Linguists, biological anthropologists, and cognitive scientists come together in this book to explore the origins and early evolution of phonology, syntax, and semantics. They consider the nature of pre- and proto-linguistic communication, the internal and external triggers that led to its transformation into language, and whether and how language may be considered to have evolved after its inception. Evidence is drawn from many domains, including computer simulations of language emergence, the songs of finches, problem-solving abilities in monkeys, sign language, and the structure of languages today.

John Dupré warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but increasingly in everyday life, we find one set of experts seeking to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, and another set of experts using economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupré demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work, and furthermore that if taken seriously their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. For these reasons, it is important to resist scientism - an exaggerated conception of what science can be expected to do for us. Dupré restores sanity to the study of human nature by pointing the way to a proper understanding of humans in the societies that are our natural and necessary environments. Anyone interested in science and human nature will enjoy this book, unless they are its targets.

A collection of outspoken and topical essays, speeches, and reports by J. D. Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA in 1953 and best-selling author of The Double Helix. These often controversial pieces cover the advance of molecular genetics, the prospect of curing cancer over the next decade, how human genetic knowledge is likely to be used, for good or bad, and Watson's early life and career.

From an award-winning medic and scientist, the game-changing case that genetic females have greater resilience, immunity, endurance and more, compared with males 'A powerful antidote to the myth of a "weaker sex"' Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain From birth, genetic females are better at fighting viruses, infections and cancer. They do better at surviving epidemics and famines. They live longer, and even see the world in a wider variety of colours. These are the facts; they are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why? And why are we taught the opposite? Drawing on his wide-ranging experience and cutting-edge research as a medic, geneticist and specialist in rare diseases, Dr Sharon Moalem set out to understand why women are consistently more likely than men to thrive. The answer, he reveals, lies in our genetics: the female's double XX chromosomes offer a powerful survival advantage. Moalem explains why genetic females outperform males when it comes to immunity, resilience, stamina and much more. And he calls for a long-overdue reconsideration of our male-centric, one-size-fits-all view of the body and of how we prescribe medications - a view that still frames women through the lens of men. Revolutionary, captivating and utterly persuasive, The Better Half will make you see women, men and the survival of our species anew.

The purpose of this 2006 book is to present non-invasive methods of measuring the biological responses to psychosocial stress in humans, in non-laboratory (field) settings. Following the pathways of Seyle's General Adaptation Syndrome, the text first describes how to assess the psychosocial stressors of everyday life and then outlines how to measure the psychological, behavioral, neurohumeral, physiological and immunological responses to them. The book concludes with practical information on assessing special populations, analyzing the often-complicated data that are collected in field stress studies and the ethical treatment of human subjects in stress studies. It is intended to be a practical guide for developing and conducting psychophysiological stress research in human biology. This book will assist students and professionals in designing field studies of stress.

Carolyn Price investigates what it means to say that mental states -- thoughts, wishes, perceptual experiences, and so on -- are about things in the world. Her answer turns on the idea that we are endowed with mechanisms whose function is to produce states that carry certain kinds of information about the world. Functions in Mind is an adventurous contribution to the project of bringing together philosophy and biology in order to understand the mind as part of the natural world.

Recent media headlines about research misconduct in US universities have focused public attention on the dramatic ethical problems that can arise during the conduct of research. In the current atmosphere of accountability, scientific research on humans is now under increased scrutiny by the media, governments and the general public. Ethics of the Use of Human Subjects in Research (Practical Guide) fills the needs for learning materials and strategies providing support for training programmes related to the ethics of the use of human subjects in research. It presents a practical introduction to the ethical issues at stake in the conduct of research with human subjects. Beginning with a chapter on research ethics, a total of ten chapters range in scope from the development of a protocol for ethical decision-making to how to obtain IRB approval, with an emphasis on ethical factors underpinning the IRB review process.

