Harvard University Press - SCIENCE

Coding and Redundancy

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Jack P. Hailman
This book explores the strikingly similar ways in which information is encoded in nonverbal man-made signals (e.g., traffic lights and tornado sirens) and animal-evolved signals (e.g., color patterns and vocalizations). Appealing not only to specialists in semiotics, animal behavior, psychology, and allied fields but also to general readers, it serves as an introduction to animal signaling and to an important class of human communication.
Hardcover June 2008

Vibrational Communication in Animals

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Peggy S. M. Hill
In creatures as different as crickets and scorpions, mole rats and elephants, there exists an overlooked channel of communication: signals transmitted as vibrations through a solid substrate. In this book, Hill summarizes a generation of groundbreaking work by scientists around the world on this long understudied form of animal communication.
Hardcover May 2008

Bending Science

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Thomas O. McGarity
Wendy E. Wagner
McGarity and Wagner reveal the range of sophisticated legal and financial tactics political and corporate advocates use to discredit or suppress research on potential human health hazards.Bending Science exposes an astonishing pattern of corruption and makes a compelling case for reforms to safeguard both the integrity of science and the public health.
Hardcover May 2008

El Niño, Catastrophism, and Culture Change in Ancient America

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Daniel H. Sandweiss
Edited by Jeffrey Quilter
This book summarizes research on the nature of El Niño events in the Americas and details specific historic and prehistoric patterns in Peru and elsewhere.
Hardcover May 2008

Heredity and Hope

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Ruth Schwartz Cowan
Neither minimizing the difficulty of the choices that modern genetics has created for us nor fearing them, Cowan argues that we can improve the quality of our own lives and the lives of our children by using the modern science and technology of genetic screening responsibly.
Hardcover May 2008

Beautiful Minds

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Maddalena Bearzi
Craig B. Stanford
Beautiful Minds explains how and why apes and dolphins are so distantly related yet so cognitively alike and what this teaches us about another large-brained mammal: Homo sapiens. Noting that apes and dolphins have had no common ancestor in nearly 100 million years, Bearzi and Stanford describe the parallel evolution that gave rise to their intelligence.
Hardcover April 2008

In Pursuit of the Gene

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

James Schwartz
Schwartz presents the history of genetics through the eyes of a dozen or so central players, beginning with Charles Darwin and ending with Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller. This book offers readers the background they need to understand the latest findings in genetics and those still to come in the search for the genetic basis of complex diseases and traits.
Hardcover April 2008

Primeval Kinship

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Bernard Chapais
In this account of the dawn of human society, Chapais shows that our knowledge about kinship and society in nonhuman primates supports, and informs, ideas first put forward by the distinguished social anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss. Chapais contends that only a few evolutionary steps were required to bridge the gap between the kinship structures of our closest relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—and the human kinship configuration.
Hardcover April 2008

Einstein and Oppenheimer

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Silvan S. Schweber
Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, two iconic scientists of the twentieth century, belonged to different generations, with the boundary marked by the advent of quantum mechanics. By exploring how these men differed—in their worldview, in their work, and in their day—this book provides powerful insights into the lives of two critical figures and into the scientific culture of their times.
Hardcover April 2008

On the Surface of Things

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Felice Frankel
George M. Whitesides
Using innovative photographic technology, Frankel finds startling abstract beauty on the surfaces of objects all around us. Chemist George Whitesides explains each photograph, describing why and how each of these phenomena occur.
Paperback April 2008

Fathoming the Ocean

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Helen M. Rozwadowski
Foreword by Sylvia Earle
By the middle of the nineteenth century, as scientists explored the frontiers of polar regions and the atmosphere, the ocean remained silent and inaccessible. The history of how this changed--of how the depths became a scientific passion and a cultural obsession, an engineering challenge and a political attraction--is the story that unfolds in Fathoming the Ocean.
Paperback March 2008

Starved for Science

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Robert Paarlberg
Foreword by Norman Borlaug
Foreword by Jimmy Carter
In Starved for Science Paarlberg explains why poor African farmers are denied access to productive technologies, particularly genetically engineered seeds with improved resistance to insects and drought. He traces this obstacle to the current opposition to farm science in prosperous countries.
Hardcover March 2008

Fatal Misconception

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Matthew Connelly
Fatal Misconception is the disturbing story of our quest to remake ourselves by policing national borders and breeding better people. Supported by affluent countries, foundations, and non-governmental organizations, the population control movement experimented with ways to limit population growth. With its transnational scope and exhaustive research into such archives as Planned Parenthood and the newly opened Vatican Secret Archives, Connelly’s critique uncovers the cost inflicted by a humanitarian movement gone terribly awry and urges renewed commitment to the reproductive rights of all people.
Hardcover March 2008

