Natures Nether Regions

Download or read book Nature's Nether Regions written by Menno Schilthuizen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tour of evolution’s most inventive—and essential—creations: animal genitalia Forget opposable thumbs and canine teeth: the largest anatomical differences between humans and chimps are found below the belt. In Nature’s Nether Regions, ecologist and evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen invites readers to discover the wondrous diversity of animalian reproductive organs. Schilthuizen packs this delightful read with astonishing scientific insights while maintaining an absorbing narrative style reminiscent of Mary Roach and Jerry Coyne. With illustrations throughout and vivid field anecdotes—among them laser surgery on a fruit fly’s privates and a snail orgy—Nature’s Nether Regions is a celebration of life in all shapes and sizes.

Download or read book Darwin Comes to Town written by Menno Schilthuizen and published by Picador. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts. *Lizards in Puerto Rico are evolving feet that better grip surfaces like concrete. *Europe’s urban blackbirds sing at a higher pitch than their rural cousins, to be heardover the din of traffic. How is this happening? Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of “urban ecologists” studying how our manmade environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us. In Darwin Comes to Town, he takes us around the world for an up-close look at just how stunningly flexible and swift-moving natural selection can be. With human populations growing, we’re having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city’s hotter climate (the “urban heat island”); they need to be able to live either in the semidesert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-rangingdogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived. And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving. Darwin Comes toTown draws on eye-popping examples of adaptation to share a stunning vision of urban evolution in which humans and wildlife co-exist in a unique harmony. It reveals that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin dreamed, while providing a glimmer of hope that our race toward over population might not take the rest of nature down with us.

Download or read book Frogs, Flies, and Dandelions written by Menno Schilthuizen and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do new animal and plant species come about? How quickly does it happen? And what are species anyway? Schilthuizen, reputed scientist and journalist, launches into the debate that has baffled biologists ever since Darwin, with tremendous energy and wit. The whole subject leaps to life andits significance for understanding biodiversity comes clear. This is a fascinating read that will appeal equally to the lay reader and to students getting to grips with the fundementals of a complex subject.

Download or read book Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation written by Olivia Judson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you have ever wondered why women always bite your head off or why one guy gets all the girls, if you have ever pondered why some men bring you balloons while others leave you their genitals, then Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation is the book for you. It explains all this and much more. It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, when to seduce your sisters or eat your lover. Quirky and brilliant, it takes as its starting point all creatures great and small worried about their bizarre sex lives, and the letters they write to the wise Dr Tatiana, the only agony aunt in all creation with a prodigious knowledge of both natural history and evolutionary biology.

Download or read book Nature Red in Tooth and Claw written by Michael Murray and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2008-06-19 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Those who believe in God often puzzle over how God could permit evil and suffering in the world. Nature Red in Tooth and Claw focuses specifically on non-human animal suffering, and whether or not it raises problems for belief in the existence of a perfectly good creator.

Download or read book Mate Choice written by Gil G. Rosenthal and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new look at the evolution of mating decisions in organisms from protozoans to humans The popular consensus on mate choice has long been that females select mates likely to pass good genes to offspring. In Mate Choice, Gil Rosenthal overturns much of this conventional wisdom. Providing the first synthesis of the topic in more than three decades, and drawing from a wide range of fields, including animal behavior, evolutionary biology, social psychology, neuroscience, and economics, Rosenthal argues that "good genes" play a relatively minor role in shaping mate choice decisions and demonstrates how mate choice is influenced by genetic factors, environmental effects, and social interactions. Looking at diverse organisms, from protozoans to humans, Rosenthal explores how factors beyond the hunt for good genes combine to produce an endless array of preferences among species and individuals. He explains how mating decisions originate from structural constraints on perception and from nonsexual functions, and how single organisms benefit or lose from their choices. Both the origin of species and their fusion through hybridization are strongly influenced by direct selection on preferences in sexual and nonsexual contexts. Rosenthal broadens the traditional scope of mate choice research to encompass not just animal behavior and behavioral ecology but also neurobiology, the social sciences, and other areas. Focusing on mate choice mechanisms, rather than the traits they target, Mate Choice offers a groundbreaking perspective on the proximate and ultimate forces determining the evolutionary fate of species and populations.

Download or read book Phallacy written by Emily Willingham and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wry look at what the astonishing world of animal penises can tell us about how we use our own. The fallacy sold to many of us is that the penis signals dominance and power. But this wry and penetrating book reveals that in fact nature did not shape the penis--or the human attached to it--to have the upper...hand. Phallacy looks closely at some of nature's more remarkable examples of penises and the many lessons to learn from them. In tracing how we ended up positioning our nondescript penis as a pulsing, awe-inspiring shaft of all masculinity and human dominance, Phallacy also shows what can we do to put that penis back where it belongs. Emphasizing our human capacities for impulse control, Phallacy ultimately challenges the toxic message that the penis makes the man and the man can't control himself. With instructive illustrations of unusual genitalia and tales of animal mating rituals that will make you particularly happy you are not a bedbug, Phallacy shows where humans fit on the continuum from fun to fatal phalli and why the human penis is an implement for intimacy, not intimidation.