One of the traits that distinguishes us from our nearest relatives is our curiosity about the origins of our species. In this new paperback, Ian Tattersall (author of The Fossil Trail) discusses human uniqueness, investigating the origins of those characteristics and processes that so clearly distinguish human beings, such as creativity, language, and consciousness. Taking the reader around the world, stopping in France to examine 30,000-year-old cave paintings, in Africa to see where our earliest ancestors left their bones, and in remote forests to spy on our closest living relatives, the great apes, Tattersall uncovers what it is that makes us really different and what the future might hold for our species.

This book provides a unique discussion of human evolution from a philosophical viewpoint, looking at the facts and interpretations since Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man. Michael Ruse explores such topics as the nature of scientific theories, the relationships between culture and biology, the problem of progress and the extent to which evolutionary issues pose problems for religious beliefs. He identifies these issues, highlighting the problems for morality in a world governed by natural selection. By taking a philosophical viewpoint, the full ethical and moral dimensions of human evolution are examined. This book engages the reader in a thorough discussion of the issues, appealing to students in philosophy, biology and anthropology.

Integrative approaches to biomedical research promise to advance our understanding of the human body and physiopathology of diseases. In this book, the author focuses on the skeletal system, demonstrating how multiscale modeling can determine the relationship between bone mechanics and disease. Introductory chapters explain the concept of integrative research, what a model is, predictive modeling, and the computational methods used throughout the book. Starting with whole body anatomy, physiology and modeling, subsequent chapters scale down from bone and tissue levels to the cellular level, where the modeling of mechanobiological processes is addressed. Finally, the principles are applied to address truly complex, multiscale interactions. Special attention is given to real-world clinical applications: one in pediatric skeletal oncology and one on the prediction of fracture risks in osteoporotic patients. This book has wide interdisciplinary appeal and is a valuable resource for researchers in mechanical and biomedical engineering, quantitative physiology and computational biology.

In humans, the perception of odours adds a fourth dimension to life, from the scent of flowers, the aroma of foods, and all the subtle smells in the environment. But how many types of odours can we distinguish? Why do we like the food we like? Which are the most powerful odorants, and how well does the human sense of smell perform compared with that of a dog or a butterfly? The sense of smell is highly complex, and such complexity discouraged scientists for a long time, leaving the world of smell in an atmosphere of mystery. Only recently, thanks to the new tools furnished by molecular biology and neuroscience, are we beginning to answer these questions, uncovering the hidden secrets of our sense of smell, and decoding the language used by most animals to communicate. In this book, Paolo Pelosi, one of the leading figures in the development of the science of olfaction, recounts how the chemical alphabet behind smell has been pieced together over the past three decades. Drawing on anecdotes from his own scientific career, and celebrating the rich variety of smells from herbs to flowers to roast coffee and freshly baked bread, he weaves together an engaging and remarkable account of the science behind the most elusive of our senses.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. This volume contains the 1921 third edition of L. Doncaster's Heredity in the Light of Recent Research. It offers a contemporaneous account of the most important advances in the study of heredity during the beginning of the twentieth century.

Full of fascinating and bizarre cases of genetic mutation and irregularity, 'Mutants' is an amazing exploration of the human form in all its beautiful and unique guises. Why are most of us born with one nose, two legs, ten fingers and twenty-four ribs - and some of us not? Why do most of us stop growing in our teens - while others just keep going? Why do some us have heads of red hair - and others no hair at all? The human genome, we are told, makes us what we are. But how? Armand Marie Leroi takes us to the extremes of human mutation - from the grotesque to the beautiful, and often both at the same time - to explain how we become what we are. Through the tales of long-lived Croatian dwarves, ostrich-footed Wadoma tribesmen, sex-changing French convent girls, and many more wonders of human development, Leroi has written a brilliant narrative account of our genetic grammar and people whose bodies have revealed it.

Gold Award Winner, 2024 Nonfiction Book Awards. Runner-up, 2024 History category, San Francisco Book Festival.

For much of recorded history, people considered the heart to be the most important organ in the body. In cultures around the world, the heart—not the brain—was believed to be the location of intelligence, memory, emotion, and the soul. Over time, views on the purpose of the heart have transformed as people sought to understand the life forces it contains. Modern medicine and science dismissed what was once the king of the organs as a mere blood pump subservient to the brain, yet the heart remains a potent symbol of love and health and an important part of our cultural iconography.

