Rob DeSalle Livres

While notions of human race have created some of the most profound and destructive divisions in modern western societies, this book argues that from a biological point of view races do not exist. It outlines that races are purely social constructs and addresses common misunderstandings for the general reader.

Troublesome Science provides a deeper analysis than one usually finds in discussions of racial classifications. It brings clarity to the field of systematics and in so doing reveals the hollowness of claims to the scientific legitimacy of race. Clear, assertive, and well argued, it demonstrates that scientific taxonomy cannot draw racial boundaries in human populations from genetic-clustering studies. More than a takedown of a popular journalistic account, it is an important contribution to our understanding of the science behind the classification of species and subspecies. Sheldon Krimsky, author of Stem Cell Dialogues

Inspired by an exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, explores microbes and their implications for modern science and medicine.

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

A celebration of beer--its science, its history, and its impact on human culture "Curatorial eminences Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall serve up a potent scientific brew. . . . A marvellous paean to the pint, and to the researchers probing its depths." -- Barbara Kiser, Nature "Forced to choose between this book and a pint of hazy IPA, I would be at a loss. Better to consume them at the same time--both will go down easily, and leave you in an improved condition."--Bill McKibben 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 and traverse the globe for engaging and often surprising stories about beer. They explain how we came to drink beer, what ingredients combine to give beers their distinctive flavors, how beer's chemistry works at the molecular level, and how various societies have regulated the production and consumption of beer. Drawing from such diverse subject areas as animal behavior, ecology, history, archaeology, chemistry, sociology, law, genetics, physiology, neurobiology, and more, DeSalle and Tattersall entertain and inform with their engaging stories of beer throughout human history and the science behind it all. Readers are invited to grab a beer and explore the fascinating history of its creation.

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.

An imaginative natural history survey of the wide world of spirits, from whiskey and gin to grappa and moonshine

Four years ago we edited a volume of 36 papers entitled Molecular Approaches to Ecology and Evolution (Schierwater et ai. , 1994), in which we attempted to put to gether a diverse array of papers that demonstrated the impact that the technologi cal revolution ofmolecular biology has had on the field ofevolutionary biologyand ecology. The present volume borrows from that theme but attempts to focus more sharply on the impact that molecular biology has had on our understanding of dif ferent hierarchical levels important in evolutionary and ecological studies. Because DNA sequence variation is at the heart ofeverypaper in the present volume, we feel it necessary to examine how DNA has affected study at various levels of biological organization. The majority of the chapters in the present volume follow themes es tablished in the earlier volume; all chapters by authors in the previous volume are either fully updated or entirely new and expand into areas that we felt were impor tant for a more complete understanding of the impact of DNA technology on ecol ogy and evolution. The collection of papers in this volume cover a diverse array of ecological and evolutionary questions and demonstrates the breadth of coverage molecular tech nology has imparted on modern evolutionary biology. There are also a broad range of hierarchical questions approached by the 17 papers in this volume.

Important practical implications are established by case reports and specific examples. The present book is the ideal complement to the practitioner’s manual Techniques in Molecular Systematics and Evolution, recently published by the same editors in the Birkhäuser MTBM book series. The first part of this book deals with important applications of evolutionary and systematic analysis at different taxonomic levels. The second part discusses DNA multiple sequence alignment, species designations using molecular data, evo-devo and other topics that are problematic or controversial. In the last part, novel topics in molecular evolution and systematics, like genomics, comparative methods in molecular evolution and the use of large data bases are described. The final chapter deals with problems in bacterial evolution, considering the increasing access to large numbers of complete genome sequences.