Tunguska, or the End of Nature
¥288.41
On June 30, 1908, a mysterious explosion erupted in the skies over a vast woodland area of Siberia. Known as the Tunguska Event, it has been a source of wild conjecture over the past century, attributed to causes ranging from meteors to a small black hole to antimatter. In this imaginative book, Michael Hampe sets four fictional men based on real-life scholars-a physicist (Gunter Hasinger and Steven Weinberg), a philosopher (Paul Feyerabend), a biologist (Adolf Portmann), and a mathematician (Alfred North Whitehead)-adrift on the open ocean, in a dense fog, to discuss what they think happened. The result is a playful and highly illuminating exploration of the definition of nature, mankind's role within it, and what its end might be.?Tunguska, Or the End of Nature uses its four-man setup to tackle some of today's burning issues-such as climate change, environmental destruction, and resource management-from a diverse range of perspectives. With a kind of foreboding, it asks what the world was like, and will be like, without us, whether we are negligible and the universe random, whether nature can truly be explained, whether it is good or evil, or whether nature is simply a thought we think. This is a profoundly unique work, a thrillingly interdisciplinary piece of scholarly literature that probes the mysteries of nature and humans alike.?
Egocracy
¥288.41
Sonia Arribas would like to thank her colleagues from the CSIC and UPF seminars ?Mínima Políticaand ?Movimientos Sociales?, especially Paco Fernández Buey, Antonio Gimeno and José Antonio Zamora; and also, for the invaluable support that they have provided at the CSIC, José María González, Reyes Mate and Concha Roldán.
Pure Intelligence
¥288.41
William Hyde Wollaston made an astonishing number of discoveries in an astonishingly varied number of fields: platinum metallurgy, the existence of ultraviolet radiation, the chemical elements palladium and rhodium, the amino acid cystine, and the physiology of binocular vision, among others. Along with his colleagues Humphry Davy and Thomas Young, he was widely recognized during his life as one of Britain's leading scientific practitioners in the first part of the nineteenth century, and thedeaths of all three within a six-month span, between 1828 and 1829, were seen by many as the end of a glorious period of British scientific supremacy. Unlike Davy and Young, however, Wollaston was not the subject of a contemporary biography, and his many impressive achievements have fallen into obscurity as a result.Pure Intelligence is the first book-length study of Wollaston, his science, and the environment in which he thrived. Drawing on previously-unstudied laboratory records as well as historical reconstructions of chemical experiments and discoveries, and written in a highly accessible style, Pure Intelligence will help to reinstate Wollaston in the history of science, and the pantheon of its great innovators.
Nature of Selection
¥288.41
The Nature of Selection is a straightforward, self-contained introduction to philosophical and biological problems in evolutionary theory. It presents a powerful analysis of the evolutionary concepts of natural selection, fitness, and adaptation and clarifies controversial issues concerning altruism, group selection, and the idea that organisms are survival machines built for the good of the genes that inhabit them."e;Sober's is the answering philosophical voice, the voice of a first-rate philosopher and a knowledgeable student of contemporary evolutionary theory. His book merits broad attention among both communities. It should also inspire others to continue the conversation."e;-Philip Kitcher, Nature"e;Elliott Sober has made extraordinarily important contributions to our understanding of biological problems in evolutionary biology and causality. The Nature of Selection is a major contribution to understanding epistemological problems in evolutionary theory. I predict that it will have a long lasting place in the literature."e;-Richard C. Lewontin
Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises
¥294.30
The eighty-nine cetacean species that swim our seas and rivers are as diverse as they are intelligent and elusive, from the hundred-foot-long, two-hundred-ton blue whale to the lesser-known tucuxi, ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, and diminutive, critically endangered vaquita. The huge distances these highly migratory creatures cover and the depths they dive mean we catch only the merest glimpses of their lives as they break the surface of the water. But thanks to the marriage of science and technology, we are now beginning to understand their anatomy, complex social structures, extraordinary communication abilities, and behavioral patterns. In this beautifully illustrated guide, renowned marine mammalogist Annalisa Berta draws on the contributions of a pod of fellow whale biologists to present the most comprehensive, authoritative overview ever published of these remarkable aquatic mammals.Opening with an accessible rundown of cetacean biology-including the most recent science on feeding, mating, and communication-Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises then presents species-specific natural history on a range of topics, from anatomy and diet to distribution and conservation status. Each entry also includes original drawings of the species and its key identifiers, such as fin shape and color, tooth shape, and characteristic markings as they would appear both above and below water-a feature unique to this book.Figures of myth and-as the debate over hunting rages on-figures of conflict since long before the days of Moby-Dick, whales, dolphins, and porpoises are also ecologically important and, in many cases, threatened. Written for general enthusiasts, emergent cetacean fans, and biologists alike, this stunning, urgently needed book will serve as the definitive guide for years to come.
