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Due to its prolific reproduction and the external development of the transparent embryo, the zebrafish is the prime model for genetic and developmental studies, as well as research in genomics.While genetically distant from humans, nonetheless the vertebrate zebrafish has comparable organs and tissues which make it the model organism for study of vertebrate development.This book will provide overview of commonly used methods and a comprehensive collection of protocols describing the most powerful techniques. The methods and techniques in this volume were chosen by the editors of Methods in Cell Biology, whose goal was to provide fail-safe methods, tips, and "tricks of the trade" to experienced researchers and more junior members in the lab.

* Provides busy researchers a quick reference for time-tested methods and protocols that really work.
* Includes "quick tips and tricks" for each method.
* Provides pragmatic wisdom to the non-specialist from experts in the field with years of experience with trial and error. ... Read more

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This book illustrates basic principles of development and related subject matter of genetics. The main objective is to integrate two disciplines of development and genetics into one. Thus it mainly deals with the role of genes in development. Contents: 1. Developmental Genetics in its Historical Perspective; 2. Genome Constancy in Development; 3.Developmental Analysis of Nucleus and Nucleolus; 4. Nucleo-Cytoplasmic Interactions; 5. Gene Structure, Gene Function, Gene Expression and Gene Regulation; 6. Temporal and Spatial Gene Expression; 7. Sigma Factors in Gene Expression; 8. DNA Rearrangements in Gene Expression; 9. Cell-specific Activation of Genes; 10. Gene Regulation by Histone, Non-Histone Proteins and Hormones; 11. Post-transcriptional and Post-translational Regulation; 12. Gene-protein System; 13. Protein-phenotype System; 14. Genetic Analysis of Development of Cell Cycle; 15. Tissue Differentiation and Pattern Formation; 16. Homeotic Genes; 17. Genetic Control of Gametogenesis; 18. Double Fertilization, Embryo and Endosperm Development; 19. Seed Storage Proteins, Diversity Controal and Synthesis; 20. Gene Amplification; 21. Penetrance, Expressivity, Phenocopies and Pleiotropy; 22. Dosage Compensation and Sex-determination; 23. Developmental Homeostasis; 24. Morphogenesis

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Basics of DNA & Evidentiary Issues - ISBN 8180613488
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Anshan Publishers is a publisher of fine medical, scientific, and technical books. We find the best titles from our worldwide publishing partners and bring them to the global marketplace.

We publish in a wide range of fields, including:-

Anatomy
Anesthesia
Cardiology
Dermatology
Hospital Acquired Infections/Epidemiology
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Ophthalmology
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This volume highlights major contributions that identify newdevelopments and directions in the field over the past decade, as wellas challenges for the foreseeable future. An integration ofinformation from laboratory and epidemiological studies, malereproduction and teratology can be found throughout the volume. Therange of topics include parental legacies and genomics, lifestyle,occupational and therapeutic paternal exposures and effects; effectson the gamete-packaging of human sperm; role of DNA repair and germcell apoptosis; stem cells, epigenetics and closing; model systems andimplications to clinicians and general counselors. ... Read more

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New imaging technologies have revolutionized the study of developmental biology. Where researchers once struggled to connect events at static timepoints, imaging tools now offer the ability to visualize the dynamic form and function of molecules, cells, tissues, and whole embryos throughout the entire developmental process. Imaging in Developmental Biology: A Laboratory Manual, a new volume in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Imaging series, presents a comprehensive set of essential visualization methods. The manual features primers on live imaging of a variety of standard model organisms including C. elegans, Drosophila, zebrafish, Xenopus, avian species, and mouse. Further techniques are organized by the level of visualization they provide, from cells to tissues and organs to whole embryos. Methods range from the basics of labeling cells to cutting-edge protocols for high-speed imaging, optical projection tomography, and digital scanned laser light-sheet fluorescence. Imaging has become a required methodology for developmental biologists, and Imaging in Developmental Biology: A Laboratory Manual provides the detailed explanations and instructions for mastering these necessary techniques. ... Read more

