From humble beginnings as a small desert laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology has evolved into a thriving international center of plant molecular biology that sits today on the campus of Stanford University. This fourth in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution touches on the tangled beginnings of ecology, the baroque complexities of photosynthesis, the great mid-century evolutionary synthesis and the adventurous start of the plant molecular revolution.

The fifth in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, offering an exciting exploration of a century of scientific discovery.

In 1902, Andrew Carnegie founded the Carnegie Institution of Washington, to support innovative science research. Since its creation two years later, the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism has undertaken a broad range of research from terrestrial magnetism, ionospheric physics and geochemistry to biophysics, radio astronomy and planetary science. This second volume in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution describes the people and events, the challenges and successes that the Department has witnessed over the last century. Contemporary photographs illustrate some of the remarkable expeditions and instruments developed in pursuit of scientific understanding, from sailing ships to nuclear particle accelerators and radio telescopes to mass spectrometers. These photographs show an evolution of scientific progress through the century, often done under trying, even exciting circumstances.

The second of five Histories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington describes the work of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. A century of research has seen advances in an astonishing range of subjects from ionospheric physics, to geochemistry and planetary science. Fully illustrated with contemporary photographs of people and events.

Since its foundation in 1904, the Mount Wilson Observatory has been at the centre of the development of astrophysics. Perched atop a mountain wilderness, two mammoth solar tower telescopes and the 60- and 100-inch behemoth night-time reflectors were all the largest in the world. Research has centred around two main themes - the evolution of stars and the development of the universe. This first volume in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution describes the people and events, the challenges and successes that the Observatory has witnessed. It includes biographical sketches of forty of the most famous Mount Wilson pioneer astronomers working during the first half of the twentieth century. Contemporary photographs illustrate the development and use of some of the innovative instruments that filled the observatory during this time. This story brings together the elements that formed modern theories of stellar evolution and cosmology.

For over a century, the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington has witnessed exciting discoveries and ingenious research, made possible by the scientific freedom granted to members of the department. For the most part, this research has involved laboratory experimentation on the physics and chemistry of rock-forming minerals at high temperature and pressure. This third volume in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution documents the contribution made by the members of the Geophysical Laboratory to our understanding of the Earth, from mineral formation deep below the surface, to the search for the origins of life, and out into space to study the chemical evolution of the interstellar medium. Field work has taken researchers from active volcanoes to ships collecting ocean sediments, and geological mapping expeditions around the world. Contemporary photographs throughout illustrate the evolution of the department and its research.

From humble beginnings as a small desert laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology has evolved into a thriving international center of plant molecular biology on the campus of Stanford University. This fourth in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution considers the beginnings of ecology, complexities of photosynthesis, great mid-century evolutionary synthesis and the start of the plant molecular revolution.

This collection offers a new understanding of the epistemology of measurement. The interdisciplinary volume explores how measurements are produced, for example, in astronomy and seismology, in studies of human sexuality and ecology, in brain imaging and intelligence testing. It considers photography as a measurement technology and Henry David Thoreau's poetic measures as closing the gap between mind and world. By focusing on measurements as the hard-won results of conceptual as well as technical operations, the authors of the book no longer presuppose that measurement is always and exclusively a means of representing some feature of a target object or entity. Measurement also provides knowledge about the degree to which things have been standardized or harmonized – it is an indicator of how closely human practices are attuned to each other and the world.

The first book to chronicle how innovation in laboratory designs for botanical research energized the emergence of physiological plant ecology as a vibrant subdiscipline Laboratory innovation since the mid-twentieth century has powered advances in the study of plant adaptation, evolution, and ecosystem function. The phytotron, an integrated complex of controlled-environment greenhouse and laboratory spaces, invented by Frits W. Went in the 1950s, set off a worldwide laboratory movement and transformed the plant sciences. Sharon Kingsland explores this revolution through a comparative study of work in the United States, France, Australia, Israel, the USSR, and Hungary. These advances in botanical research energized physiological plant ecology. Case studies explore the development of phytotron spinoffs such as mobile laboratories, rhizotrons, and ecotrons. Scientific problems include the significance of plant emissions of volatile organic compounds, symbiosis between plants and soil fungi, and the discovery of new pathways for photosynthesis as an adaptation to hot, dry climates. The advancement of knowledge through synthesis is a running theme: linking disciplines, combining laboratory and field research, and moving across ecological scales from leaf to ecosystem. The book also charts the history of modern scientific responses to the emerging crisis of food insecurity in the era of global warming.

The most pressing problems facing humanity today — over-population, energy shortages, climate change, soil erosion, species extinctions, the risk of epidemic disease, the threat of warfare that could destroy all the hard-won gains of civilization, and even the recent fibrillations of the stock market — are all ecological or have a large ecological component. in this volume philosophers turn their attention to understanding the science of ecology and its huge implications for the human project. To get the application of ecology to policy or other practical concerns right, humanity needs a clear and disinterested philosophical understanding of ecology which can help identify the practical lessons of science. Conversely, the urgent practical demands humanity faces today cannot help but direct scientific and philosophical investigation toward the basis of those ecological challenges that threaten human survival. This book will help to fuel the timely renaissance of interest in philosophy of ecology that is now occurring in the philosophical profession. - Provides a bridge between philosophy and current scientific findings - Covers theory and applications - Encourages multi-disciplinary dialogue