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Captivating photographs of the world’s most detailed bird fossils illuminate the early diversity of avifauna. When fossils of birds from China’s Jehol region first appeared in scientific circles, the world took notice. These Mesozoic masterpieces are between 120 and 131 million years old and reveal incredible details that capture the diversity of ancient bird life. Paleontologists all over the world began to collaborate with Chinese colleagues as new and wondrous fossil-related discoveries became regular events. The pages of National Geographic and major scientific journals described the intricate views of feathers as well as food still visible in the guts of these ancient birds. Now, fo...
Ammonia is one of the 10 largest commodity chemicals produced. The editor, Anders Nielsen, is research director with one of the largest industrial catalyst producers. He has compiled a complete reference on all aspects of catalytical ammonia production in industry, from thermodynamics and kinetics to reactor and plant design. One chapter deals with safety aspects of ammonia handling and storage.
A provocative new account of how morality evolved What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality. Moral values, Churchland argues, are rooted in a behavior common to all mammals—the caring...
The Times Science Book of the Year. A Sunday Times Bestseller. 66 million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth. Today, Dr. Steve Brusatte, one of the leading scientists of a new generation of dinosaur hunters, armed with cutting edge technology, is piecing together the complete story of how the dinosaurs ruled the earth for 150 million years. The world of the dinosaurs has fascinated on book and screen for decades – from early science fiction classics like The Lost World, to Godzilla terrorizing the streets of Tokyo, and the monsters of Jurassic Park. But what if we got it wrong? In The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, top dinosaur expert Brusatte, tells the real st...
Donald R. Prothero’s Evolution is an entertaining and rigorous history of the transitional forms and series found in the fossil record. Its engaging narrative of scientific discovery and well-grounded analysis has led to the book’s widespread adoption in courses that teach the nature and value of fossil evidence for evolution. Evolution tackles systematics and cladistics, rock dating, neo-Darwinism, and macroevolution. It includes extensive coverage of the primordial soup, invertebrate transitions, the development of the backbone, the reign of the dinosaurs, and the transformation from early hominid to modern human. The book also details the many alleged “missing links” in the fossil...
What would it have been like to be a dinosaur baby long, long ago? Every boy and girl dreams of seeing a dinosaur?but what about BEING one? Maybe a baby with Tyrannosaurus Rex as a mom? Or a gentler giant who preferred munching leaves? With lots of fascinating facts and striking illustrations that recreate a lost world millions of years old, Isabella Brooklyn and Haude Levesque guide young readers into the prehistoric era to find out. Because scientists never had the chance to study a live dinosaur in its natural environment, they can't know for sure what kind of parents dinosaurs were, or exactly how they raised their young. But by following the clues they dig up, and using the latest in me...
The sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction is one of the most pervasive issues of our time. Animals, Plants and Afterimages brings together leading scholars in the humanities and life sciences to explore how extinct species are represented in art and visual culture, with a special emphasis on museums. Engaging with celebrated cases of vanished species such as the quagga and the thylacine as well as less well-known examples of animals and plants, these essays explore how representations of recent and ancient extinctions help advance scientific understanding and speak to contemporary ecological and environmental concerns.
How can paleontologists know what a living dinosaur was like more than a hundred million years ago, particularly when only partial skeletons remain? Focusing on one large carnivorous dinosaur, Acrocanthosaurus (“high-spined lizard”), paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter explains the process, pairing scholarly findings with more than 75 color illustrations to reconstruct “Acro” before readers’ eyes. In Acrocanthosaurus Inside and Out, he offers the most complete portrait possible of this fascinating dinosaur’s appearance, biology, and behavior. Acrocanthosaurus—similar in size to its later cousin Tyrannosaurus rex, but studded with large spines—roamed what is now the south-central...
This book uses recent computational models to explore issues related to language and cognition.