Thinking about adopting or rescuing an animal? This friendly guide gives you a no-nonsense introduction to the process and helps you select the right companion for you and your family. You'll see how to...

The most commonly kept domestic animal in the developed world, the cat has been a part of human life for thousands of years. Cats have been both worshipped and persecuted over this long period - either loved or hated for their enigmatic self-reliance and the subject of numerous myths and fables. Highlighting startling discoveries made over...

We are visual animals. But before we can see the world in its true splendor, our brains, just like our computers, have to sort and organize raw data, and then transform that data to produce new images of the world. Beginning Python Visualization: Crafting Visual Transformation Scripts, Second Edition discusses turning many types of...

Bella and Edward, and their family and friends, have faced countless dangers and philosophical dilemmas in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels. This book is the first to explore them, drawing on the wisdom of philosophical heavyweights to...

In the latter part of the 19th century Emil von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato showed that serum from human patients (or animals, typically horses) who had recovered from an infectious disease (typhus, diphtheria, etc) could be used to prevent or treat the same disease in other humans (indeed hyperimmune horse serum is still used to treat...

How did the zebra really get its stripes, and the giraffe its long neck? What is the science behind camel humps, leopard spots, and other animal oddities? Such questions have fascinated us for centuries, but the expanding field of evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology) is now providing, for the first time, a wealth of insights and...

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...

'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...

Fully integrated and comprehensive in its coverage, Root Genomics and Soil Interactions examines the use of genome-based technologies to understand root development and adaptability to biotic and abiotic stresses and changes in the soil environment. Written by an international team of experts in the field, this timely review highlights...

For tens of thousands of years the human race used their muscles and the labor of animals to build a world that differed little from that known by all their ancestors. But in 1776 James Watt installed the fi rst of his improved steam engines in a commercial enterprise, kicking off the industrial revolution.

The 1800s were...