Biological & Physical

The vertebral spine is a key element of the human anatomy. Its main role is to protect the spinal cord and the main blood vessels. The axial skeleton, with its muscles and joints, provides stability for the attachment of the head, tail and limbs and, at the same time, enables the mobility required for breathing and for locomotion. Despite its great importance, the vertebral spine is often over looked by researchers because: a) vertebrae are fragile in nature, which makes their fossilization a rare event; b) they are metameric (seriated and repeated elements) that make their anatomical determination and, thus, their subsequent study difficult; and c) the plethora of bones and joints involved in every movement or function of the axial skeleton makes the reconstruction of posture, breathing mechanics and locomotion extremely difficult. It is well established that the spine has changed dramatically during human evolution. Spinal curvatures, spinal load transmission, and thoracic shape of bipedal humans are derived among hominoids. Yet, there are many debates as to how and when these changes occurred and to their phylogenetic, functional, and pathological implications. In recent years, renewed interest arose in the axial skeleton. New and exciting finds, mostly from Europe and Africa, as well as new methods for reconstructing the spine, have been introduced to the research community. New methodologies such as Finite Element Analysis, trabecular bone analysis, Geometric Morphometric analysis, and gait analysis have been applied to the spines of primates and humans. These provide a new and refreshing look into the evolution of the spine. Advanced biomechanical research regarding posture, range of motion, stability, and attenuation of the human spine has interesting evolutionary implications. Until now, no book that summarizes the updated research and knowledge regarding spinal evolution in hominoids has been available. The present book explores both these new methodologies and new data, including recent fossil, morphological, biomechanical, and theoretical advances regarding vertebral column evolution. In order to cover all of that data, we divide the book into four parts: 1) the spine of hominoids; 2) the vertebral spine of extinct hominins; 3) ontogeny, biomechanics and pathology of the human spine; and 4) new methodologies of spinal research. These parts complement each other and provide a wide and comprehensive examination of spinal evolution.

Contents include: 'Biochemistry and molecular biology of neural lipids', 'Advances in lipid analysis/lipidomics', 'Metabolism and enzymology of glycerolipids', 'Lipid metabolism in brain development and aging', 'Cellular and subcellular localization of neural lipids', and much more.

Epigenetic variation has become an important complement to traditional forensic genetics, offering new ways to interpret biological traces and extract investigative information beyond sequence¿based DNA profiling. This volume brings together current approaches that apply DNA methylation and related epigenetic markers to forensic questions, reflecting the field’s rapid development and increasing methodological depth. The book introduces the conceptual foundations of forensic epigenetics and the laboratory and analytical techniques that support its applications. It then examines the use of methylation signatures to address challenges such as distinguishing monozygotic twins, identifying body fluids, and performing age estimation from blood, Y¿chromosome markers, semen, saliva and skeletal tissues. These chapters demonstrate how epigenetic tools can extend across biological materials commonly encountered in casework. Further contributions explore epigenetic strategies for postmortem interval estimation and consider how these methods may complement existing forensic anthropology and pathology approaches. A concluding chapter looks ahead to future developments, including technological, ethical and legal considerations shaping the field’s trajectory. By integrating molecular biology, bioinformatics, forensic science and anthropology, this volume offers a coherent resource for researchers, practitioners and students seeking to understand how epigenetic insights can strengthen forensic inference.

Human olfaction - the sense of smell - enables us to appreciate food and drink, it warns us of dangers and it makes our environments more enjoyable. However, olfaction is one of our least explored sensory systems. Until now.Smells and scents are the colour that enrich our experience of life. Ask anyone to reflect on their sense of smell, and they immediately start talking. First there are discussions about food and wine, but pretty quickly they move on to personal topics: about the smells that evoke memories of childhood, dead relatives, pregnancy, love and sex. When people talk about their sense of smell, they also tell us something about themselves, their feelings, thoughts and relationships. Thus, the sense of smell not only reflects the chemical world outside us, but also bears witness to our inner world, our feelings and thoughts.The Forgotten Sense explores the unknown mind and how it shapes people: Why can smells evoke such strong memories? How much can body odors control who you fall in love with? How sensitive is the human sense of smell? In many ways these questions are on the very forefront of our understanding, but Dr Jonas Olofsson has spent years studying the least understood of our senses. And he has discovered that it is actually possible to improve and refine one's sense of smell, to develop it into a more useful tool to bring a powerful immediacy to your life.

