| Why do we age? Why cooperate? Why do so many species engage in sex? Why do the tropics have so many species? When did humans start to affect world climate?
This book provides an introduction to a range of fundamental questions that have taxed evolutionary biologists and ecologists for decades. Some of the phenomena discussed are, on first reflection, simply puzzling to understand from an evolutionary perspective, whilst others have direct implications for the future of the planet. All of the questions posed have at least a partial solution, all have seen exciting breakthroughs in recent years, yet many of the explanations continue to be hotly debated. Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution is a curiosity-driven book, written in an accessible way so as to appeal to a broad audience. It is very deliberately not a formal text book, but something designed to transmit the excitement and breadth of the field by discussing a number of major questions in ecology and evolution and how they have been answered. This is a book aimed at informing and inspiring anybody with an interest in ecology and evolution. It reveals to the reader the immense scope of the field, its fundamental importance, and the exciting breakthroughs that have been made in recent years. |
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 Genomics, Proteomics and Vaccines
While the sequence of the human genome sequence has hit the headlines, extensive exploitation of this for practical applications is still to come. Genomic and post-genomic technologies applied to viral and bacterial pathogens, which are almost equally important from a scientific perspective, have the potential to be translated into useful... |  |  Security for Wireless Ad Hoc NetworksWireless networks, whether cellular networks or wireless local area networks (LANs), have rapidly become an indispensable part of our life. Evidence of this is the widespread usage of such networks in several areas such as office, home, universities, hot-spots such as airports and hotels etc. In addition, the widespread availability of miniature... |  |  Getting Started with CouchDB
When I was about nine years old, I had an Acorn Electron, a home computer developed
by Acorn Machines and one of the major precursors to modern home computing. It
was tiny by today’s standards, having just 32K of RAM, a 2MHz CPU, and with the
staggering ability to store a massive 360 Kb on the 3 inch Amstrad disks I was using... |
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