Genes in Conflict

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Austin Burt
Robert Trivers
Covering all species from yeast to humans, this is the first book to tell the story of selfish genetic elements that act narrowly to advance their own replication at the expense of the larger organism.
Paperback March 2008

Beyond the Zonules of Zinn

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

David Bainbridge
In his latest book, Bainbridge combines an otherworldly journey through the central nervous system with an accessible and entertaining account of how the brain's anatomy has often misled anatomists about its function. Bainbridge uses the structure of the brain to set his book apart from the many volumes that focus on brain function.
Hardcover February 2008

Bones and Ochre

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Marianne Sommer
When ochre-stained bones were unearthed by William Buckland in a Welsh cave in 1823, they raised many unsettling questions regarding their origin, and inspired the casting and recasting of the character who became known as the Red Lady. Her biography reflects the personal, professional, and national ambitions of those who studied her, and echoes the era in which each bit of research was conducted. In telling her story, Sommer reveals how paleoanthropology has emerged as an international, interdisciplinary, and thoroughly modern science.
Hardcover February 2008

Fruits and Plains

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Philip J. Pauly
Plant engineering has a long history, and Pauly urges us to think of horticulturists as pioneer "biotechnologists," hacking their plants to create a landscape that reflects their ambitions and ideals. In telling the histories of Concord grapes and Japanese cherry trees, the problem of the prairie and the war on the Medfly, Pauly hopes to provide a new understanding of not only how horticulture shaped the vegetation around us, but how it influenced our experiences of the native, the naturalized, and the alien.
Hardcover February 2008

Manipulative Monkeys

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Susan Perry
Joseph H. Manson, With
This book takes us into a Costa Rican forest teeming with simian drama, where since 1990 primatologists Perry and Manson have followed four generations of capuchins. The authors describe behavior as entertaining--and occasionally as alarming--as it is recognizable: competition and cooperation, jockeying for position and status, peaceful years under an alpha male devolving into bloody chaos, and complex traditions passed from one generation to the next. Interspersed with their observations are the authors' colorful tales of the challenges of tropical fieldwork.
Hardcover February 2008

Artscience

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

David Edwards
This book is an attempt to show how innovation in the "post-Google generation" is often catalyzed by those who cross a conventional line so firmly drawn between the arts and the sciences. Edwards describes how contemporary creators achieve breakthroughs in the arts and sciences by developing their ideas in an intermediate zone of human creativity where neither art nor science is easily defined.
Hardcover January 2008

Biobazaar

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

Janet Hope
Can the open source approach do for biotechnology what it has done for information technology? Hope's book is the first sustained and systematic inquiry into the application of open source principles to the life sciences. Traversing disciplinary boundaries, she presents a careful analysis of intellectual property-related challenges confronting the biotechnology industry and then paints a detailed picture of "open source biotechnology" as a possible solution.
Hardcover January 2008

Galileo's Glassworks

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

Eileen Reeves
Galileo and the Dutch telescope have long enjoyed a durable connection in the popular mind, transforming a rather modest middle-aged scholar into the icon of the Copernican Revolution. And yet the speed with which the telescope changed the course of Galileo's life and early modern astronomy obscures his actual delayed encounter with the instrument. This book considers the lapse between the telescope's 1608 creation in The Hague and Galileo's acquaintance with such news ten months later. Along the way, Reeves offers a revised chronology of Galileo's life in this critical period.
Hardcover January 2008

A Guinea Pig's History of Biology

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST

Jim Endersby
Hardcover November 2007

Supercontinent

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST

Ted Nield
This book explores the the Supercontinent cycle, a geological cycle so vast that our species will probably be extinct long before the current one ends. And yet this cycle, the grandest pattern in Nature, may well be the fundamental reason any complex life at all exists. Nield introduces readers to some of the most exciting science of our time, describing how geologists first guessed at these vanishing landmasses and came to appreciate the significance of the fusing and fragmenting of supercontinents.
Hardcover November 2007

The Evolving World

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

David P. Mindell
Today, evolutionary biology is much more than an explanatory concept. It is indispensable to the world we live in. This book provides the first truly accessible and balanced account of how evolution has become a tool with applications that are thoroughly integrated, and deeply useful, in our everyday lives and our societies, often in ways that we do not realize. The Evolving World convinces us as never before that evolutionary biology has become absolutely necessary for human existence.
Paperback October 2007