From a leading expert on child development, a radical evolutionary perspective on how childhood experiences shape later life.<BR><BR>Children who grow up in troubled circumstances-experiencing deprivation or instability, living in a dangerous neighborhood or an abusive family-are more prone to aggression, recklessness, and sexual promiscuity later in life. To most of us, the lesson is clear: adverse childhood conditions make human development go awry.<BR><BR>In The Nature of Nurture, renowned developmental psychologist Jay Belsky challenges this interpretation and offers an exciting alternative based on Darwinian theory. There is no reason to assume, he points out, that the psychology of "well-behaved" people is normal while that of "antisocial" adults is aberrant. Instead, the supposedly dysfunctional behaviors correlated with childhood adversity could well be ingenious adaptations to harsh environments. If you are surrounded by danger and uncertainty, then being quick to lash out at potential threats and having lots of offspring at an early age are good ways to maximize your reproductive chances. From an evolutionary perspective, having just a few children and lavishing care on each works well in a stable world, but not in a perilous one.<BR><BR>Belsky exposes the romanticism underlying our idealized notions that "natural" equals "good" and that nature intends to maximize human happiness and well-being. When instead we take seriously the fact that humans, too, have been shaped by evolutionary pressures, we can better understand why, how, and for whom childhood experience shapes later life.

'Engrossing, richly informative . . . challenges us to rethink universal health benchmarks' New YorkerAmbitious, controversial, there's a line of humour running through it too... I learned a lot' New Scientist A new way of thinking about diversity and what really unites us, from the internationally renowned author of BurnAs an evolutionary anthropologist conducting ground-breaking research with human populations around the globe, Herman Pontzer has come to see much more clearly how our genes and environments combine to shape our bodies and our health: for better or worse. In this book, he takes us on a tour of the human body and the surprising ways it can change in response to its environment: from the Andean groups who have developed increased lung capacity to the Sama divers who have larger spleens. He also highlights the critical ways we misinterpret biological adaptations: in healthcare, public policy and individual choices.With so much of our wellbeing and public discourse centred on human biology, a clear understanding of the distinction between socially constructed and genetic differences is more important than ever. This timely reappraisal of an overlooked science is an essential guide to our remarkable bodies.

Explore and understand the key ideas and movements in anthropology - the study of human societies and cultures and how they work.<BR><BR>What does it mean to be human? Why do we have rituals? How do family structures differ around the world, and why? The Anthropology Book answers questions like these and many, many more. Applying the "Big Ideas" series' combination of authoritative, accessible text and bold graphics, The Anthropology Book introduces key concepts from different branches of the subject, such as cultural anthropology, ethnography, and biological anthropology, and explains how they have developed over the past century. The book explores the origins of human life and cultures, and how societies develop traditions, laws, and languages. Profiling renowned anthropologists, such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Margaret Mead, and covering topics as diverse as biology, medicine, war, sexuality, family roles, and kinship, The Anthropology Book is a fascinating, accessible introduction to the core principles of anthropological thought.

This book takes the contemporary moment of digital health infrastructuring in Ghana as a starting point to examine the genealogies of oral, paper-based and digital forms of knowledge production about health. In view of this multiplicity of forms, the chapters adopt a broad definition of health data that encompasses databases, statistics as well as oral and written records and reports about health. In addition to close historiographic insights into the interactions of indigenous and colonial ways of organising knowledge around health, the chapters explore contemporary ways in which medical professionals are mobilized or potentially demobilized by the standards, methods and calculative devices that accompany the increasing production of health data.The authors show that the contemporary hype around the datafication of health is neither new nor exceptional, but instead needs to be read in broader historical perspective. Through its unique combination of historical, sociological and ethnographic methods, the book shows that the regulation and standardization of health produces both mobilizations and demobilizations, as well as appropriations and resistances.

'Brilliant' - The Times<BR><BR>'Hugely informative and entertaining' - New Scientist<BR><BR>'Put this at the head of your reading lists immediately' - Eric Idle<BR><BR>From the winner of the 2022 Royal Society Science Book Prize, a thrilling and thought-provoking account of the rise and fall of humankind.<BR><BR>For the first time in over ten millennia, the rate of human population growth is slowing down. The global population is forecast to begin declining in the second half of this century, and in 10,000 years' time our species will likely be extinct.<BR><BR>In The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire, Henry Gee shows how we arrived at this crucial moment in history, beginning his story deep in the palaeolithic past and charting our dramatic rise from one species of human among many to the most dominant animal to ever live on Earth.<BR><BR>But rapid climate change, a stagnating global economy, falling birth rates and an unexplainable decline in average human sperm count are combining to make our chances for longevity increasingly slim. There could be a way forward, but the launch window is narrow . . .<BR><BR>Drawing on a dazzling array of the latest scientific research, Gee tells the extraordinary story of humanity with characteristic warmth and wit, and suggests how our exceptional species might avoid its tragic fate.<BR><BR>'Like Jared Diamond meets Arthur C. Clarke with a dash of Douglas Adams' - Philip Ball, author of How Life Works