This book traces the evolution of our understanding of the heart from the dawn of civilization to the present. Vincent M. Figueredo—an accomplished cardiologist and expert on the history of the human heart—explores the role and significance of the heart in art, culture, religion, philosophy, and science across time and place. He examines how the heart really works, its many meanings in our emotional and daily lives, and what cutting-edge science is teaching us about this remarkable organ. Figueredo considers the science of heart disease, recent advancements in heart therapies, and what the future may hold. He highlights the emerging field of neurocardiology, which has found evidence of a “heart-brain connection” in mental and physical health, suggesting that ancient views hold more truth than moderns suspect.

Ranging widely and deeply throughout human history, this book sheds new light on why the heart remains so central to our sense of self.

This book describes how we see. It is about the eyes, how they capture an image and convert it to the neural messages that result in visual experience. The First Steps in Seeing has been written in a manner that is understandable to all. The number of technical terms has been restricted, and those that are used are illustrated with hundreds of full-colour pictures, icons and graphs.

Wide-ranging and inclusive, this text provides an invaluable review of an expansive selection of topics in human evolution, variation and adaptability for professionals and students in biological anthropology, evolutionary biology, medical sciences and psychology. The chapters are organized around four broad themes, with sections devoted to phenotypic and genetic variation within and between human populations, reproductive physiology and behavior, growth and development, and human health from evolutionary and ecological perspectives. An introductory section provides readers with the historical, theoretical and methodological foundations needed to understand the more complex ideas presented later. Two hundred discussion questions provide starting points for class debate and assignments to test student understanding.

In recent years, the relations between science and religion have been the object of renewed attention. Developments in physics, biology and the neurosciences have reinvigorated discussions about the nature of life and ultimate reality. At the same time, the growth of anti-evolutionary and intelligent design movements has led many to the view that science and religion are necessarily in conflict. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the relations between science and religion, with contributions from historians, philosophers, scientists and theologians. It explores the impact of religion on the origins and development of science, religious reactions to Darwinism, and the link between science and secularization. It also offers in-depth discussions of contemporary issues, with perspectives from cosmology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and bioethics. The volume is rounded out with philosophical reflections on the connections between atheism and science, the nature of scientific and religious knowledge, and divine action and human freedom.

In recent years, the relations between science and religion have been the object of renewed attention. Developments in physics, biology and the neurosciences have reinvigorated discussions about the nature of life and ultimate reality. At the same time, the growth of anti-evolutionary and intelligent design movements has led many to the view that science and religion are necessarily in conflict. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the relations between science and religion, with contributions from historians, philosophers, scientists and theologians. It explores the impact of religion on the origins and development of science, religious reactions to Darwinism, and the link between science and secularization. It also offers in-depth discussions of contemporary issues, with perspectives from cosmology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and bioethics. The volume is rounded out with philosophical reflections on the connections between atheism and science, the nature of scientific and religious knowledge, and divine action and human freedom.

In the words of Richard Gregory `Here are to be found novel links to art and science, and to mind and brain... These many themes are captured to weave a tapestry of the intelligent brain behind the artful eye.'

This fascinating volume presents the thoughts of scientists and artists working on many aspects of visual perception, ranging from the physiology of the brain, development of sight in infants, and the significance of faces, to the physics of images and the mathematics of impossible objects. There are essays on perspective, especially of Vermeer's use of the camera oscura, alongside an examination of the art of the forger, portraits of artists and scientists, and a personal statement by the late sculptress, Dame Elisabeth Frink.

Complete with over 200 illustrations, including colour plates by Hockney, Magritte, Vermeer, and others, this is a an enlightening mixture of biology and aesthetics which will appeal to psychologists, vision scientists, and all those interested in the effect of the visual arts on the eye and brain.

