thought to be the main force favoring group-living in primates, but there is great diversity in the size and structure of social groups across the primate order. Research on the behavioral ecology of primates and other animals has revealed that the distribution of males and females in space and time can be explained by sex-speci?c adaptations that are sensitive to factors that limit their ?tness: access to resources for females and access to potential mates for males.

Bestselling author David Ewing Duncan takes the ultimate high-tech medical exam, investigating the future impact of what's hidden deep inside all of us
David Ewing Duncan takes ""guinea pig"" journalism to the cutting edge of science, building on award-winning articles he wrote for Wired and National Geographic, in which he was tested for hundreds of chemicals and genes associated with disease, emotions, and other traits. Expanding on these tests, he examines his genes, environment, brain, and body, exploring what they reveal about his and his family's future health, traits, and ancestry, as well as the profound impact of this new self-knowledge on what it means to be human.
David Ewing Duncan (San Francisco, CA) is the Chief Correspondent of public radio's Biotech Nation and a frequent commentator on NPR's Morning Edition. He is a contributing editor to Portfolio, Discover, and Wired and a columnist for Portfolio. His books include the international bestseller Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year (978-0-380-79324-2). He is a former special producer and correspondent for ABC's Nightline, and appears regularly on CNN and programs such as Today and Good Morning America.

Erasmus Darwin (1731 1802) is remembered not only as the grandfather of Charles but as a pioneering scientist in his own right. A friend and correspondent of Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and Matthew Boulton, he practised medicine in Lichfield, but also wrote prolifically on scientific subjects. He organised the translation of Linnaeus from Latin into English prose, coining many plant names in the process, and also wrote a version in verse, The Loves of Plants. The aim of his Zoonomia, published in two volumes (1794 6), is to 'reduce the facts belonging to animal life into classes, orders, genera, and species; and by comparing them with each other, to unravel the theory of diseases'. The first volume describes human physiology, especially importance of motion, both voluntary and involuntary; the second is a detailed description of the symptoms of, and the cures for, diseases, categorised according to his physiological classes.

The secrets of our genetic heritage are finally being unlocked. The massive scientific effort to sequence the human genome is in fact just the beginning of a long journey as the extraordinary genetic diversity that exists between individuals becomes clear. Work in this field is yielding profound insights into the wider implications for understanding biology, human health and history. It promises much: to understand our evolutionary origins, to define us as individuals, to predict our risk of disease and to more effectively understand, treat and prevent illness. Genetics can help us understand both rare inherited disorders and common multifactorial disease like asthma, heart disease and diabetes. Huge investments are being made and great advances have been achived, but the challenges remain daunting. This book provides an authoritative overview of this topical and very rapidly advancing field of biomedical research.
Human Genetic Diversity provides a concise, authoritative overview of human genetic diversity. It documents the insights that human genetics have brought to an understanding of human evolution and history, focusing on the implications of human genetic diversity for disease susceptibility and treatment. The book describes the genetic basis for diseases such as HIV, AIDS, Crohn's disease, asthma and type I diabetes. It also examines the emerging field of pharmacogenomics and individualized medicine.
Human genetic variation has implications across a broad range of disciplines (both biological and medical) and this text neatly consolidates work in diverse fields to highlight common themes and principles. An accessible style and the extensive use of illustrations promote its relevance to a broad audience ranging from those interested in human and population genetics to molecular biologists, evolutionary biologists, biological anthropologists and individuals working in the health sciences and clinical medicine.

The transition in anthropological and biomedical research methods over the past 50 years, from anthropometric and craniometric measurements to large-scale microarray genetic studies has resulted in continued revision of opinions and ideas relating to the factors and forces that drive human variation.

Human Variation: From the Laboratory to the Field brings together the contributions of 22 scientists working in four continents to identify and address challenges imposed by variability. It reviews the way we examine and analyze human variation, paying specific attention to genetics, growth and development, and physiology. In presenting new evidence and findings, it also discusses current developments in methodology and analytical techniques, detailing both field and laboratory approaches, and looking at how the two perspectives complement each other.

In bridging that gap between laboratory trials and studies of the human in context, this book covers a number of interesting research areas including ?

• Human adaptation to natural and artificial light, including variations in circadian photosensitivity and effects of light on GI activity
• Cold tolerance and lifestyle in modern society
• Genetics of body weight and obesity
• Human adaptability to emotional and intellectual mental stresses
• Geography, migration, climate, and environmental plasticity as contributors to human variation
• Impact of natural environmental stressors including pollution on physiological and morphological processes

This book is the latest volume in a series of works from the Society for the Study of Human Biology (SSHB), which for half a century has advanced and promoted research in the biology of human populations in all of its branches including human viability, genetics, human adaptability, and ecology, and evolution. It holds two scientific meetings a year. This volume represents work presented during its most recent gathering.