Product Description
New imaging technologies have revolutionized the study of developmental biology. Where researchers once struggled to connect events at static timepoints, imaging tools now offer the ability to visualize the dynamic form and function of molecules, cells, tissues, and whole embryos throughout the entire developmental process. Imaging in Developmental Biology: A Laboratory Manual, a new volume in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Imaging series, presents a comprehensive set of essential visualization methods. The manual features primers on live imaging of a variety of standard model organisms including C. elegans, Drosophila, zebrafish, Xenopus, avian species, and mouse. Further techniques are organized by the level of visualization they provide, from cells to tissues and organs to whole embryos. Methods range from the basics of labeling cells to cutting-edge protocols for high-speed imaging, optical projection tomography, and digital scanned laser light-sheet fluorescence. Imaging has become a required methodology for developmental biologists, and Imaging in Developmental Biology: A Laboratory Manual provides the detailed explanations and instructions for mastering these necessary techniques. ... Read more

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The first comprehensive synthesis on development and evolution: it applies to all aspects of development, at all levels of organization and in all organisms, taking advantage of modern findings on behavior, genetics, endocrinology, molecular biology, evolutionary theory and phylogenetics to show the connections between developmental mechanisms and evolutionary change. This book solves key problems that have impeded a definitive synthesis in the past. It uses new concepts and specific examples to show how to relate environmentally sensitive development to the genetic theory of adaptive evolution andto explain major patterns of change. In this book development includes not only embryology and the ontogeny of morphology, sometimes portrayed inadequately as governed by "regulatory genes," but also behavioral development and physiological adaptation, where plasticity is mediated by genetically complex mechanisms like hormones and learning. The book shows how the universal qualities of phenotypes--modular organization and plasticity--facilitate both integration and change. Here you will learn why it is wrong to describe organisms as genetically programmed; why environmental induction is likely to be more important in evolution than random mutation; and why it is crucial to consider both selection and developmental mechanism in explanations of adaptive evolution. This book satisfies the need for a truly general book on development, plasticity and evolution that applies to living organisms in all of their life stages and environments. Using an immense compendium of examples on many kinds of organisms, from viruses and bacteria to higher plants and animals, it shows how the phenotype is reorganized during evolution to produce novelties, and how alternative phenotypes occupy a pivotal role as a phase of evolution that fosters diversification and speeds change. The arguments of this book call for a new view of the major themes of evolutionary biology, as shown in chapters on gradualism, homology, environmental induction, speciation, radiation, macroevolution, punctuation, and the maintenance of sex. No other treatment of development and evolution since Darwin'soffers such a comprehensive and critical discussion of the relevant issues. Developmental Plasticity and Evolution is designed for biologists interested in the development and evolution of behavior, life-history patterns, ecology, physiology, morphology and speciation. It will also appeal to evolutionary paleontologists, anthropologists,psychologists, and teachers of general biology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Not a productive tome.
West-Eberhard has produced a 794 page tome that chokes the brain and deadens the senses. On the reverse cover, it asks a question about the picture on the cover, and refers to a chapter for the answer. As far as I can see, the question is never addressed.

This reveals two of the books problems. First, its grandiose aspirations, to be a new 'Modern Synthesis,' and to bring developmental biology into the fold, are never backed with a strength of data and arguments that equal her claims. Secondly, the book is a morass of arguments, constantly pointing to other parts of the book. I started drawing little circle around each time we were referred to another chapter, but I quickly stopped as my pages became tangled messes of circles.

The writing is murky at best, and the reader learns to treasure moments of lucidity, as they are long in coming. The structure often seems backwards, confusing, and generally awkward. This tome is in dire need of a biologically educated editor. Her tone is often confrontational and bullying towards other authors.

