This entertaining and informative book describes how living
things bump up against non-biological reality. "My immodest aim,"
says the author, "is to change how you view your immediate
surroundings." He asks us to wonder about the design of plants and
animals around us: why a fish swims more rapidly than a duck can
paddle, why healthy trees more commonly uproot than break, how a
shark manages with such a flimsy skeleton, or how a mouse can
easily survive a fall onto any surface from any height.
The book will not only fascinate the general reader but will
also serve as an introductory survey of biomechanics. On one hand,
organisms cannot alter the earth's gravity, the properties of
water, the compressibility of air, or the behavior of diffusing
molecules. On the other, such physical factors form both
constraints with which the evolutionary process must contend and
opportunities upon which it might capitalize. Life's Devices
includes examples from every major group of animals and plants,
with references to recent work, with illustrative problems, and
with suggestions of experiments that need only common household
materials.
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