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A star curator at the American Museum of Natural History widens the palette and shows how the physical, natural, and cultural context of color are inextricably tied to what we see right before our eyes.Is color a phenomenon of science or a thing of art? Over the years, color has dazzled, enhanced, a... More

A celebration of beer—its science, its history, and its impact on human culture What can beer teach us about biology, history, and the natural world? From ancient Mesopotamian fermentation practices to the resurgent American craft brewery, Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall peruse the historical record ... More

It is well established that all humans today, wherever they live, belong to one single species. Yet even many people who claim to abhor racism take for granted that human “races” have a biological reality. In Troublesome Science, Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall provide a lucid and forceful critique o... More

Invertebrate Zoology: A Tree of Life Approach is a comprehensive and authoritative textbook adopting an explicitly phylogenetic organization. Most of the classical anatomical and morphological work has not been changed – it established the foundation of Invertebrate Zoology. With the explosion of Ne... More

The human species is very young, but in a short time it has acquired some striking, if biologically superficial, variations across the planet. As this book shows, however, none of those biological variations can be understood in terms of discrete races, which do not actually exist as definable entit... More

A lively and unconventional exploration of our senses, how they work, what is revealed when they don’t, and how they connect us to the world Over the past decade neuroscience has uncovered a wealth of new information about our senses and how they serve as our gateway to the world. This splendidly ac... More

Phylogenomics: A Primer, Second Edition is for advanced undergraduate and graduate biology students studying molecular biology, comparative biology, evolution, genomics, and biodiversity. This book explains the essential concepts underlying the storage and manipulation of genomics level data, constr... More

Genome sequencing enables scientists to study genes over time and to test the genetic variability of any form of life, from bacteria to mammals. Thanks to advances in molecular genetics, scientists can now determine an animal's degree of inbreeding or compare genetic variation of a captive species t... More

Ever since the recognition of the Neanderthals as an archaic form of human in the mid-nineteenth century, the fossilized bones of extinct humans have been used by paleoanthropologists to explore human origins. These bones tell the story of how the earliest humans first emerged in Africa some 6 to 7 ... More

After several million years of jostling for ecological space, only one survivor from a host of hominid species remains standing: us. Human beings are extraordinary creatures, and it is the unprecedented human brain that makes them so. In this delightfully accessible book, the authors present the f... More

From the discoveries of Watson and Crick to the appearance of Dolly the Sheep, the last fifty years have ushered in a revolution of knowledge in how organisms develop, function, and replicate. Scientists are now engaged in an epic task that will catapult the revolution to new heights: the sequencin... More

Biology, the study of life, directly applies to your health, life, and future in ways as simple as making daily food choices or as complex as deciding which career to pursue.... More

"You might notice that there are many unique elements in this textbook. By reading the next few pages, you will learn how the different parts of this textbook will help you to become a successful science student. You may be tempted to skip this section, but you should read it. This textbook is an im... More

An excellent bottle of wine can be the spark that inspires a brainstorming session. Such was the case for Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle, scientists who frequently collaborate on book and museum exhibition projects. When the conversation turned to wine one evening, it almost inevitably led the two... More

 Suddenly, research findings require a paradigm shift in our view of the microbial world. The Human Microbiome Project at the National Institutes of Health is well under way, and unprecedented scientific technology now allows the censusing of trillions of microbes inside and on our bodies as well a... More

Genome sequencing enables scientists to study genes over time and to test the genetic variability of any form of life, from bacteria to mammals. Thanks to advances in molecular genetics, scientists can now determine an animal's degree of inbreeding or compare genetic variation of a captive species t... More