Download or read book The Unpredictable Species written by Philip Lieberman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-21 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How our brains have evolved so that we control how we think and behave The Unpredictable Species argues that the human brain evolved in a way that enhances our cognitive flexibility and capacity for innovation and imitation. In doing so, the book challenges the central claim of evolutionary psychology that we are locked into predictable patterns of behavior that were fixed by genes, and refutes the claim that language is innate. Philip Lieberman builds his case with evidence from neuroscience, genetics, and physical anthropology, showing how our basal ganglia—structures deep within the brain whose origins predate the dinosaurs—came to play a key role in human creativity. He demonstrates how the transfer of information in these structures was enhanced by genetic mutation and evolution, giving rise to supercharged neural circuits linking activity in different parts of the brain. Human invention, expressed in different epochs and locales in the form of stone tools, digital computers, new art forms, complex civilizations—even the latest fashions—stems from these supercharged circuits. The Unpredictable Species boldly upends scientifically controversial yet popular beliefs about how our brains actually work. Along the way, this compelling book provides insights into a host of topics related to human cognition, including associative learning, epigenetics, the skills required to be a samurai, and the causes of cognitive confusion on Mount Everest and of Parkinson's disease.
Download or read book The Unpredictable Species written by Philip Lieberman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Unpredictable Species argues that the human brain evolved in a way that enhances our cognitive flexibility and capacity for innovation and imitation. In doing so, the book challenges the central claim of evolutionary psychology that we are locked into predictable patterns of behavior that were fixed by genes, and refutes the claim that language is innate. Philip Lieberman builds his case with evidence from neuroscience, genetics, and physical anthropology, showing how our basal ganglia--structures deep within the brain whose origins predate the dinosaurs--came to play a key role in human creativity. He demonstrates how the transfer of information in these structures was enhanced by genetic mutation and evolution, giving rise to supercharged neural circuits linking activity in different parts of the brain. Human invention, expressed in different epochs and locales in the form of stone tools, digital computers, new art forms, complex civilizations--even the latest fashions--stems from these supercharged circuits. The Unpredictable Species boldly upends scientifically controversial yet popular beliefs about how our brains actually work. Along the way, this compelling book provides insights into a host of topics related to human cognition, including associative learning, epigenetics, the skills required to be a samurai, and the causes of cognitive confusion on Mount Everest and of Parkinson's disease.
Download or read book The Theory That Changed Everything written by Philip Lieberman and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few people have done as much to change how we view the world as Charles Darwin. Yet On the Origin of Species is more cited than read, and parts of it are even considered outdated. In some ways, it has been consigned to the nineteenth century. In The Theory That Changed Everything, the renowned cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman demonstrates that there is no better guide to the world’s living—and still evolving—things than Darwin and that the phenomena he observed are still being explored at the frontiers of science. In an exploration that ranges from Darwin’s transformative trip aboard the Beagle to Lieberman’s own sojourns in the remotest regions of the Himalayas, this book relates fresh, contemporary findings to the major concepts of Darwinian theory, which transcends natural selection. Drawing on his own research into the evolution of human linguistic and cognitive abilities, Lieberman explains the paths that adapted human anatomy to language. He demystifies the role of recently identified transcriptional and epigenetic factors encoded in DNA, explaining how nineteenth-century Swedish famines alternating with years of plenty caused survivors’ grandchildren to die many years short of their life expectancy. Lieberman is equally at home decoding supermarket shelves and climbing with the Sherpas as he discusses how natural selection explains features from lactose tolerance to ease of breathing at Himalayan altitudes. With conversational clarity and memorable examples, Lieberman relates the insights that led to groundbreaking discoveries in both Darwin’s time and our own while asking provocative questions about what Darwin would have made of controversial issues today, such as GMOs, endangered species, and the God question.
Download or read book Northern Spotted Owl Management Plan in the National Forests CA OR WA written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Gulf of California written by Richard C. Brusca and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few places in the world can claim such a diversity of species as the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), with its 6,000 recorded animal species estimated to be half the number actually living in its waters. So rich are the Gulf's water that over a half-million tons of seafood are taken from them annually—and this figure does not count the wasted by-catch, which would triple or quadruple that tonnage. This timely book provides a benchmark for understanding the Gulf's extraordinary diversity, how it is threatened, and in what ways it is—or should be—protected. In spite of its dazzling richness, most of the Gulf's coastline now harbors but a pale shadow of the diversity that existed just a half-century ago. Recommendations based on sound, careful science must guide Mexico in moving forward to protect the Gulf of California. This edited volume contains contributions by twenty-four Gulf of California experts, from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. From the origins of the Gulf to its physical and chemical characteristics, from urgently needed conservation alternatives for fisheries and the entire Gulf ecosystem to information about its invertebrates, fishes, cetaceans, and sea turtles, this thought-provoking book provides new insights and clear paths to achieve sustainable use solidly based on robust science. The interdisciplinary, international cooperation involved in creating this much-needed collection provides a model for achieving success in answering critically important questions about a precious but rapidly disappearing ecological treasure.