Technically speaking, her ideas within are vague, and while she lays out a clear path for phenotypic plasticity leading evolution, the reader quickly realizes her definitions of concepts like 'Phenotype' are so nebulous and removed from what any other average biologist uses that to argue against is to try and staple Jell-O to your roof. At times, she attempts to have things in two different ways - arguing phylogenetic inertia isn't a relevant or especially frequent, but also wanting traits to remain perfect and unexpressed for absurd periods of time.

The mathematical treatment of the subject in this book is non-existent. This is almost unforgivable, in a topic that clearly needs a mathematical treatment to establish its true importance in any given system beyond the examples given. Its testable predictions are rare in coming, often muddied in content, and frequently overlap with predictions made by alternate competing hypothesis. Those looking for a research programme had best look elsewhere. It definitely has not, and will not, sway any sceptics.

Its sole, redeeming quality is that it aggressively challenges the readers pre-existing notions of evolution, and forces the reader to reconsider long-held notions. But for those of us with limited time, a more succinct volume could accomplish the same introspection.

One of the important books no one reads
There seems to be a consensus in evolutionary biology that this is an important book representing a major advance in our understanding.However, most of the biologists saying this haven't read the book; or have, perhaps, skimmed a chapter or two.The reason for this is simple:this book is far too long, far too dense, and far too abstruse.There is a lot of potential here; rewritten as a 150-200 page book with a good editor, it could have been an excellent and influential book.At 640 pages of text with constant grammatical & spelling errors (Lamarck only has his "c" about half the time) and writing that is, even by academic standards, hopelessly tangled, this is bound to be only an excellent decoration for the academic bookshelf.

Nonetheless, for those willing to take the long slog through there really is a lot of value here.There are just so many more enjoyable ways to spend one's time...

OK but who's going to read this ?
I have a PhD in biochemistry (meaning I can understand a reasonable amount of jargon) and hoped that with this book I'd be able to understand what modern developmental biology (in particular developmental genetics, "evo-devo", etc.) is about, but this book bored me to death.There is no continuum, no logical progression in the teaching.When you reach the end of a chapter you've forgotten what it was about.I admire the central concept and the work but, frankly, as a book it's completely missed.It is not a textbook, it is not a popularization book, it's a 600+pages small print dissertation.Who wants to read that ?Who has the time to go to the library and check the details of any of the hundreds of referenced articles (all of them are treated only superficially) ? Not students, not professional scientists (their time would be better spent reading review articles), not laypersons.Who then ?

New ways of thinking about Biology
I think that Mary Jane West-Eberhard is trying to formulate a new Shyntesis in Biology, she is trying to include Development in Neo-Darwinism. Her book makes the difference in the role that gives to phenotype, every biologist needs to read it to express his/her own opinions. Really deserves to be read.

jump starting a revolutiion
Darwin developed his theory of evolution without knowing much about the mechanisms of heredity. These mechanisms were rediscovered in the 1900's as part of the science of genetics. By the 1930's a school of evolutionary thinkers came to the realization that Darwin's theory could be further developed by recasting it in terms of population genetics. The resulting synthetic theory of evolution has ruled mainstream biology ever since. But genetics has not stood still in the meantime. The rise of molecular biology has made possible a new discipline, evo-devo which seeks to explain how the genes control development. Evo-devo has developed a new approach to evolution. While the synthetic theory tended to see evolution as a matter of the loss of old genes within a population or the fixation of new ones, evo-devo has found that large parts of the genome are conserved over vast periods of time and shared by widely divergent phyla. Evolution has produced diversity by modifying the mechanisms which control the expression of these ancient genes. New ideas are now required to explain how this kind of diversity evolves. West-Eberhard proposes that genetic control mechanisms can be exposed to selection by the phenotypic adaptation of organisms to new kinds of environmemt. This phenotypic adaptation ultimately drives evolution. The germ of this idea had been put forward by J. Baldwim more than one hundred years ago but neither Baldwin or anybody else knew about evo-devo and the idea had little influence. Now its time may have come.
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The Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Seventh Edition, provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research findings in the biology of aging.  Intended as a summary for researchers, it may also be used as a high level textbook for graduate courses.