Birds of South America:Passerines (Collins Field Guide)
¥294.79
Recommended for viewing on a colour tablet. South America has long been known for its bountiful flora and fauna. The richness in bird life has attracted visitors from all over the world and has helped to make South America an increasingly popular wildlife tourist spot. This major new field guide to the birds of South America covers all the passerines (perching birds), with all plumages for each species illustrated, including males, females and juveniles. The text gives information on key identification features, habitat, and songs and calls. Beautiful artwork featured across 195 colour plates appears opposite the relevant text for quick and easy reference. Distribution maps are included, showing where each species can be found and how common it is, to further aid identification.
Deconstructing Dignity
¥311.96
The right-to-die debate has gone on for centuries, playing out most recently as a spectacle of protest surrounding figures such as Terry Schiavo. In?Deconstructing Dignity, Scott Cutler Shershow offers a powerful new way of thinking about it philosophically. Focusing on the concepts of human dignity and the sanctity of life, he employs Derridean deconstruction to uncover self-contradictory and damaging assumptions that underlie both sides of the debate.Shershow examines texts from Cicero's?De Officiis?to Kant's?Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals?to court decisions and religious declarations. Through them he reveals how arguments both supporting and denying the right to die undermine their own unconditional concepts of human dignity and the sanctity of life with a hidden conditional logic, one often tied to practical economic concerns and the scarcity or unequal distribution of medical resources. He goes on to examine the exceptional case of self-sacrifice, closing with a vision of a society-one whose conditions we are far from meeting-in which the debate can finally be resolved. A sophisticated analysis of a heated topic,?Deconstructing Dignity?is also a masterful example of deconstructionist methods at work.?
Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution
¥311.96
Coevolution-reciprocal evolutionary change in interacting species driven by natural selection-is one of the most important ecological and genetic processes organizing the earth's biodiversity: most plants and animals require coevolved interactions with other species to survive and reproduce. The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution analyzes how the biology of species provides the raw material for long-term coevolution, evaluates how local coadaptation forms the basic module of coevolutionary change, and explores how the coevolutionary process reshapes locally coevolving interactions across the earth's constantly changing landscapes.Picking up where his influential The Coevolutionary Process left off, John N. Thompsonsynthesizes the state of a rapidly developing science that integrates approaches from evolutionary ecology, population genetics, phylogeography, systematics, evolutionary biochemistry and physiology, and molecular biology. Using models, data, and hypotheses to develop a complete conceptual framework, Thompson also draws on examples from a wide range of taxa and environments, illustrating the expanding breadth and depth of research in coevolutionary biology.
Contesting Nietzsche
¥311.96
In this groundbreaking work, Christa Davis Acampora offers a profound rethinking of Friedrich Nietzsche's crucial notion of the agon. Analyzing an impressive array of primary and secondary sources and synthesizing decades of Nietzsche scholarship, she shows how the agon, or contest, organized core areas of Nietzsche's philosophy, providing a new appreciation of the subtleties of his notorious views about power. By focusing so intensely on this particular guiding interest, she offers an exciting, original vantage from which to view this iconic thinker: Contesting Nietzsche.?Though existence-viewed through the lens of Nietzsche's agon-is fraught with struggle, Acampora illuminates what Nietzsche recognized as the agon's generative benefits. It imbues the human experience with significance, meaning, and value. Analyzing Nietzsche's elaborations of agonism-his remarks on types of contests, qualities of contestants, and the conditions in which either may thrive or deteriorate-she demonstrates how much the agon shaped his philosophical projects and critical assessments of others. The agon led him from one set of concerns to the next, from aesthetics to metaphysics to ethics to psychology, via Homer, Socrates, Saint Paul, and Wagner. In showing how one obsession catalyzed so many diverse interests, Contesting Nietzsche sheds fundamentally new light on some of this philosopher's most difficult and paradoxical ideas.
On Borrowed Time
¥311.96
Life is short. This indisputable fact of existence has driven human ingenuity since antiquity, whether through efforts to lengthen our lives with medicine or shorten the amount of time we spend on work using technology. Alongside this struggle to manage the pressure of life's ultimate deadline, human perception of the passage and effects of time has also changed. In On Borrowed Time, Harald Weinrich examines an extraordinary range of materials-from Hippocrates to Run Lola Run-to put forth a new conception of time and its limits that, unlike older models, is firmly grounded in human experience. Weinrich's analysis of the roots of the word time connects it to the temples of the skull, demonstrating that humans first experienced time in the beating of their pulses. Tracing this corporeal perception of time across literary, religious, and philosophical works, Weinrich concludes that time functions as a kind of sixth sense-the crucial sense that enables the other five. Written with Weinrich's customary narrative elegance, On Borrowed Time is an absorbing-and, fittingly, succinct-meditation on life's inexorable brevity.