The Singing Neanderthals

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Steven Mithen
In The Singing Neanderthals, Steven Mithen draws together strands from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience and musicology to explain why we are so compelled to make and hear music. Mithen explores music as a fundamental aspect of the human condition, encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species. The result is a fascinating work--and a succinct riposte to those who have dismissed music as a functionless evolutionary byproduct.
Paperback October 2007

The Smaller Majority

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Piotr Naskrecki
This large-format volume of color photographs takes readers on a magnificent visual journey into the remote world of small tropical organisms critical to biodiversity. A unique introduction to the marvelous variety of the overlooked life under our feet, Naskrecki's book returns us to a child's sense of wonder with a fully informed, deeply felt understanding of the importance of the world's smaller, teeming life.
Paperback October 2007

Very Special Relativity

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Sander Bais
Bais's previous book, The Equations, was widely read and roundly praised for its clear and commonsense explanation of the math in physics. Very Special Relativity brings the same accessible approach to Einstein's theory. Using a series of easy-to-follow diagrams and employing only elementary high school geometry, Bais conducts readers through the quirks and quandaries of such fundamental concepts as simultaneity, causality, and time dilation.
Hardcover October 2007

Hispaniola

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Biodiversidad a Través de un Recorrido Fotográfico
Eladio Fernández
Foreword by Edward O. Wilson
Introduction by Philippe Bayard
Translated by Irina P. Ferreras
Translated by Gustavo Romero
A Dominican-based conservationist and photographer, Fernández is documenting the efforts of a distinguished team of international scientists as they unravel the workings of evolution being played out on the island of Hispaniola. What Fernández captures here so vividly is not just the amazing variety of living creatures that have erupted in evolutionary isolation, but the urgency of scientists racing to give that variety a name before it vanishes.
Hardcover October 2007

Made to Break

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Giles Slade
Made to Break is a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence. Giles Slade explains how disposability was a necessary condition for America's rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. This book gives us a detailed and harrowing picture of how, by choosing to support ever-shorter product lives, we may well be shortening the future of our way of life as well.
Paperback October 2007

Fossil Invertebrates

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Paul D. Taylor
David N. Lewis
The plates in this book capture incredibly detailed impressions and casts of ancient life, contrasting them with forms, such as the horseshoe crab and the chambered nautilus, that persist today virtually unchanged. Paul D. Taylor and David N. Lewis, both of the Natural History Museum, London, have written a comprehensive and accessible resource, one that provides undergraduates and amateur fossil enthusiasts with a means to understand and interpret this rich fossil record.
Paperback October 2007

Slicing the Silence

Mon, 1 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Tom Griffiths
From Scott and Shackleton to sled dogs and penguins, stories of Antarctica seize our imagination. In December 2002, environmental historian Tom Griffiths set sail with the Australian Antarctic Division to deliver the new team of winterers. In this beautifully written book, he reflects on the history of human experiences in Antarctica, taking the reader on a journey of discovery, exploration, and adventure in an unforgettable land.
Hardcover October 2007

Laws of Men and Laws of Nature

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Tal Golan
Are scientific expert witnesses partisans, or spokesmen for objective science? This ambiguity has troubled the relations between scientists and the legal system for more than 200 years. With deep learning and wry humor, Tal Golan tells stories of courtroom drama and confusion and media jeering on both sides of the Atlantic, until the start of the twenty-first century, as the courts still search for ways that will allow them to distinguish between good and bad science.
Paperback September 2007

Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Peter J. Bowler
Bowler doesn't minimize the hostility of many of the faithful toward evolution, but he reveals the less well-known existence of a long tradition within the churches that sought to reconcile Christian beliefs with evolution by finding reflections of the divine in scientific explanations for the origin of life. By tracing the historical forerunners of these rival Christian responses, Bowler provides a valuable alternative to accounts that stress only the escalating confrontation.
Hardcover September 2007

Plants and Empire

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Londa Schiebinger
In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.
Paperback September 2007

Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations, and Cultural Changes

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Michel Conan
Edited by W. John Kress
This book highlights the religious, artistic, political, and economic consequences of horticultural pursuits, exploring the roles of peasants, botanists, horticulturists, nurserymen and gentlemen collectors in these developments, and concluding with a reflection on the future of horticulture in the present context of widespread environmental devastation and ecological uncertainty.
Paperback June 2007

Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT

William C. Wimsatt
Analytic philosophers once pantomimed physics, trying to understand the world by breaking it down. Thinkers from the Darwinian sciences now pose alternatives to this simplistic reductionism. In a tour of essays spanning thirty years, Wimsatt argues that scientists seek to atomize phenomena only when necessary to understand how entities, events, and processes articulate at different levels. This book offers a philosophy for error-prone humans trying to understand messy systems in the real world.
Hardcover June 2007