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This revised edition will continue to serve as the most complete and up-to-date guide to the use of the avian embryo in studies of vertebrate development.It will include new approaches to analysis of the chick genome, gene knock-out studies using RNA interference, morpholinos, and other cutting edge techniques.As with the original edition, emphasis has been placed on providing practical guidance, highlighting potentials and pitfalls of all key cell biological and embryological techniques.

* Fully revised second edition, organized into basic and advanced methods.
* New chapters with modern techniques only in use in the past decade, with an emphasis placed on providing practical guidance - highlighting potentials and pitfalls.
* International team of contributors with broad expertise in using the avian embryo to study vertebrate development.
* Includes new approaches including analysis of the chick genome, gene knock-out studies using RNAi, morpholinos, and other cutting edge techniques. ... Read more

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The nervous system is highly complex both in its structural order and in its ability to perform the many functions required for survival and interaction with the environment; understanding how it develops has proven to be one of the greatest challenges in biology.. Such precision demands that key events at every developmental stage are executed properly and are coordinated to produce the circuitry underlying each of the adult nervous system's functions.This volume describes the latest research on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neural circuitry development, while providing researchers with a one-stop overview and synthesis of contemporary thought in the area.

Reviews current research findings on the development of neural circuitry, providing researchers an overview and synthesis of the latest contemporary thought in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the development of neural circuitry.

Includes chapters discussing topics such as he guidance of nerve growth and the formation of plasticity of synapses, helping researchers better understand underlying mechanisms of neural circuit development and maintenance that may play a role in such human diseases/conditions as depression, anxiety, and pain.

Chapters make use of a variety of human and animal models, allowing researchers to compare and contrast neural circuitry develoment across a wide spectrum of models. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

The Wonders of Cellular Slime Molds
When I was a graduate student at the University of Florida one of my associates was working on cellular slime molds.I was somewhat aware of these amazing creatures because of a class in cell biology, but had never seen them.The student showed me a aggregation under the microscope and I was truly amazed, despite my previous knowledge of their existence.These "lowly" organisms are quite fascinating in ways not easily described in books.

John Tyler Bonner has spent his life studying these organisms and his "The Social Amoebae: The Biology of Cellular Slime Molds" is a great summary of his and others work on these strange life forms, that seem on the edge of multicellularity. As it turns out what was thought to be a simple organism is quite complex.The individual amoebae are influenced by a substance (acrasin) now known to be cyclic AMP (or in some cases folic acid) to form a cooperatively moving slug that crawls to a appropriate location and sporulates using a chitin-based stalk. How this occurs and where cellular slime molds fit in the classification system have been the subject of more than 1000 publications and we still don't know all the answers. For one thing, we can't study their genetics because we can't get the sexually-produced spores to grow in the laboratory!Yet these spores are produced and must actually develop in the wild.The evolution and behavior of the social amoebae are fascinating and basic biological problems and Bonner captures the excitement of this research inthis short (144 pages) book.

The charm of this book lies in Bonner's enthusiasm for his subject, his ability to convey this enthusiasm, and his ability to explain the difficult concepts involved in the study of cellular slime molds. This is a great book to present to a budding scientist or anybody interested in the wonders of microbiology. I recommend it highly.

Gelatinous wonders
Slime molds were always fascinating for me, mainly because some sacrifices themselves for the good of others; a classic example of "altruism". How does this work? How is it determined who will be part of the stem and die without offspring, and who will be in the fruiting body and reproduce? Is it nothing but kin selection?
The book does not provide a full answer - there is no simple one available. To me the book seems like a nice appetizer, a very brief summary of varies aspects studied in slime molds. It is a great read for the non-expert, since the author does not get lost in too many details. But it is not superficial either as that a scientist from a different discipline would not learn anything.
As the author mention in the beginning, it is a subjective selection of topics and papers chosen, not a comprehensive or even complete review of literature and theories available. As such for me the book seems too short and thus not satisfactory. I hope the author would - will? - make the effort to write a more extensive version.