History of the Twentieth Century in 100 Maps
¥317.84
The twentieth century was a golden age of mapmaking, an era of cartographic boom. Maps proliferated and permeated almost every aspect of daily life, not only chronicling geography and history but also charting and conveying myriad political and social agendas. Here Tim Bryars and Tom Harper select one hundred maps from the millions printed, drawn, or otherwise constructed during the twentieth century and recount through them a narrative of the century's key events and developments.?As Bryars and Harper reveal, maps make ideal narrators, and the maps in this book tell the story of the 1900s-which saw two world wars, the Great Depression, the Swinging Sixties, the Cold War, feminism, leisure, and the Internet. Several of the maps have already gained recognition for their historical significance-for example, Harry Beck's iconic London Underground map-but the majority of maps on these pages have rarely, if ever, been seen in print since they first appeared. There are maps that were printed on handkerchiefs and on the endpapers of books; maps that were used in advertising or propaganda; maps that were strictly official and those that were entirely commercial; maps that were printed by the thousand, and highly specialist maps issued in editions of just a few dozen; maps that were envisaged as permanent keepsakes of major events, and maps that were relevant for a matter of hours or days.?As much a pleasure to view as it is to read, A History of the Twentieth Century in 100 Maps celebrates the visual variety of twentieth century maps and the hilarious, shocking, or poignant narratives of the individuals and institutions caught up in their production and use.
Phytomedicines, Herbal Drugs, and Poisons
¥317.84
Plants have been used to treat disease throughout human history. On a clay slab that dates back approximately five thousand years, the Sumerians recorded medicinal recipes that made use of hundreds of plants, including poppy, henbane, and mandrake. During the Middle Ages, monks commonly grew and prescribed plants such as sage, anise, and mint in their monasteries. And as the market for herbal remedies and natural medicine grows, we continue to search the globe for plants and plant compounds to combat our various ailments.?In Phytomedicines, Herbal Drugs, and Poisons, Ben-Erik van Wyk offers a richly illustrated, scientific guide to medicinal and poisonous plants, including those used for their mind-altering effects. Van Wyk covers approximately 350 species-from Aloe vera and Ephedra sinica to Cannabis sativa and Coffea arabica-detailing their botanical, geographical, pharmacological, and toxicological data as well as the chemical structures of the active compounds in each. Readers learn, for example, that Acacia senegal, or gum acacia, is used primarily in Sudan and Ethiopia as a topical ointment to protect the skin and mucosa from bacterial and fungal infections, and that Aconitum napellus, more commonly known as aconite, is used in cough syrups but can be psychedelic when smoked or absorbed through the skin. With 350 full-color photographs featuring the plants and some of their derivative products, Phytomedicines, Herbal Drugs, and Poisons will be an invaluable reference not only for those in the health care field but also for those growing their own medicinal herb gardens, as well as anyone who needs a quick answer to whether a plant is a panacea or a poison.
Secure & Simple – A Small-Business Guide to Implementing ISO 27001 On Your Own
¥326.92
Secure Simple Dejan Kosutic, an author and experienced information security consultant, is giving away all his practical know-how on successful ISO 27001 implementation. Whether you’re new or experienced in the field, this book gives you everything you will ever need to implement ISO 27001 on your own. Dejan provides examples of implementing the standard in small and medium-sized organizations (i.e. companies with up to 500 employees). It is written primarily for beginners in the field and for people with moderate knowledge of ISO 27001. Even if you do have experience with the standard, but feel that there are gaps in your knowledge, you’ll find this book very helpful. Secure Simple is the definitive guide for implementing and maintaining the most popular information security standard in the world. The author leads you, step-by-step, from an introduction to ISO 27001 to the moment your company passes the certification audit. During that journey you will learn: The most common ISO 27001 myths, like “The standard requires xyz;” “We’ll let the IT department handle it;” “We’ll implement it in a couple of months;” and others.How to convince your top management to implement ISO 27001. “If you think that your management loves to listen to your great idea about a new firewall, or the perfect tool you've discovered for handling incidents, you're wrong – they just don't care.” This book will help you speak the language they want to hear.How to write the Risk Assessment Methodology plus other policies and procedures.How to identify potential risks.“Employees (and the organization as a whole) are usually aware of only 25 to 40% of risks – therefore, a thorough and systematic process needs to be carried out…” Learn how to identify all potential risks that could endanger the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of organization’s information.What are the most important steps in order to prepare a company for the certification, and much more. Written in plain English with a lot of practical examples, charts and diagrams, it is the only book you’ll need on the subject of ISO 27001 implementation.