The early environment in which we grow up has profound, long lasting, and often irreversible consequences for us throughout our lives. Stresses due to under nutrition in early childhood can mean that in adulthood individuals are smaller, more prone to disease, and have a shorter life expectancy than those with normal diets. Disease and poor living conditions in infancy and childhood also have profound implications in adulthood. Whilst environmental effects on human growth and development are well documented, the long-term consequences due to processes taking place at the early stages of growth and development have only in past years become a focus of intense study. In this volume, first published in 1996, leading researchers in nutrition, epidemiology, human biology, anthropology and physiology bring together a uniquely accessible source of information on this fascinating topic.

So how "did" women get their curves? Why do they have breasts, while other mammals only develop breast tissue while lactating, and why do women menstruate, when virtually no other beings do so? What are the reasons for female orgasm? Why are human females kept in the dark about their own time of ovulation and maximum fertility, and why are they the only animals to experience menopause?

David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton, coauthors of acclaimed books on human sexuality and gender, discuss the theories scientists have advanced to explain these evolutionary enigmas (sometimes called "Just-So stories" by their detractors) and present hypotheses of their own. Some scientific theories are based on legitimate empirical data, while others are pure speculation. Barash and Lipton distinguish between what is solid and what remains uncertain, skillfully incorporating their expert knowledge of biology, psychology, animal behavior, anthropology, and human sexuality into their entertaining critiques. Inviting readers to examine the evidence and draw their own conclusions, Barash and Lipton tell an evolutionary suspense story that captures the excitement and thrill of true scientific detection.

This two-day symposium in the annual Society for the Study of Human Biology Symposium Series covers a wide spectrum of growth physiology, and presents a state-of-the-art review of human auxology, from factors affecting cellular growth, through nutritional factors affecting the growth of the infant, to endocrine and other factors affecting the growth of the child before and after adolescence. Wiith contributions from some of the leading workers in the various fields, the book starts with a consideration of the effects of experimental removal of parts of mouse embryos on final body size and the part played by local tissue interactions in the specification of limb segments in insects. Discussion of the growth-promoting actions of the somatomedins in foetal, post-natal and brain growth follow, leading to two chapters on Man, dealing with energy requirements and body composition in infants, and the endocrine control of body size and sexual development during puberty.

Details on a Major New Discovery included in a New Afterword
Why do we look the way we do? Neil Shubin, the paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered "Tiktaalik," the "fish with hands," tells the story of our bodies as you've never heard it before. By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria." "Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest--enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.

Dental Functional Morphology offers an alternative to the received wisdom that teeth merely crush, cut, shear or grind food and shows how teeth adapt to diet. Providing an analysis of tooth action based on an understanding of how food particles break, it shows how tooth form from the earliest mammals to modern-day humans can be understood using very basic considerations about fracture. It outlines the theoretical basis step by step, explaining the factors governing tooth shape and size and provides an allometric analysis that will revolutionize attitudes to the evolution of the human face and the impact of cooked foods on our dentition. In addition, the basis of the mechanics behind the fracture of different types of food, and methods of measurement are given in an easy-to-use appendix. It will be an important sourcebook for physical anthropologists, dental and food scientists, palaeontologists and those interested in feeding ecology.

An all-in-one illustrated guide to human anatomy with encyclopedic coverage from bones and muscles to systems and processes. This in-depth manual to the human body's physical structure, chemical workings, and potential problems is a must-have reference to help further your studies or knowledge of how our bodies work.

Each page of The Human Body Book, updated to reflect the latest medical advances, is illustrated with colourful and comprehensive diagrams, which are thoroughly annotated to take you right into the cells and fibres that are responsible for keeping the human body ticking.

The opening chapter, Integrated Body, explains how the parts of the body work together at various levels of size and hierarchy to produce the living whole. It also contains an overview of the major body systems, enlivened by real-life 3D medical scans of the entire body. The chapters that follow provide coverage of the body function by function, system by system. Eleven main body systems are covered in turn, with each section ending on common injuries, diseases, and disorders afflicting that system. The book concludes with a chapter on Growth and Development which looks in detail at how the body changes over the course of a human lifespan.