The Growth of Humanity Barry Bogin The growth of human populations and human physical growth are intimately related, and their combined study links several fields including anthropology, demography, economics, and history. The Growth of Humanity provides an introduction to key concepts, methods of research, and essential discoveries in the fields of human demography and human growth and development, particularly in relation to disease, nutrition, and aging. This book explains the evolution and significance of human life history, especially human childhood and adolescence, and shows how new stages of human development lead inextricably to the growth of the entire human population. Providing a comprehensive and exciting biocultural perspective into the uses of demography in the real world, this first volume in the new Wiley series, Foundations of Human Biology, explains how and why the way people grow leads to greater human reproductive success than that of any other mammal. Written in an appealing, accessible style, The Growth of Humanity reviews such topics as:

• How populations grow: history, methods, and principles of demography
• Basic principles of human growth and development
• Evolution of human life history
• Food, demography, and growth
• Migration and human health
• Anthropometric history
• The aging of humanity
• And much more

"Man the Hunted" argues that primates, including the earliest members of the human family, have evolved as the prey of any number of predators, including wild cats and dogs, hyenas, snakes, crocodiles, and even birds. The authors' studies of predators on monkeys and apes are supplemented here with the observations of naturalists in the field and revealing interpretations of the fossil record. Eyewitness accounts of the "man the hunted" drama being played out even now give vivid evidence of its prehistoric significance.

This provocative view of human evolution suggests that countless adaptations that have allowed our species to survive--from larger brains to speech--stem from a considerably more vulnerable position on the food chain than we might like to imagine. The myth of early humans as fearless hunters dominating the earth obscures our origins as just one of many species that had to be cautious, depend on other group members, communicate danger, and come to terms with being merely one cog in the complex cycle of life.

The expanded edition includes a new chapter that describes the ever-increasing evidence of predation on humans and other primates and claims that the earliest humans were neither hunters nor even the accomplished scavengers that many authorities have claimed.

Contents

Foreword by Ian Tattersall

1. Just Another Item on the Menu
2. Debunking "Man the Hunter"
3. Who's Eating Whom?
4. Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
5. Coursing Hyenas and Hungry Dogs
6. Missionary Position
7. Terror from the Sky
8. We Weren't Just Waiting Around to be Eaten!
9. Gentle Savage or Bloodthirsty Brute?
10. Man the Hunted
11. The Final Word

This book addresses central questions in the evolution of language: where it came from; how and why it evolved; how it came to be culturally transmitted; and how languages diversified. It does so from the perspective of the latest work in linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, and computer science, and deploys the latest methods and theories to probe into the origins and subsequent development of the only species that has languages.

Over the centuries, researchers have found bones and artefacts proving that modern humans have existed for millions of years. Mainstream science, however has suppressed these facts. Prejudices based on current scientific theory act as a 'knowledge filter', giving us a picture of prehistory that is largely inaccurate. This book reveals this hidden history.

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.

"Soul, Psyche, Brain" is a collection of essays that address the relationships between neuroscience, religion and human nature. The book highlights some startling new developments in neuroscience that have many people rethinking spirituality, the mind-body connection, and cognition in general. "Soul, Psyche, Brain" explores questions like: What are the neurological effects of meditation and prayer? How does the mind develop psychological and spiritual self-awareness? And what are the practical implications of brain-mind science for religious faith and moral reasoning?

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.

When it was published in 1996 Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia was the first book to examine the biology and lives of the prehistoric people of this region. Bringing together the most active researchers in late Pleistocene/Holocene Southeast Asian human osteology, the book deals with major approaches to studying human skeletal remains. Using analysis of the physical appearance of the region's past peoples, the first section explores issues such as the first inhabitants of the region, the evidence for subsequent migratory patterns (particularly between Southeast and Northeast Asia) and counter arguments centering on in situ microevolutionary change. This second section reconstructs the health of these people, in the context of major economic and demographic changes over time, including those caused by the adoption or intensification of agriculture. Written for archaeologists, bioarchaeologists and biological anthropologists, it is a fascinating insight into the bioarchaeology of this important region.