Becoming Resilient – The Definitive Guide to ISO 22301 Implementation
¥326.92
Author and experienced business continuity consultant Dejan Kosutic has written Becoming Resilient with one goal in mind: to give you the knowledge and practical step-by-step processes you need to successfully implement ISO 22301—without any stress, hassle or headaches. This book is written for beginners in the field and is structured in such a way that someone with no prior experience or knowledge about business continuity. It will help you fully understand the subject and implement an entire business continuity project. If you are an IT administrator, information security professional, quality manager, or a project manager with a task to implement ISO 22301 in your company, this book is perfect for you. However, this book will be also useful for consultants and experienced business continuity practitioners. It can be used as a checklist for getting a comprehensive and structured view of how business continuity should be implemented. Becoming Resilient is a step-by-step guide that takes you from an introduction of ISO 22301 to the implementation of the business continuity standard. During the process, Dejan uses plain English to explain: Common misunderstandings of the standard: “Business continuity is a job for IT guys;” “Business continuity equals business continuity plans;” “Business continuity is a one-time job;” and others.How to present the benefits to your top management:“Reason number one for business continuity project failures? The number one problem most business continuity practitioners are emphasizing? The answer is the same – lack of management understanding and commitment.”How to develop a Business Impact Analysis Methodology, an Incident Response Plan, a Business Recovery plan and other crucial actions to implement and maintain the ISO 22301 standard. Leaving the technical jargon to the geeks, Becoming Resilient is written for everyone, using plain, simple language. Whether you’re a business continuity practitioner or new to the field, it’s the only book you’ll ever need on the subject of ISO 22301 implementation.
World History:A Concise, Selective, Interpretive History of the World
¥327.00
This book provides a brief history of the world, focusing on major civilizations while employing a few strong interpretive themes. It could be used as a world history text for students and the ordinary public who are sometimes intimidated or overwhelmed by the detailed content of available history textbooks, or as a complementary book for world history classes. It could also benefit educated and intellectually inclined people by opening a stimulating topic of discussion. Upper division or graduate courses in historiography or philosophy of history might benefit from it as a review of world history, but also in the study of historiography as well. Ultimately, the book is didactic in nature and its goal is to teach history to students of history. In general, it presents an optimistic, if cautious, and realistic view of history in a coherent and meaningful narrative. It is hoped that through the understanding of history a new global ethic can ideally be envisioned and thereby achieved. The main underlying premise in this book is that successful civilizations—ones providing safety, prosperity, and room for individual growth and creativity—have from ancient times to the present flourished when responding creatively to the major challenges of their time and their environment. Second, many successful civilizations appear to have a life span of about two hundred years or some multiple of that number (e.g., the Greek’s Golden Age, the Romans, the Persians, the Chinese Han Dynasty). This number might be a consequence of the life span of individual human beings, about thirty years, with two hundred years constituting about six generations. These six generations might be divided into two first generations (father and son) of visionaries, two second generations of benefactors, and then two generations of critics. This hypothesis assumes the father-son relationship to be more direct, stronger, and more real than ideal. Third, throughout the dialectical process and cycles of integration and disintegration (or centralization and decentralization), societies tend to move toward expansion of greater human intellectual and political unity.
Shape of Life
¥329.62
Rudolf Raff is recognized as a pioneer in evolutionary developmental biology. In their 1983 book, Embryos, Genes, and Evolution, Raff and co-author Thomas Kaufman proposed a synthesis of developmental and evolutionary biology. In The Shape of Life, Raff analyzes the rise of this new experimental discipline and lays out new research questions, hypotheses, and approaches to guide its development.Raff uses the evolution of animal body plans to exemplify the interplay between developmental mechanisms and evolutionary patterns. Animal body plans emerged half a billion years ago. Evolution within these body plans during this span of time has resulted in the tremendous diversity of living animal forms.Raff argues for an integrated approach to the study of the intertwined roles of development and evolution involving phylogenetic, comparative, and functional biology. This new synthesis will interest not only scientists working in these areas, but also paleontologists, zoologists, morphologists, molecular biologists, and geneticists.