An Expert Tells Us of His Passion
In his book _Life Cycles: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist_, John Tyler Bonner started off with the delightful first sentence, "I have devoted my life to slime molds."Indeed he has, and it has been a long life, for he continues to work on his subject, over sixty years since he first published about it.Now in _The Social Amoebae: The Biology of Cellular Slime Molds_ (Princeton University Press), he starts his preface, "I have lived with my beloved slime molds for a long time, and now suddenly I find myself quite overcome by the vast amount of new facts that have accumulated to account for every stage, every step (however small) of their life cycle."Confronted with a huge amount of information, he has, for the exercise of clarifying his own thoughts, put out a small, unintimidating book for the curious layperson.Bonner is just the one to produce such a volume; not only is he an expert in his relatively small field, he has plenty of experience to be a generalist, which is what made the last book I read by him, _Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales_, such a delight.If you know nothing about slime molds, and are even wondering how such lowly creatures (with such an ugly name, both parts!) could have excited biologists, this is a wonderful book that opens a small door into the big theater of biology.

If you think of amoebae at all, you probably remember them flowing around individually on a microscope slide.The social ones, although they do flow around independently like that, have an extraordinary life cycle.During the independent phase, the amoebae go hunting and eating bacteria.When the food runs out, the multiplied amoebae start moving around faster than before, and then they start aggregating.Amoebae, with newly formed front and hind ends, start flowing toward each other and they become sticky, with chains of amoebae coalescing.Up to two million amoebae will aggregate this way into what is called a slug, a fingerlike, mobile, multicellular creature that has the power of moving.The slug carries itself to a good place for sending spores into the world.The amoebae that make up the slug start to differentiate.Some of them form a cellulose stalk sticking up in the air, and that's the end of the line for them.Others, however, become spores, encapsulating themselves into cellulose shells.The spores stick to, say, the leg of the next insect brushing by, and are transported to the next place there might be a pasture of bacteria.Each of these steps has its own complexities, and each has been subject to one study after another.One surprising detail after another is reported here.For instance, some of the amoebae turn into stalks with no chance of becoming spores and thus sending their genes into the next generation means that there can be sociobiological analyses of the slug just as there are of social insects.Different strains of amoebae may form a slug, but some strains can cheat so that they are more likely to become spores.

Naturally Bonner explains how slime molds are distinguished evolutionarily, and how evolution might have driven them to behave the way they do now.Of course he is not entering the creationism / evolution battle, but at one point he is reminded "of the present day creationist arguments, and in particular that of intelligent design, where rational explanations are ruled impossible even before looking for them."His accounts of his own and others' clever experiments that have resulted in understanding of details of slime mold behavior are stimulating and impressive.He wonders at the end that with the current and expected wealth of detailed information researchers might be at risk of losing the big picture.The way of the future is to examine even more minutely the dance of molecules that cause all the behaviors of the strange creatures he describes here, and he reminds us, "The more details one unearths, the more complex becomes our picture of any step in development."He suspects that mathematics is going to play an increasing role in explaining how the molecules get their jobs done just so."There are so many new things that are awaiting discovery in the development of cellular slime molds," he writes, indicating that every answer brings new questions.This lovely book, which can serve as an introduction to a very strange life form as well as to a philosophy of doing science, is a fitting summary of Bonner's life work and interests.