Download or read book Systematics Biology and Morphology of World Polychaeta written by Mary E. Petersen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-07-03 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains 67 original papers by nearly 100 of the world’s leading specialists. Together with abstracts and literature references for 37 presentations not represented by papers, this volume provides complete coverage of the Conference and a comprehensive overview of modern research on the polychaete annelids, one of the most important groups of marine invertebrates and constituents of marine benthos. Taxonomic and subject indices of all papers and abstracts provide ready access to the contained information. Richly illustrated, this book is provided with numerous line drawings, and photomicrographs, electron micrographs. Over 60 taxa are newly described or reassigned, and detailed reviews, revisions or redescriptions are provided for five families, one subfamily and numerous genera and species, with many illustrations of new and redescribed taxa and a pictorial key to the maglonids of Thailand.
Download or read book Into the Cool written by Eric D. Schneider and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-06 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors look to the laws of thermodynamics for answers to the questions of evolution, ecology, economics, and even life's origin.
Download or read book Origin s of Design in Nature written by Liz Swan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Origin(s) of Design in Nature is a collection of over 40 articles from prominent researchers in the life, physical, and social sciences, medicine, and the philosophy of science that all address the philosophical and scientific question of how design emerged in the natural world. The volume offers a large variety of perspectives on the design debate including progressive accounts from artificial life, embryology, complexity, cosmology, theology and the philosophy of biology. This book is volume 23 of the series, Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology. www.springer.com/series/5775
Download or read book The Biomass Spectrum written by S. R. Kerr and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kerr and Dickie propose the development of a new ecological theory, one that can lead to a more effective remedy for the drastic effects of heavy fishing on natural communities of organisms in both marine and freshwater environments. By plotting the densities of the biomass of all organisms in a given community by body-size classes, the authors provide empirical evidence of what they term "the biomass body-size spectrum" in the world's oceans. After examining this evidence, they propose an underlying theory of predator-prey energy transfer: larger species eat smaller species, providing energy exchange across all species within an ecosystem. Providing the first comprehensive synthesis of the energy flow within the biomass spectrum, this book demonstrates not only a new understanding of the self-organizing properties of ecological production systems but also the potential of the biomass spectrum methodology for offering practical remedies when these natural systems are exploited by humans.
Download or read book The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins written by Hal Whitehead and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-12-04 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An astonishing, unconstrained exploration of the nature and practice of cetacean culture . . . a revolutionary book.” —Philip Hoare, author of The Whale In the songs and bubble feeding of humpback whales; in young killer whales learning to knock a seal from an ice floe in the same way their mother does; and in the use of sea sponges by the dolphins of Shark Bay, Australia, to protect their beaks while foraging for fish, we find clear examples of the transmission of information among cetaceans. Just as human cultures pass on languages and turns of phrase, tastes in food (and in how it is acquired), and modes of dress, could whales and dolphins have developed a culture of their very own? Unequivocally: yes. In The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins, cetacean biologists Hal Whitehead, who has spent much of his life on the ocean trying to understand whales, and Luke Rendell, whose research focuses on the evolution of social learning, open an astounding porthole onto the fascinating culture beneath the waves. As Whitehead and Rendell show, cetacean culture and its transmission are shaped by a blend of adaptations, innate sociality, and the unique environment in which whales and dolphins live. Drawing on their own research as well as a scientific literature as immense as the sea—including evolutionary biology, animal behavior, ecology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience—Whitehead and Rendell dive into realms both humbling and enlightening as they seek to define what cetacean culture is, why it exists, and what it means for the future of whales and dolphins. And, ultimately, what it means for our future, as well.
Download or read book Crustaceans and the Biodiversity Crisis written by Frederick R. Schram and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-07-03 with total page 1033 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important and extensive volume presents part of the Proceedings of the Fourth International Crustacean Congress held in Amsterdam in 1998. As the title implies, 'Crustaceans and the Biodiversity Crisis' was the general, underlying theme of all contributions at the congress. With the turn of the century, someone ought to 'assess the balance' of our natural environment and of the various branches of biology that study its rapidly declining diversity. From the five subthemes covered at the conference, those of (1) Diversity in Time and Space (including Systematics, Phylogeny, and Palaeontology), (2b) Biogeography, (3c) Larvae, and (4) Physiology and Biochemistry (including Molecular Biology and Genetics) are represented in this volume, along with a few contributions from other subthemes (e.g. (2a) Invasive Crustacea, (3a) Ecology, (3b) Behaviour, and (5) Fisheries and Aquaculture). The book is primarily meant for scientists working at institutes involved in research on the group (Crustacea: marine, freshwater, or terrestrial) and/or the disciplines covered. Individual carcinologists working on one of the themes discussed in this volume, will find a wealth of interesting and timely contributions, as will other scientists working in marine or freshwater biology or in soil ecology.
