The first book to show how the concept of bodily organs emerged and how ancient tools influenced conceptualizations of human anatomy and its operations. Medicine is itself a type of technology, involving therapeutic tools and substances, and so one can write the history of medicine as the application of different technologies to the human body. In Tools and the Organism, Colin Webster argues that, throughout antiquity, these tools were crucial to broader theoretical shifts. Notions changed about what type of object a body is, what substances constitute its essential nature, and how its parts interact. By following these changes and taking the question of technology into the heart of Greek and Roman medicine, Webster reveals how the body was first conceptualized as an “organism”—a functional object whose inner parts were tools, or organa, that each completed certain vital tasks. He also shows how different medical tools created different bodies. Webster’s approach provides both an overarching survey of the ways that technologies impacted notions of corporeality and corporeal behaviors and, at the same time, stays attentive to the specific material details of ancient tools and how they informed assumptions about somatic structures, substances, and inner processes. For example, by turning to developments in water-delivery technologies and pneumatic tools, we see how these changing material realities altered theories of the vascular system and respiration across Classical antiquity. Tools and the Organism makes the compelling case for why telling the history of ancient Greco-Roman medical theories, from the Hippocratics to Galen, should pay close attention to the question of technology.

Molecular Genetic Analysis is an advanced textbook to teach the theory and practice of molecular genetic analysis to senior undergraduates and graduates studying genetics, molecular biology and cell biology. This book uses a case study approach, with the yeast Saccharomyces as the model genetic organism, to explain the theory and practice of molecular genetic analysis. It provides enough information so readers will be able to apply the approach to their own research project.

This is the third volume of the five-volume book series “Engineering Tools for Environmental Risk Management”. The book series deals with the following topics: • Environmental deterioration and pollution, management of environmental problems • Environmental toxicology – a tool for managing chemical substances and contaminated environment • Assessment and monitoring tools, risk assessment • Risk reduction measures and technologies • Case studies for demonstration of the application of engineering tools The authors aim to describe interactions and options in risk management by providing a broad scientific overview of the environment, its human uses and the associated local, regional and global environmental problems; interpreting the holistic approach used in solving environmental protection issues; striking a balance between nature’s needs and engineering capabilities; understanding interactions between regulation, management and engineering; obtaining information about novel technologies and innovative engineering tools. This third volume provides an overview on the basic principles, concepts, practices and tools of environmental monitoring and contaminated site assessment. The volume focuses on those engineering tools that enable integrated site assessment and decision making and ensure an efficient control of the environment. Some topics supporting sustainable land use and efficient environmental management are listed below: • Efficient management and regulation of contaminated land and the environment; • Early warning and environmental monitoring; • Assessment of contaminated land: the best practices; • Environmental sampling; • Risk characterization and contaminated matrix assessment; • Integrated application of physical, chemical, biological, ecological and (eco) toxicological characterization methods; • Direct toxicity assessment (DTA) and decision making; • Online analyzers, electrodes and biosensors for assessment and monitoring of waters.; • In situ and real-time measurement tools for soil and contaminated sites; • Rapid on-site methods and contaminant and toxicity assessment kits; • Engineering tools from omics technologies, microsensors to heavy machinery; • Dynamic characterization of subsurface soil and groundwater using membrane interface probes, optical and X-ray fl uorescence and ELCAD wastewater characterization; • Geochemical modeling: methods and applications; • Environmental assessment using cyclodextrins. This book series focuses on the state of knowledge about the environment and its conscious and structured application in environmental engineering, management and decision making.

When published in 1980, Benjamin B. Beck’s Animal Tool Behavior was the first volume to catalog and analyze the complete literature on tool use and manufacture in non-human animals. Beck showed that animals—from insects to primates—employed different types of tools to solve numerous problems. His work inspired and energized legions of researchers to study the use of tools by a wide variety of species. In this revised and updated edition of the landmark publication, Robert W. Shumaker and Kristina R. Walkup join Beck to reveal the current state of knowledge regarding animal tool behavior. Through a comprehensive synthesis of the studies produced through 2010, the authors provide an updated and exact definition of tool use, identify new modes of use that have emerged in the literature, examine all forms of tool manufacture, and address common myths about non-human tool use. Specific examples involving invertebrates, birds, fish, and mammals describe the differing levels of sophistication of tool use exhibited by animals.

Criticizes attempts to "biologize" consciousness by explaining its origin in evolutionary terms and identifying mental phenomena with brain processes, to "computerize" it by identifying mind with the supposed computational activity of the brain, and to eliminate it by denying the reality of qualia.

The ability to use tools is a distinguishing feature of human beings. It represents a complex psychomotor activity that we are only now beginning to comprehend. Robust new theoretical accounts allow us to better understand how people use tools and explain differences in human and animal tool use from the perspective of cognitive science. Our understanding needs to be grounded upon research into how people use tools, which draws upon many disciplines, from ergonomics to anthropology to cognitive science to neuropsychology. Cognition and Tool Use: Forms of Engagement in Human and Animal Use of Tools presents a single coherent account of human tool use as a complex psychomotor activity. It explains how people use tools and how this activity can succeed or fail, then describes the design and development of usable tools. This book considers contemporary tool use in domains such as surgery, and considers future developments in human-computer interfaces, such as haptic virtual reality and tangible user interfaces. No other single text brings together the research from the different disciplines, ranging from archaeology and anthropology to psychology and ergonomics, which contribute to this topic. Graduate students, professionals, and researchers will find this guide to be invaluable.

This book discusses CRISPR/Cas- one of the most powerful tools available to scientists for genome editing. CRISPR/Cas is not only a genome editing tool, but researchers have also engineered it for gene regulation, genome imaging, base editing and epigenome regulations. This book describes the entire toolkit for CRISPR/Cas. The opening section gives an introduction to the technique and compares it with other genome editing tools. Further section gives a historical perspective of the tool, along with its detailed classification. The next chapters describe bioinformatic tools in CRISPR/Cas, and delivery methods for CRISPR/Cas. The book also discusses about the applications of CRISPR/Cas beyond genome editing and use of CRISPR for rewriting genetic codes. The book dedicates a section to the use of CRISPR in plants. The book culminates with a chapter on the current status, challenges and shortcomings of the CRISPR/Cas genome editing tool. The book would be highly interesting to students and researchers in molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, food science, agriculture and plant sciences.

A game-changing book on the origins of life, called the most important scientific discovery 'since the Copernican revolution' in The Observer.