Most textbooks are cumbersome to carry, expensive to buy, difficult to read, and boring. They have no plot, no characterization, no suspense, no climax. What they have are facts. If Dragnet's Sgt. Friday were Scientist Friday, the script wouldn't be much different "just the facts, ma'am." Students can't escape textbooks. But like death and taxes, they are necessary evils. of old ideas makes room for new ones. Death makes room for new people and the death Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a country. Everybody gets stuck with paying some kind of dues and students are no exception. Students pay dues in the form of tuition to listen to professors lecture, and they also pay dues in what a former governor of California called' 'psychic bucks" -time, concentration, independent study, reading textbooks like this one-to come up with the correct answers to exam questions. Textbooks on economics will tell you about where our tuition bucks come from. This book is about where our psychic bucks come from and the forces that can bankrupt our psychic nest eggs.

Links information on experimental teratogenic agents with the congenital defects in human beings.

This detailed book provides a compilation of laboratory techniques and tests to assess the risks to embryo-fetal development from drug exposure during early developmental stages. After an introduction to teratogenicity testing, the contents explore both in vitro and in vivo techniques in the study of the teratogenic and fetotoxic effects of drugs, as well as numerous animal-based teratology methods. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and comprehensive, Teratogenicity Testing: Methods and Protocols describes methods that integrate a battery of tests that can be performed in cells, organs, tissues, and animal models for evaluating toxicity and/or the safety of compounds in early developmental stages with the goal of estimating, preventing, or minimizing the teratogenic potential of drugs.

Scientific Frontiers in Developmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment reviews advances made during the last 10-15 years in fields such as developmental biology, molecular biology, and genetics. It describes a novel approach for how these advances might be used in combination with existing methodologies to further the understanding of mechanisms of developmental toxicity, to improve the assessment of chemicals for their ability to cause developmental toxicity, and to improve risk assessment for developmental defects. For example, based on the recent advances, even the smallest, simplest laboratory animals such as the fruit fly, roundworm, and zebrafish might be able to serve as developmental toxicological models for human biological systems. Use of such organisms might allow for rapid and inexpensive testing of large numbers of chemicals for their potential to cause developmental toxicity; presently, there are little or no developmental toxicity data available for the majority of natural and manufactured chemicals in use. This new approach to developmental toxicology and risk assessment will require simultaneous research on several fronts by experts from multiple scientific disciplines, including developmental toxicologists, developmental biologists, geneticists, epidemiologists, and biostatisticians.

This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.

This book was developed in response to a need in behavioral teratology for a comprehen sive set of reviews of the field's many topics brought together in a single source. This volume represents the first effort to synthesize and integrate research in the field since 1969 when Justin Joffe wrote Prenatal Determinants of Behaviour. Joffe's book became a standard reference for many years, particularly for the experimental design of animal investigations. It has become increasingly evident, however, that some aspects of design once considered inviolate have changed and become part of a more flexible approach. In current research the emphasis is on a set of prioritized, but focused, experimental ques tions rather than on designs which factor all possible variables into every experiment. Also, new design considerations have arisen over the last 15 years, not appreciated when Joffe wrote. Moreover, the sheer volume of new experimental evidence generated since 1969 has increased the content of the field several fold. These considerations made a new review and critical appraisal of the field compelling. The book is divided into four major sections. Part I contains four chapters. These chapters provide discussions of the general principles of behavioral teratogenesis, and information on the historical, governmental, and methodological contexts in which the field operates. The purpose of these chapters is to provide the framework within which the review chapters in the remainder of the book may best be understood.