Why are humans so different from each other and what makes the human species so different from all other living organisms? This introductory book provides a concise and accessible account of human diversity, of its causes and the ways in which anthropologists go about trying to make sense of it. Carles Salazar offers students a thoroughly integrated view by bringing together biological and sociocultural anthropology and including perspectives from evolutionary biology and psychology.

The rise of the multi-billion dollar ancestry testing industry points to one immutable truth about us as human beings: we want to know where we come from and who our ancestors were. John H. Relethford and Deborah A. Bolnick explore this topic and many more in this second edition of Reflections of Our Past. Where did modern humans come from and how important are the biological differences among us? Are we descended from Neandertals? How should we understand the connections between genetic ancestry, race, and identity? Were Native Americans the first to inhabit the Americas? Can we see evidence of the Viking invasions of Ireland a millennium ago even in the Irish of today? Through engaging examination of issues such as these, and using non-technical language, Reflections of Our Past shows how anthropologists use genetic information to suggest answers to fundamental questions about human history. By looking at genetic variation in the world today and in the past, we can reconstruct the recent and remote events and processes that have created the variation we see, providing a fascinating reflection of our genetic past.

The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) was launched in 1991 by a group of population geneticists whose aim was to map genetic diversity in hundreds of human populations by tracing the similarities and differences between them. It quickly became controversial and was accused of racism and 'bad science' because of the special interest paid to sampling cell material from isolated and indigenous populations. The author spent a year carrying out participant observation in two of the laboratories involved and provides fascinating insights into daily routines and technologies used in those laboratories and also into issues of normativity, standardization and naturalisation. Drawing on debates and theoretical perspectives from across the social sciences, M'charek explores the relationship between the tools used to produce knowledge and the knowledge thus produced in a way that illuminates the HGDP but also contributes to our broader understanding of the contemporary life sciences and their social implications.

In 1901 William Bateson, Professor of Biology at Cambridge, published a renewed version of a lecture which he had delivered the year before to the Royal Horticultural Society in London (reprinted in the book as an appendix). In this lecture he recognized the importance of the work completed by Gregor Mendel in 1865, and brought it to the notice of the scientific world. Upon reading Bateson's paper, Archibald Garrod realized the relevance of Mendel's laws to human disease and in 1902 introduced Mendelism to medical genetics. The first part of A Century of Mendelism in Human Genetics takes a historical perspective of the first 50 years of Mendelism, including the bitter argument between the Mendelians and the biometricians. The second part discusses human genetics since 1950, ending with a final chapter examining genetics and the future of medicine. The book considers the genetics of both single-gene and complex diseases, human cancer genetics, genetic linkage, and natural selection in human populations. Besides being of general medical significance, this book will be of particular interest to departments of genetics and of medical genetics, as well as to historians of science and medicine.

The study of human bipedalism has been overshadowed by many polarized debates. One dispute concerns whether or not australopithecines were wholly terrestrial or retained a degree of arboreality. Another deliberation focuses on the bipedalism of australopithecines compared to modern humans: was it similar, intermediate in nature, or unique? Because of the preoccupation with discussions such as these, the significant fact that modern human walking is more than locomotion on two legs has been underemphasized.
This volume focuses on the pattern and process of the transition to the modern form of human locomotion, with its adaptations for a striding stiff-legged gait, efficiency of running, and economy of resource transport. This emerging group of contributors spanning the fields of anthropology, biology and anatomy debate issues such as:
-When and in what sequence did these morphological traits appear?
-What were the changes in the bio-behavioral complex of hominin locomotor evolution?
-What were the implications for the enhancement and expansion of hominin mobility?

In the mature brain calcium ions play pivotal roles in transmembrane and intracellular transmission of signals. Thus, calcium is involved in numerous neuronal functions including neurotransmitter release, enzyme regulation, modulation of neuronal excitability, gene expression, microtubular transport or synaptic plasticity. Many of these calcium-dependent processes are mediated or modulated by a number of cytosolic calcium-binding proteins. All nerve cells contain the calcium-binding protein calmodulin. Other CaBPs are restricted to certain nerve celltypes, i.e. parvalbumin, calbindin and calretinin.

The main objective of this book is to present some of the fundamental structural aspects in the design of respiratory organs while debating and speculating on when, how and why these states were founded. The author's main thesis is that the modern gas exchangers are products of protracted processes that have entailed adaptation to specific environments and lifestyles. Only those feasible designs that have proven adequately compentent in meeting demands for molecular oxygen have been preserved. The author's approach has been to look into the limiting functional properties as regards the respiratory capacities of gas exchangers while finding out the specific structural adaptations that have evolved to meet the metabolic needs or to look into form and discern how it limits function.