'Engrossing, richly informative . . . challenges us to rethink universal health benchmarks' New Yorker<BR><BR>A new way of thinking about diversity and what really unites us, from the internationally renowned author of Burn<BR><BR>Real diversity isn't skin deep. Over the past 100,000 years, as humans expanded into every biome on the planet, our bodies and our cultures have been fine-tuned to our local environments. Beyond the physical demands of our climate, we live our lives immersed in ideas and norms that affect what we eat, how we move and why we get sick - all of which, in turn, affect how our bodies work.<BR><BR>As an evolutionary anthropologist conducting ground-breaking research with human populations around the globe, Herman Pontzer has come to see much more clearly how our genes and environments combine to shape our bodies and our health: for better or worse. In this book, he takes us on a tour of the human body and the surprising ways it can change in response to its environment: from the Andean groups who have developed increased lung capacity to the Sama divers who have larger spleens. He also highlights the critical ways we misinterpret biological adaptations: in healthcare, public policy and individual choices.<BR><BR>With so much of our wellbeing and public discourse centred on human biology, a clear understanding of the distinction between socially constructed and genetic differences is more important than ever. This timely reappraisal of an overlooked science is an essential guide to our remarkable bodies.

A beautiful new hardback anniversary edition of the multi-million copy sensation<BR><BR>INCLUDES A NEW AFTERWORD FROM YUVAL NOAH HARARI<BR><BR>What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens?<BR><BR>One of the world's preeminent historians and thinkers, Yuval Noah Harari challenges everything we know about being human. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us.<BR><BR>In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we're going.<BR><BR>PRAISE FOR SAPIENS:<BR><BR>'Interesting and provocative... It gives you a sense of how briefly we've been on this Earth' Barack Obama<BR><BR>'Jaw-dropping from the first word to the last... It may be the best book I've ever read' Chris Evans<BR><BR>'Startling... It changes the way you look at the world' Simon Mayo<BR><BR>'I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who's interested in the history and future of our species' Bill Gates<BR><BR><BR>Yuval Noah Harari's books have sold over 2 million copies sold since publication [Nielsen BookScan UK, Circana BookScan US, April 2024]

Human behavioral ecology (HBE) applies the principles of evolutionary theory and optimisation to the study of human behavioural and cultural diversity. Among other things, HBE attempts to explain variation in behaviour as adaptive solutions to the competing life-history demands of growth, development, reproduction, parental care, and mate acquisition. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the theoretical orientation and specific findings of HBE. It consolidates the insights of evolution and human behaviour into a single volume that reflects the current state and future of the field. It brings together leading scholars from across the evolutionary social sciences to provide a comprehensive and thought-provoking review of the state of the topic. Throughout, the authors explain the latest developments in theory and highlight critical debates in the literature, while also engaging readers with ethnographic insights and field-based studies that remain at the core of human behavioral ecology.

This book aims to provide comprehensive ethnographic documentation of pastoralist childhood and child learning, based on the author's long-term fieldwork in pastoralist Maasai society in southern Kenya. It conveys a timely account of the developmental niche in contemporary Maasai society, in children's lives, social roles, work, play, and learning in family routines. Pastoralism is an important livelihood system that has allowed humans to live in arid and semi-arid lands for centuries. Children in pastoralist societies are expected to, and indeed do, actively and independently participate in and contribute to local subsistence from an early age. Compared to studies of other forms of livelihood, anthropological investigations into pastoralist children remain limited, particularly in light of critical social changes pastoralists have undergone in the last three decades. Less is known about their local parenting ethnotheories, childhood play, and children's practices of self-reliance in making positive changes in their families and local communities. Having a better understanding of pastoral childhood in concurrent natural and social complexities is vital for further investigation of human development in general and the pastoralist culture in particular.

This book takes you into the mysterious woods of Oregon, where the line between the real and the supernatural is fuzzy. Find the elusive Sasquatch, who is said to live in the thick forests, meet the mysterious Colossal Claude in the deep seas, and learn the scary stories of the roams the high deserts. This book tells about strange creatures that people have seen and heard, and it also talks about their cultural importance. Each part paints a vivid picture of the supernatural worlds that exist in the Beaver State. The book looks at how these cryptids show the state's wide range of folklore, native customs, and modern sightings. This trip takes you deep into the forests, mountain ranges, and seaside areas of Oregon, revealing secrets that have been kept hidden for a long time.The book makes connections between mythology, oceanography, and the never-ending human thirst for discovery, asking the reader to think about the chance of life that hasn't been found yet in our oceans and lakes. These stories show how the unknown waters of our world make us feel a mix of fear, curiosity, and mystery.This volume also pays homage to the indigenous legends and narratives, aiming to present them with accuracy and respect. As part of the larger 'Cryptid Chronicles' series, this book is a gateway to understanding not only the mysteries of North America but also the deep-rooted stories that connect us all.