Evolution History

Viruses are the world's most abundant life form, and now, when humanity is in the midst of a close encounter with their immense power, perhaps the most feared. But do we understand viruses? Possibly the most enigmatic of living things, they are sometimes not considered a life form at all. Everything about them is extreme, including the reactions they evoke. However, for every truism about viruses, the opposite is also often true.

Why does writing exist? What does it mean to those who write? Born from the interplay of natural and cultural history, the seemingly magical act of writing has continually expanded our consciousness. Portrayed in mythology as either a gift from heroes or a curse from the gods, it has been used as both an instrument of power and a channel of the divine, a means of social bonding and of individual self-definition.

The question of teaching evolution in the public schools is a continuing and frequently heated political issue in America. From Tennessee's Scopes Trial in 1925 to recent battles that have erupted in Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio, and countless other localities, the critics and supporters of evolution have fought nonstop over the role of science and religion in American public life. In American Genesis, Jeffrey P. Moran explores the ways in which the evolution debate has reverberated beyond the confines of state legislatures and courthouses.

In the 1840s, an organization of German noblemen, the Mainzner Adelsverein, attempted to settle thousands of German emigrants on the Texas frontier. Nassau Plantation, located near modern-day Round Top, Texas, in Northern Fayette County, was a significant part of this story. No one, however, has adequately documented the role of the slave plantation or given a convincing explanation of the Adelsverein from the German point of view.

When did the human species turn against the planet that we depend on for survival? Human industry and consumption of resources have altered the climate, polluted the water and soil, destroyed ecosystems, and rendered many species extinct, vastly increasing the likelihood of an ecological catastrophe. How did humankind come to rule nature to such an extent? To regard the planet's resources and creatures as ours for the taking? To find ourselves on a seemingly relentless path toward ecocide?

How is it that comic books - the once-reviled form of lowbrow popular culture - are now the rage for Hollywood blockbusters, the basis for best-selling video games, and the inspiration for literary graphic novels? In Demanding Respect, Paul Lopes immerses himself in the discourse and practices of this art and subculture to provide a social history of the American comic book over the last 75 years.

An authoritative but readable examination of the digital sector in both the UK and US, Towards a Digital Renaissance traces the excitement and optimism of the early internet, the outsider cyberpunk ethic and open access. But it also monitors the more complex but ultimately more commercialised online world of today, a world dominated by corporate business in which many feel that surveillance has become overwhelming.

From the Siberian permafrost to balmy California, scientists across the globe are working to resurrect all kinds of extinct animals, from ones that just left us to those that have been gone for many thousands of years. Their tools in this hunt are both fossils and cutting-edge genetic technologies. Some of these scientists are driven by sheer curiosity; others view the lost species as a powerful weapon in the fight to preserve rapidly changing ecosystems. It seems certain that these animals will walk the earth again, but what world will that give us? And is any of this a good idea?

Volume two is based on the Jungian interpretation of the 12 steps for the initiation of a capacity the two-hemisphere brain achieved 100,000 years ago, leaping to a new qualium level of consciousness by integrating its subjective and objective cognitive modes (gnosis and science). A critical mass of humanity is already inventing and building a new self-reflective, living system that can meet the challenge of the environment to turn vision into action - though time is running short.

It was the most radical human-breeding experiment in American history, and no one knew how it turned out. The Repository for Germinal Choice, nicknamed the Nobel Prize sperm bank, opened to notorious fanfare in 1980, and for two decades, women flocked to it from all over the country to choose a sperm donor from its roster of Nobel-laureate scientists, mathematical prodigies, successful businessmen, and star athletes.

The field of biotechnology has evolved over the past four decades, developing medicines which are curing diseases. But this journey of success has been tough and arduous, built upon the shoulders of major failures.

In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers - those who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographer's Dilemma poses a pair of questions: What does proper English mean? And who gets to say what's right? Our ideas of correct or proper English have a history, and today's debates over the state of the language - whether about Ebonics in schools, the unique use of language in a South Park episode, or split infinitives in the Times - make sense only in historical context.

The Mesozoic Era, which lasted from about 252 to 66 million years ago, is divided into three periods, the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. During this era, one type of life came to dominate the planet more completely and for a longer period than had been seen before or since; this was the Age of Reptiles. Beginning in the Triassic but especially in the Jurassic period, reptiles came to dominate the oceans, the land and even the skies.

The human brain acquired its present genetic capacity, which flowered in language, a thousand centuries ago. Our brains evolved from this technique of mapping meaning to symbolic sounds which has made our species dominant over all others on Earth - culture. However culture is a two-edged sword that can defy natural selection when the childlike literal thinking from a forgotten symbolic understanding of traditional culture prevents the change in our way of life, urgently required by our environment for our species to survive.

The second book in the Easy Money trilogy discusses how the global financial system evolved in the aftermath of the First World War and how that finally led to the dot-com crash in the United States, in the early 2000s. It gives an overview of how in the aftermath of the First World War, Europe was in major trouble. The book also analyzes how the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which was once the premier nation of the world, lost out to its former colony, the United States of America.

The compelling story of the effect of Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species on a diverse group of American writers, abolitionists, and social reformers, including Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott, in 1860.

While examining the history of our planet and actively exploring our present environment, science journalist Michael Tennesen describes what life on Earth could look like after the next mass extinction.

Roughgarden rejects both junk science based on spurious metaphors and junk religion based on spurious theology. In their place, she offers an inspiring accommodation between thoughtful science and compassionate religion.

Few sporting records capture the imagination quite like that of the highest individual score in Test cricket. It is the blue riband record of batting achievement, the ultimate statement of stamina and skill. From Charles Bannerman, who scored 165 for Australia against England in the inaugural Test match in 1877, to Brian Lara, who made 400 not out for West Indies against England in 2004, the record has changed hands 10 times.

The bigger picture of the ongoing financial crisis has now started to evolve. Easy Money captures this big picture. The history of money and the financial system as it has evolved over the centuries stand at the heart of this endeavor. It explores the idea that the evolution of money over centuries has led to an easy money policy being followed by governments and central banks across the world, which in turn has fueled humongous Ponzi schemes, which have now started to unravel, bringing the whole world on the brink of a financial disaster.