This book describes how archival data inform anthropological questions about human biology and health. The authors present a diverse array of human biological evidence from a variety of sources including the archaeological record, medical collections, church records, contemporary health and growth data, and genetic information from the descendants of historical populations. The contributions demonstrate how the analysis of historical documents expands the horizons of research in human biology, extends the longitudinal analysis of microevolutionary and social processes into the present, and enhances the understanding of the human condition.

It is only during the last decade that the functions of sinusoidal endothelial cells, Kupffer cells, hepatic stellate cells, pit cells and other intrahepatic lymphocytes have been better understood. The development of methods for isolation and co-culturing various types of liver cells has established that they communicate and cooperate via secretion of various intercellular mediators. This monograph summarizes multiple data that suggest the important role of cellular cross-talk for the functions of both normal and diseased liver. Special features of the book include concise presentation of the majority of detailed data in 19 tables. Original schemes allow for the clear illustration of complicated intercellular relationships. This is the first ever presentation of the newly emerging field of liver biology, which is important for hepatic function in health and disease and opens new avenues for therapeutic interventions.

Preparatory work for this monograph started in 1988 and 1989. The motive was provided by certain incongruities in the illustra- tion of descensus testis for the chapter "Entwicklung der Genital- organe" in the book Humanembryologie. The evoked discussion was reason enough for our own re- search on the phenomenon and uncertainties of testicular des- cent in human. The basis ofthese investigations was the collection of human embryos founded by Prof. Hinrichsen in 1970 at the Department of Anatomy and Embryology, Ruhr-University Bo- chum. The preparation of the material used in this paper has been done with the help of many staff members of our department to whom we feel obliged. We are especially indebted to Prof. Hin- richsen who prepared the foetuses and took the first steps of this project. We wish also to acknowledge Dr. Heinz Jiirgen Jacob for careful fixation and microdissection of specimens intended for scanning electron microscopy. Weare also grateful to Mrs. Vera Mannheim for her involvement and her sensitivity in making scanning electron micrographs, and Mrs. Antje Jaeger for provid- ing an expert and skilful photographic technique especially in the setting up of micrographs. Our thanks are also due to Mrs. Marion Kohn for skilful technical assistance and to all those technical assistants who worked in our department during the past 25 years and who were engaged in providing the serial sec- tions. The English text has been thoroughly revised by Prof. Dr.

The nanotechnology revolution that will transform human health and longevity Nano Comes to Life opens a window onto the nanoscale-the infinitesimal realm of proteins and DNA where physics and cellular and molecular biology meet-and introduces readers to the rapidly evolving nanotechnologies that are allowing us to manipulate the very building blocks of life. Sonia Contera gives an insider's perspective on this new frontier, revealing how nanotechnology enables a new kind of multidisciplinary science that is poised to give us control over our own biology, our health, and our lives. Drawing on her perspective as one of today's leading researchers in the field, Contera describes the exciting ways in which nanotechnology makes it possible to understand, interact with, and manipulate biology-such as by designing and building artificial structures and even machines at the nanoscale using DNA, proteins, and other biological molecules as materials. In turn, nanotechnology is revolutionizing medicine in ways that will have profound effects on our health and longevity, from nanoscale machines that can target individual cancer cells and deliver drugs more effectively, to nanoantibiotics that can fight resistant bacteria, to the engineering of tissues and organs for research, drug discovery, and transplantation. The future will bring about the continued fusion of nanotechnology with biology, physics, medicine, and cutting-edge fields like robotics and artificial intelligence, ushering us into a new "transmaterial era." As we contemplate the power, advantages, and risks of accessing and manipulating our own biology, Contera offers insight and hope that we may all share in the benefits of this revolutionary research.

Stem cells, regenerative medicine, and translational medicine, are all areas of burgeoning basic research and clinical application. This dictionary includes the fundamental terminology of each of these areas, the major discoveries and significant scientists that comprise the history and current development of the field, as well as a number of concepts. The vocabulary is presented within the broader lexicon of developmental biology and embryology, which provides context for these three fields. Topics covered range from stem cells (embryonic, adult, and iPSCs) to teratology. The inclusion of extensive cross-referencing of the terms will enable readers to broaden their understanding of them. The Dictionary of Stem Cells, Regenerative Medicine, and Translational Medicine will provide both the basic background terminology needed by pre-health professions/biology major undergraduate students and early-stage graduate students, as well as being a valuable reference for university professors, researchers and peers in related disciplines.