'When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?' - Michel de Montaigne. Why do we live with pets? Is there something more to our relationship with them than simply companionship? What is it we look for in our pets and what does this say about us as human beings? In this fascinating book, Erica...

This classic text explores the multitude of impacts that humans have had over time upon vegetation, animals, soils, water, landforms, and the atmosphere. It considers the ways in which climate...

Invertebrate Medicine, Second Edition offers a thorough update to the most comprehensive book on invertebrate husbandry and veterinary care.  Including pertinent biological data for invertebrate species, the book’s emphasis is on providing state-of-the-art information on medicine and the clinical condition. ...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was introduced in the mid 1980s in clinical neurophysiology to study the central motor pathways. Research has been exponentially increased since, and many different methods for brain stimulation have been considered during the last decade. This publication focuses on transcranially applied, non- or...

Mirror neurons may hold the brain's key to social interaction - each coding not only a particular action or emotion but also the recognition of that action or emotion in others. The Mirror System Hypothesis adds an evolutionary arrow to the story - from the mirror system for hand actions, shared with monkeys and chimpanzees, to the...

Our understanding of how the human brain performs mathematical calculations is far from complete, but in recent years there have been many exciting breakthroughs by scientists all over the world. Now, in The Number Sense, Stanislas Dehaene offers a fascinating look at this recent research, in an enlightening exploration of the...

Several years ago, when the discovery of catalytic RNA was recognized in a public manner, many people asked if new ?elds of therapy would soon be available. Although some tentative positive answers were given, nobody would say with certainty that RNA of various kinds was a truly promising means of altering gene expression. In fact, over the...

  Principles of Cloning, Second Edition is the fully revised edition of the authoritative book on the science of cloning. The book presents the basic biological mechanisms of how cloning works and progresses to discuss current and potential applications in basic biology, agriculture, biotechnology, and medicine. Beginning with the...

Recent research by the EPA has concluded that one in six women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their bodies, which puts 630,000 newborn babies each year at risk of neurological impairment. Mercury poses severe risks to the health of animals and...

Synthesizing decades of work, but up-to-date, this book focuses on organism-level responses to pollutants by marine animals, mainly crustaceans, molluscs, and fishes. Emphasizing effects on physiological processes (feeding/digestion, respiration, osmoregulation), life-cycle (reproduction [including endocrine disruption], embryo...

Physics in Biology and Medicine, Fourth Edition explores concepts in physics as they apply to living systems. The discussion is organized into 18 chapters encompassing thermodynamics, electricity, optics, sound, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, and atomic and nuclear physics. Each chapter provides a brief review of the background physics...

"In a clear, engaging style, Dr. Walters tells the tale of each disease like a detective story. He allows each mystery to unfold as it did in reality, often slowly, through the lives of the plants and animals involved, the first human victims, the government officials who tried to respond, and the scientists who ultimately explained what...