Why does nature love symmetry? In Asymmetry, Developmental Stability and Evolution, M--oslash--;ller and Swaddle analyse the evolutionary implications of symmetry. They advance and explain their theory that asymmetry is related to genetic stability and fitness, and that symmetric individuals appear to have quantifiable and significant advantages over their asymmetric counterparts. When assessing potential mates or competitors, animals may be able to use symmetry as an honest indication of quality. This interdisciplinary book, with its associated Web-site, will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of ecology, evolutionary biology, genetics, and animal behaviour. - ;Why does nature love symmetry? In Asymmetry, Developmental Stability and Evolution, M--oslash--;ller and Swaddle analyse the evolutionary implications of symmetry. They advance and explain their theory that symmetry is related to genetic stability and fitness, and that symmetric individuals appear to have quantifiable and significant advantages over their asymmetric counterparts. When assessing potential mates or competitors, animals may be able to use symmetry as an honest indication of quality. This interdisciplinary book, with its associated Web-site, will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of ecology, evolutionary biology, genetics, and animal behaviour. -

The field of developmental instability has generated a large amount of controversy recently, mostly because of fierce disagreement over the genetic basis of fluctuating asymmetry and its role in mate selection. This book is a timely and innovative critical evaluation of a burgeoning field. The book explores the premise that complex organismal, ecological and evolutionary processes can be understood as emergent properties of the "epigenetic machine," that is, the mechanisms fundamental to all organisms responsible for building and organizing phenotypes from information translated from DNA.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was based on the observation that there is variation between individuals within the same species. This fundamental observation is a central concept in evolutionary biology. However, variation is only rarely treated directly. It has remained peripheral to the study of mechanisms of evolutionary change. The explosion of knowledge in genetics, developmental biology, and the ongoing synthesis of evolutionary and developmental biology has made it possible for us to study the factors that limit, enhance, or structure variation at the level of an animals' physical appearance and behavior. Knowledge of the significance of variability is crucial to this emerging synthesis. Variation situates the role of variability within this broad framework, bringing variation back to the center of the evolutionary stage. - Provides an overview of current thinking on variation in evolutionary biology, functional morphology, and evolutionary developmental biology - Written by a team of leading scholars specializing on the study of variation - Reviews of statistical analysis of variation by leading authorities - Key chapters focus on the role of the study of phenotypic variation for evolutionary, developmental, and post-genomic biology

Based on a 15-year successful approach to teaching aircraft flight mechanics at the US Air Force Academy, this text explains the concepts and derivations of equations for aircraft flight mechanics. It covers aircraft performance, static stability, aircraft dynamics stability and feedback control.

Excerpt from Genetic Homeostasis Other types Of evidence, which contribute to the problem but which will be considered here in less detail include. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

What a pity it would have been if biologists had refused to accept Darwin's theory of natural selection, which has been essential in helping biologists understand a wide range of phenomena in many animal species. These days, to study any animal species while refusing to consider the evolved adaptive significance of their behavior would be considered pure folly--unless, of course, the species is homo sapiens. Graduate students training to study this particular primate species may never take a single course in evolutionary theory, although they may take two undergraduate and up to four graduate courses in statistics. These methodologically sophisticated students then embark on a career studying human aggression, cooperation, mating behavior, family relationships, or altruism with little or no understanding of the general evolutionary forces and principles that shaped the behaviors they are investigating. This book hopes to redress that wrong. It is one of the first to apply evolutionary theories to mainstream problems in personality and social psychology that are relevant to a wide range of important social phenomena, many of which have been shaped and molded by natural selection during the course of human evolution. These phenomena include selective biases that people have concerning how and why a variety of activities occur. For example: * information exchanged during social encounters is initially perceived and interpreted; * people are romantically attracted to some potential mates but not others; * people often guard, protect, and work hard at maintaining their closest relationships; * people form shifting and highly complicated coalitions with kin and close friends; and * people terminate close, long-standing relationships. Evolutionary Social Psychology begins to disentangle the complex, interwoven patterns of interaction that define our social lives and relationships.

This is the first and only book, so far, to deal with the causal basis of evolution from an epigenetic view. By revealing the epigenetic "user" of the "genetic toolkit", this book demonstrates the primacy of epigenetic mechanisms and epigenetic information in generating evolutionary novelties. The author convincingly supports his theory with a host of examples from the most varied fields of biology, by emphasizing changes in developmental pathways as the basic source of evolutionary change in metazoans. - Original and thought provoking--a radically new theory that overcomes the present difficulties of the theory of evolution - Is the first and only theory that uses epigenetic mechanisms and principles for explaining evolution of metazoans - Takes an integrative approach and shows a wide range of learning