Ignoring Nature No More
¥329.62
For far too long humans have been ignoring nature. As the most dominant, overproducing, overconsuming, big-brained, big-footed, arrogant, and invasive species ever known, we are wrecking the planet at an unprecedented rate. And while science is important to our understanding of the impact we have on our environment, it alone does not hold the answers to the current crisis, nor does it get people to act. In Ignoring Nature No More, Marc Bekoff and a host of renowned contributors argue that we need a new mind-set about nature, one that centers on empathy, compassion, and being proactive.?This collection of diverse essays is the first book devoted to compassionate conservation, a growing global movement that translates discussions and concerns about the well-being of individuals, species, populations, and ecosystems into action. Written by leading scholars in a host of disciplines, including biology, psychology, sociology, social work, economics, political science, and philosophy, as well as by locals doing fieldwork in their own countries, the essays combine the most creative aspects of the current science of animal conservation with analyses of important psychological and sociocultural issues that encourage or vex stewardship. The contributors tackle topics including the costs and benefits of conservation, behavioral biology, media coverage of animal welfare, conservation psychology, and scales of conservation from the local to the global. Taken together, the essays make a strong case for why we must replace our habits of domination and exploitation with compassionate conservation if we are to make the world a better place for nonhuman and human animals alike.
Plant Physics
¥329.62
From Galileo, who used the hollow stalks of grass to demonstrate the idea that peripherally located construction materials provide most of the resistance to bending forces, to Leonardo da Vinci, whose illustrations of the parachute are alleged to be based on his study of the dandelion's pappus and the maple tree's samara, many of our greatest physicists, mathematicians, and engineers have learned much from studying plants.?A symbiotic relationship between botany and the fields of physics, mathematics, engineering, and chemistry continues today, as is revealed in Plant Physics. The result of a long-term collaboration between plant evolutionary biologist Karl J. Niklas and physicist Hanns-Christof Spatz, Plant Physics presents a detailed account of the principles of classical physics, evolutionary theory, and plant biology in order to explain the complex interrelationships among plant form, function, environment, and evolutionary history. Covering a wide range of topics-from the development and evolution of the basic plant body and the ecology of aquatic unicellular plants to mathematical treatments of light attenuation through tree canopies and the movement of water through plants' roots, stems, and leaves-Plant Physics is destined to inspire students and professionals alike to traverse disciplinary membranes.
Secular Powers
¥329.62
Secularism is usually thought to contain the project of self-deification, in which humans attack God's authority in order to take his place, freed from all constraints. Julie E. Cooper overturns this conception through an incisive analysis of the early modern justifications for secular politics. While she agrees that secularism is a means of empowerment, she argues that we have misunderstood the sources of secular empowerment and the kinds of strength to which it aspires.Contemporary understandings of secularism, Cooper contends, have been shaped by a limited understanding of it as a shift from vulnerability to power. But the works of the foundational thinkers of secularism tell a different story. Analyzing the writings of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau at the moment of secularity's inception, she shows that all three understood that acknowledging one's limitations was a condition of successful self-rule. And while all three invited humans to collectively build and sustain a political world, their invitations did not amount to self-deification. Cooper establishes that secular politics as originally conceived does not require a choice between power and vulnerability. Rather, it challenges us-today as then-to reconcile them both as essential components of our humanity.
Paleobiological Revolution
¥329.62
establishment of the modern synthesis in the 1940s and the pioneering work of George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the subsequent efforts of Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and James Valentine, paleontology became embedded in biology and emerged as paleobiology, a first-rate discipline central to evolutionary studies. Pairing contributions from some of the leading actors of the transformation with overviews from historians and philosophers of science, the essays here capture the excitement of the seismic changes in the discipline. In so doing, David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse harness the energy of the past to call for further study of the conceptual development of modern paleobiology.
Recombinant University
¥329.62
The advent of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s was a key moment in the history of both biotechnology and the commercialization of academic research. Doogab Yi's The Recombinant University draws us deeply into the academic community in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the technology was developed and adopted as the first major commercial technology for genetic engineering. In doing so, it reveals how research patronage, market forces, and legal developments from the late 1960s through the early 1980s influenced the evolution of the technology and reshaped the moral and scientific life of biomedical researchers.Bay Area scientists, university administrators, and government officials were fascinated by and increasingly engaged in the economic and political opportunities associated with the privatization of academic research. Yi uncovers how the attempts made by Stanford scientists and administrators to demonstrate the relevance of academic research were increasingly mediated by capitalistic conceptions of knowledge, medical innovation, and the public interest. Their interventions resulted in legal shifts and moral realignments that encouraged the privatization of academic research for public benefit. The Recombinant University brings to life the hybrid origin story ofbiotechnology and the ways the academic culture of science has changed in tandem with the early commercialization of recombinant DNA technology.