Download or read book Population Biology of Tropical Insects written by Allen M. Young and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book I have tried to bring together the major developments in the study of insect populations in tropical environments. In some ways, this task has been a difficult one because conceptually it is virtually impossible to limit a discussion of insect ecology to the tropics, since the same concepts, theories, and hypoth eses concerning the mechanisms by which habitats support insect populations often apply both to temperate and to tropical regions. Thus one might argue effectively that a book such as Peter Price's Insect Ecology represents a more comprehensive treatment of insect ecology, including the tropical aspects. Yet because there has been a tremendous amount of new study on insects in the tropics in recent years, and because there has also been a strong historical interest in tropical insects, judging from early museum expeditions and medically and agriculturally oriented studies of insects in the New and Old World tropics, I believe there is a place for a book dealing almost exclusively with tropical insects. But logically so, such a book by necessity incorporates data and informa tion from Temperate Zone studies, if for no other reason than because insights into the properties of tropical environments often emerge from compariso'ns of species, communities, or faunas between temperate and tropical regions. An understanding of insect populations in the tropics cannot be divorced from a consideration of Temperate Zone populations.
Download or read book Evolution of Insect Pests written by Ke Chung Kim and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1993-05-17 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reflects on insect pests' evolution by evaluating existing theories, documenting case studies of diverse pest species and presenting new concepts regarding the problem of variation and implications for pest management strategies. Leading experts offer contributions which deal with variations in genetic markers and ecologically meaningful traits as well as future perspectives in entomology and biosystematics.
Download or read book The Evolution of Intelligence written by Robert J. Sternberg and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is one to understand the nature of intelligence? One approach is through psychometric testing, but such an approach often puts the "cart before the horse"--the test before the theory. Another approach is to use evolutionary theory. This criterion has been suggested by a number of individuals in the past, from Charles Darwin in the more distant past to Howard Gardner, Stephen Gould, Steven Pinker, Carl Sagan, David Stenhouse, and many others. The chapters in this book address three major questions: 1. Does evolutionary theory help us understand the nature of human intelligence? 2. If so, what does it tell us about the nature of human intelligence? 3. And if so, how has intelligence evolved? The goal of this book is to present diverse points of view on the evolution of intelligence as offered by leading experts in the field. In particular, it may be possible to better understand the nature and societal implications of intelligence by understanding how and why it has evolved as it has. This book is unique in offering a diversity of points of view on the topic of the evolution of human intelligence.
Download or read book Cultural DNA written by Gurnek Bains and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Develop deeper cultural intelligence to thrive in a globalized world. Cultural DNA is a thought provoking book for successful engagement with cultures around the world. Written by Gurnek Bains, founder and chairman of a global business psychology consultancy, this book guides leaders through the essential soft skills required to get under the skin and engage an increasingly connected world. Presenting ground breaking original research and the latest evidence from neuroscience, behavioral genetics, and psychology, the deepest instincts of eight key global cultures are dissected. Readers will understand the psychological themes at play in regions such as the U.S., Latin America, Europe, China, India, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia. Additionally, an extensive database of 30,000 leaders provides insights to inform the reader. The book addresses questions such as: What are the challenges for leaders from different regions as they move into onto the global stage? Why are Americans so positive? Why is China a world leader in manufacturing and India in IT? Why do overseas firms struggle in the U.S. market place? What are the emotional forces driving current events in the Middle East? Each culture has attributes that developed over thousands of years to address unique environmental challenges. This DNA drumbeat from the past reverberates through each society affecting everything. As globalization marches on we can also learn important lessons from the world’s distinct societies. Globalization demands that cultures learn to work within each other's needs and expectations, and the right mix of people skills, business acumen, and cultural awareness is key. Business and Political leaders will understand how each regions’ cultural DNA influences: Its economic and political institutions. People’s underlying consumer psychology. The soft skills needed to lead in that environment. How to best release people’s potential. The issues that need to be managed to anticipate and solve problems before they arise Every now and again a new book comes along, that is a must read: Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point or a Seth Godin’s Tribes. Cultural DNA by Gurnek Bains, by virtue of its depth, originality and ambition, is that very book for all global leaders.
Download or read book Seeds written by Carol C. Baskin and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 1998-06-11 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeds: Ecology, Biogeography, and Evolution of Dormancy and Germination differs from all other books on seed germination. It is an all-encompassing volume that provides a working hypothesis of the ecological and environmental conditions under which various kinds of seed dormancy have developed. It also presents information on the seed germination of more than 3500 species of trees, shrubs, vines and herbaceous species, making this a valuable reference for anyone studying germination. This book delivers information on characteristics of each type of seed dormancy, how each type of dormancy is broken in nature, and what environmental conditions are required for germination after dormancy is broken. It explains how studies should be done to distinguish persistent from transient seed banks, and covers which species should be controlled, propagated, and conserved. Seeds gives the reader insight and guidelines for doing ecologically meaningful studies on the biogeography and evolution of seed dormancy and germination in order to better understand plant reproductive strategies, life history traits, adaptations to habitats, and physiological processes. Evolutionary/phylogenetic origins and relationships of various kinds of seed dormancy A world biogeographical perspective on seed dormancy and germination Ecophysiology of seeds with each type of dormancy Critical evaluation of methodology used in soil seed bank studies Germination ecology of plants with specialized habitat and life cycle types Genetic and maternal preconditioning effects on seed dormancy and germination Guidelines for doing ecologically-meaningful germination studies
