This book is about the extent, origins and causes of the environmental crisis. Dr Northcott argues that Christianity has lost the biblical awareness of the inter-connectedness of all life. He shows how Christian theologians and believers might recover a more ecologically friendly belief system and life style. The author provides an important corrective to secular approaches to environmental ethics, including utilitarian individualism, animal rights theories and deep ecology. He contends that neither the stewardship tradition, nor the panentheist or process ecological theologies have successfully mobilised the Christian tradition. He demonstrates that the Hebrew Bible contains an ecological message which is close to the traditions of many primal and indigenous peoples and which provides an important corrective to instrumental attitudes to nature in much modern philosophy and Christian ethics.
Introduces biomes, showing and describing the main kinds and discussing their location, climate, and plant and animal life, as well as those developed by humans.
Jack London’s adventurous nature and his superb ability as a storyteller give these tales striking vitality and force. Thrilling action, an intuitive feeling for animal life, and a sense of justice th
Within these fourteen hilarious and insightful tales of urban life, you'll meet:Raiford Phelps, an ornithologist who discovers new patterns of animal behavior when he meets Mary Leibnitz.Benno Morna,
Profoundly important ethical and political controversies turn on the question of whether biological life is an essential aspect of a human person, or only an extrinsic instrument. Lee and George argue that human beings are physical, animal organisms - albeit essentially rational and free - and examine the implications of this understanding of human beings for some of the most controversial issues in contemporary ethics and politics. The authors argue that human beings are animal organisms and that their personal identity across time consists in the persistence of the animal organisms they are; they also argue that human beings are essentially rational and free and that there is a radical difference between human beings and other animals; criticize hedonism and hedonistic drug-taking; present detailed defenses of the prolife positions on abortion and euthanasia; and defend the traditional moral position on marriage and sexual acts.
Portland is often associated with the mythological phoenix, the animal that rises out of the ashes of its apparent death. Life here has often been a struggle: to overcome the disastrous fires of 1775
Explores the life of scientist Jane Goodall, whose life-long research, writing, and teaching have led to new understandings of animal behavior and the importance of conservation.
Understanding biomes--the communities of nature that share a similar climate and plant and animal life--is key to a student's success in biology, geography, and environmental studies. This book provi
Why do the best-known examples of evolutionary change involve the alteration of one kind of animal into another very similar one, like the evolution of a bigger beak in a bird? Wouldn't it be much more interesting to understand how beaks originated? Most people would agree, but until recently we didn't know much about such origins. That is now changing, with the growth of the interdisciplinary field evo-devo, which deals with the relationship between how embryos develop in the short term and how they (and the adults they grow into) evolve in the long term. One of the key questions is: can the origins of structures such as beaks, eyes, and shells be explained within a Darwinian framework? The answer seems to be yes, but only by expanding that framework. This book discusses the required expansion, and the current state of play regarding our understanding of evolutionary and developmental origins.
Abandoned structures are places that open the imagination and invite interpretation. Distressed wood and weathered remnants of human life are crossed by time and animal tracks, inviting one to picture
Fire is pivotal to the functioning of ecosystems in Australia, affecting the distribution and abundance of the continent's unique and highly diverse range of plants and animals. Conservation of this natural biodiversity therefore requires a good understanding of scientific processes involved in the action of fire on the landscape. This book provides a synthesis of current knowledge in this area and its application in contemporary land management. Central to the discussion is an exploration of the concept of the fire regime - the cumulative pattern of fires and their individual characteristics (fire type, frequency, intensity and season) - and its interactions with biodiversity. Contributions by thirty-two leading experts cover a broad sweep of topics, including prehistory, future climate change, fire behaviour, modelling of temporal and spatial patterns, plant and animal life-cycles, case studies of major ecosystems, and management policies and systems.
This adorable animal may spend its entire life in one tree. Some have even been found holding onto branches after they die!Meet the sensational sloth - the world's slowest mammal.Wild Life LOL! introd
First published in 1987, this book is about how cells differentiate; that is it describes the way in which cells in animal and plant bodies take on their specialised fates. It has long been recognised that since all such cells retain copies of all genes, the genetic explanation for tissue differences lies in the controlled expression of restricted sets of genes. But how is the choice made and how are such restricted groups of genes activated and regulated? This book discusses these questions and describes both determination and differentiation. The mechanisms that underlie the processes are described for the embryo and in the adult. Determination may occur in adult life during regeneration, wound healing, cancer formation and in the immune and blood systems, and the possible genetic basis for the events is explored. The influence of the cell environment, the cell surface and the pericellular-extracellular matrix as mediators of external signals is discussed.
The question addressed by this volume is how human beings have evolved as creatures who can make and use more complex tools, communicate in more complex ways and engage in more complex forms of social life than any other species in the animal kingdom. Leading researchers from fields as diverse as biological and social anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, psychology, neurology and ethology have come together to present a unique interdisciplinary study of this central question in human evolution. The topics explored include the parallels between speech, manual gesture and other modes of communication; comparisons of the tool-using skills and imitative abilities of humans and non-human primates and the neurological links between the cognitive processes involved in language. This important volume will be essential reading for all those interested in human evolution, be they philosophers, humanists or scientists.
Sexual Selection in Primates provides an account of all aspects of sexual selection in primates, combining theoretical insights, comprehensive reviews of the primate literature and comparative perspectives from relevant work on other mammals, birds and humans. Topics include sex roles, sexual dimorphism in weapons, ornaments and armaments, sex ratios, sex differences in behaviour and development, mate choice, sexual conflict, sex-specific life history strategies, sperm competition and infanticide. The outcome of the evolutionary struggle between the sexes, the flexibility of roles and the leverage of females are discussed and emphasised throughout. Sexual Selection in Primates is aimed at graduates and researchers in primatology, animal behaviour, evolutionary biology and comparative psychology.
Childhood is a uniquely human life-stage, and is both a biological phenomenon and a social construct. Research on children is currently of wide-ranging interest. This book presents reviews of childhood from four major areas of interest - human evolution, sociology/social anthropology, bio-medical anthropology and developmental psychology - to form a biosocial, cross-cultural understanding of childhood. The book places a strong emphasis on how childhood varies from culture to culture, offering examples from developed and developing countries, as well as from other animal species. It will be of interest to students and scholars within the fields of human biology, anthropology, sociology, health studies and developmental psychology.
This introductory undergraduate textbook provides a concise, clear and affordable overview of parasite biology for students and non-specialists, to equip them for approaching more technical and detailed literature. Using examples from all groups of animal parasites, the text considers the various stages of a parasite's life cycle from finding hosts to surviving within the host. The significance of damage caused by parasites and approaches to control are discussed, giving the book a well-rounded approach for those new to the subject or revising key points. A key feature of the book is its comparative rather than systematic approach. Suitable for all introductory parasite courses in biology, zoology and human and veterinary medicine.
Fungi are a diverse group of organisms, studied widely because of their commercial importance in biotechnology, agriculture and medicine, and because they provide simple model systems for illuminating the eukaryotic mode of life. The development of the techniques of molecular biology has opened up new areas of mycological research, with profound consequences such as the sequencing of the first entire eukaryotic genome. This book focuses on the application of molecular and cell biology to mycology and presents examples of how these approaches are elucidating long-held problems in areas as diverse as animal and plant pathology, protein expression and evolution. Aimed at advanced undergraduates taking courses in mycology, applied biology, biotechnology, fungal biology and fungal genetics, this textbook will also serve postgraduates needing an introduction to modern fungal research.
