Pavlov's Dogs and Schrödinger's Cat: Scenes from the living laboratory

Rom Harre, "Pavlov's Dogs and Schrödinger's Cat: Scenes from the living laboratory"
Oxford University Press, USA | 2009-03-15 | ISBN: 0199238561 | 288 pages | PDF | 1,6 MB

From the sheep, dog, and cockerel that were sent aloft in Montgolfier's balloon to test the air over Paris, to the famous clone Dolly the Sheep and the Darwinian finches of the Galapagos, Pavlov's Dogs and Schrodinger's Cat offers a fascinating and enlightening look at the use of plants and animals--including humans--in scientific experiments. Rom Harre provides a fresh and fascinating perspective on research, setting aside moral reflection to simply examine the history of how and why living creatures have been used for the purposes of discovery. Ranging over five centuries, the book uncovers many extraordinary stories, including tales of the people involved, to many curious incidents and episodes, and the occasional scientific fraud. From Gregor Mendel's use of pea plants to explore heredity, to Barry Marshall's used of himself as the experimental animal in his helicobacter experiments (he survived) and even the use of an imaginary cat in Schrodinger's famous thought experiment, the reader discovers a perspective on scientific work he or she has never encountered before.


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The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Yaaqov Volume II: Ancient Flames and Controlled Use of Fire

Nira Alperson-Afil, Naama Goren-Inbar The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Yaaqov Volume II: Ancient Flames and Controlled Use of Fire (Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology)
Springer | 2010 | ISBN : 9048137640 | 142 pages | PDF | 6,7 MB

The manipulation of fire by early hominins was a turning point in our evolutionary history. Once "domesticated", fire provided warmth, light and protection from predators, as well as enabling the exploitation of a new range of foods. This book presents the spatial analyses of burned and unburned flint items which provide evidence for the controlled use of fire at the 790,000-year-old Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (GBY). Clusters of burned flint, interpreted as the remnants of hearths, occur throughout the entire occupational sequence of the site. The fact that fire is repetitively used suggests that the knowledge of fire-making and the technological skills of the Acheulian hominins of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov enabled them to set fire at will in diverse environmental settings.
"Control of fire marks a significant landmark in human evolution, providing warmth, protection, and many new foods. This important volume compellingly shows that fire was already in regular use some 800,000 years ago." John D. Speth, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
"A major contribution to knowledge of early human fire history, the finds at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov add immensely to the picture of our early ancestors by the fireside. The authors present a painstaking and multidimensional scientific investigation which should convince even sceptics of the importance of fire use in prehistory" John A.J. Gowlett, British Academy Centenary Research Project, The Archaeology of the Social Brain, UK.

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Palaeolimnological Proxies as Tools of Environmental Reconstruction in Fresh Water

Krisztina Buczkó, János Korponai, Judit Padisák, Scott W. Starratt
Springer | 2098 | ISBN : 9048133866 | 327 pages | PDF | 11,7 MB

Palaeolimnology is one of the most rapidly developing fields of limnology. The primary objective of this volume is to present new palaeolimnological findings from eastern and central Europe. Although this area has sometimes received less attention than other areas of Europe, the lakes and mires, coupled with the variability in landscape and the local differences in climate, provide unique opportunity for studying palaeolimnology. The volume starts with a review on late Quaternary records form the Carpathian region, followed by new results on the history of a crater lake, Lake Saint Ana, glacial lakes in the Tatra Mountains and Lake Bled in Slovenia. In addition, the various papers provide new insights on the development of lakes and bogs during the late glacial and Holocene, using a wide range of palaeolimnological proxies, including diatoms, pollen, macrofossils, pigments, cladoceran remains, chironomids, chaoborids, stable isotopes and geochemistry. The motivation for collecting recent knowledge derives from the recognition of the importance, and applicability of palaeolimnological tools to help in defining "reference conditions" as designated within the Water Framework Directives and estimating influence of global climate change on surface waters.

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