A fun weekend read
This was a quick fun read, the book is pretty short.If you like "weekend biologist" books like this, you might also check out Winston's "Biology of the Honey Bee", which also touches on some of the same themes, e.g., emergence of amazing collective behaviors from individual units. ... Read more

Product Description
The animals loosely termed fish constitute more than half of all known vertebrate species. There are approximately 27,000 described living species of bony fishes (Euteleostomi = Osteichthyes), about 70 species of hagfishes and some 34 species of lampreys. Approximately 970 species are chondrichthyans, the sharks and their relatives, which were the subject of volume 3 in this series. It is perhaps because fishes live in a buoyant medium, whether it be fresh or sea water, that they show a diversity in body shapes that is unparalleled by other vertebrates. There is also a unique diversity in the modes of reproduction, whether by external or internal fertilization, and this, with the morphology and fine structure of the reproductive system and its components, is the subject of Part A. Part B deals with complementary topics: testes, sperm, and sperm competition; endocrinology of reproduction; pheromones and reproduction; copulatory structures: taxonomic overview and the potential for sexual selection; sexual selection: signaling and courtship; adaptation and evolution of reproductive mode in copulating cottoid species; fertilization; sex determination; parental care; reproduction in relation to conservation and exploitation of marine fishes; Cryopreservation of Gametes; Embryogenesis and Development; and Molecular Genetics of Development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

State of the art on reproductive biology of chondrichthyes
It is a very complete and up-to-date reference on the study of these type of fish. The book contains 16 chapters written very well on subjects that exactly sustain the title of the book. I consider that the editor has a great credit when selecting the scientists in the subject that results in an excellent work. The book contains photographs of high quality showing a level of detail that visually allows to reinforce all the written information. The presented/displayed information is of great academic and scientific value, and useful also for conservation and chondrichtyan fisheries management. ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing on state-of-the-art cellular and molecular techniques as well as new and sophisticated imaging and information technologies, this comprehensive, three-volume collection of cutting-edge protocols provides readily reproducible methods for studying and analyzing the events of embryonic development. Volume 1 (ISBN: 089603-574-3) contains techniques for establishing and characterizing several widely used experimental model systems, for the study of developmental patterns and morphogenesis, and for the examination of embryo structure and function. There are also step-by-step methods for the analaysis of cell lineage, the production and use of chimeras, and the experimental and molecular manipulation of embryos, including the application of viral vectors. Volume 2 (ISBN: 0-89603-575-1) describes state-of-the-art methods for the study of organogenesis, the analysis of abnormal development and teratology, the screening and mapping of novel genes and mutations, and the application of transgenesis, including the production of transgenic animals and gene knockouts. No less innovative, volume 3 (ISBN: 0-89603-576-X) introduces powerful techniques for the manipulation of developmental gene expression and function, the analysis of gene expression, the characterization of tissue morphogenesis and development, the in vitro study of differentiation and development, and the genetic analysis of developmental models of diseases. Highly practical and richly annotated, the three volumes of Developmental Biology Protocols describe multiple experimental systems and details techniques adopted from the broadest array of biomedical disciplines. ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing on state-of-the-art cellular and molecular techniques as well as new and sophisticated imaging and information technologies, this comprehensive, three-volume collection of cutting-edge protocols provides readily reproducible methods for studying and analyzing the events of embryonic development. Volume 1 (ISBN: 089603-574-3) contains techniques for establishing and characterizing several widely used experimental model systems, for the study of developmental patterns and morphogenesis, and for the examination of embryo structure and function. There are also step-by-step methods for the analaysis of cell lineage, the production and use of chimeras, and the experimental and molecular manipulation of embryos, including the application of viral vectors. Volume 2 (ISBN: 0-89603-575-1) describes state-of-the-art methods for the study of organogenesis, the analysis of abnormal development and teratology, the screening and mapping of novel genes and mutations, and the application of transgenesis, including the production of transgenic animals and gene knockouts. No less innovative, volume 3 (ISBN: 0-89603-576-X) introduces powerful techniques for the manipulation of developmental gene expression and function, the analysis of gene expression, the characterization of tissue morphogenesis and development, the in vitro study of differentiation and development, and the genetic analysis of developmental models of diseases. Highly practical and richly annotated, the three volumes of Developmental Biology Protocols describe multiple experimental systems and details techniques adopted from the broadest array of biomedical disciplines. ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing on state-of-the-art cellular and molecular techniques as well as new and sophisticated imaging and information technologies, this comprehensive, three-volume collection of cutting-edge protocols provides readily reproducible methods for studying and analyzing the events of embryonic development. Volume 1 (ISBN: 089603-574-3) contains techniques for establishing and characterizing several widely used experimental model systems, for the study of developmental patterns and morphogenesis, and for the examination of embryo structure and function. There are also step-by-step methods for the analaysis of cell lineage, the production and use of chimeras, and the experimental and molecular manipulation of embryos, including the application of viral vectors. Volume 2 (ISBN: 0-89603-575-1) describes state-of-the-art methods for the study of organogenesis, the analysis of abnormal development and teratology, the screening and mapping of novel genes and mutations, and the application of transgenesis, including the production of transgenic animals and gene knockouts. No less innovative, Volume 3 (ISBN: 0-89603-576-X) introduces powerful techniques for the manipulation of developmental gene expression and function, the analysis of gene expression, the characterization of tissue morphogenesis and development, the in vitro study of differentiation and development, and the genetic analysis of developmental models of diseases. Highly practical and richly annotated, the three volumes of Developmental Biology Protocols describe multiple experimental systems and details techniques adopted from the broadest array of biomedical disciplines.

... Read more

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Developing organisms are systems in which the geometry, dynamics, and boundary conditions are all changing in the course of morphogenesis. The morphogenesis of cells and organisms appear to be mediated in part by the mechanically active components of the cytoskeleton. Mechanical forces have long been considered secondary to the effects of molecular mechanisms in cell growth, differentiation, and development. This volume explores the role of mechanical forces in cell growth and development and demonstrates its importance. This volume will prove invaluable to all biologists interested in the fundamentals of mechanical forces in development, from the advanced to the graduate researcher. ... Read more

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This book uses evolution as the unifying theme to trace the connections between levels of biological complexity from genes through nervous systems, animal societies, and human cultures. It examines the history of evolutionary theory from Darwin to the present, including: the impact of molecular biology and the emergence of evolutionary social theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

SUPER!
A fascinating overview of evolution, and of the evolution of human behavior and society in particular. The writing is accessible to everybody, and I highly recommend it to all people regardless of their scientific background. Well-written, with many helpful charts, etc. A real eye-opener! ... Read more

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This book represents an effort to understand very old questions about biological form, function, and the relationships between them. The essays collected here reflect the diversity of approaches in evolutionary developmental biology (Evo Devo), including not only studies by prominent scientists whose research focuses on topics concerned with evolution and development, but also historically and conceptually oriented studies that place the scientific work within a larger framework and ask how it can be pushed further. Topics under discussion range from the use of theoretical and empirical biomechanics to understand the evolution of plant form, to detailed studies of the evolution of development and the role of developmental constraints on phenotypic variation. The result is a rich and interdisciplinary volume that will begin a wider conversation about the shape of Evo Devo as it matures as a field. ... Read more

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Research into the causes of aging, and strategies to delay that process, have gained much ground and attention in recent years. This volume covers the major threads in the molecular genetics of aging, including genes that regulate aging, causes of aging, evolutionary theories of aging, and the relationship between diet and aging. Among specific topics covered are calorie restriction, mitochondria, sirtuins, telomeres, stem cells, and cancer. Each chapter is written by one or more leaders in the field, and the book presents the current status of this exciting research area and provides an invaluable source of information in a single volume. Related Titles from the Publisher Ageless Quest: One Scientist's Search for the Genes That Prolong Youth Clocks and Rhythms: Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, LXXll ... Read more