Demographers and public health specialists have been surprised by the rapid increases in life expectancy, especially at the oldest ages, that have occurred since the early 1960s. Some scientists are calling into question the idea of a fixed upper limit for the human life span. There is new evidence about the genetic bases for both humans and other species. There are also new theories and models of the role of mutations accumulating over the life span and the possible evolutionary advantages of survival after the reproductive years. This volume deals with such diverse topics as the role of the elderly in other species and among human societies past and present, the contribution of evolutionary theory to our understanding of human longevity and intergenerational transfers, mathematical models for survival, and the potential for collecting genetic material in household surveys. It will be particularly valuable for promoting communication between the social and life sciences.

In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World—authoritative in its scholarship, loose-limbed in its style—has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism. This new edition includes an introduction by Michael Chabon.

Mathematical demography is the centerpiece of quantitative social science. The founding works of this field from Roman times to the late Twentieth Century are collected here, in a new edition of a classic work by David R. Smith and Nathan Keyfitz. Commentaries by Smith and Keyfitz have been brought up to date and extended by Kenneth Wachter and Hervé Le Bras, giving a synoptic picture of the leading achievements in formal population studies. Like the original collection, this new edition constitutes an indispensable source for students and scientists alike, and illustrates the deep roots and continuing vitality of mathematical demography.

Mist on the River chronicles a search for wild steelhead salmon in the remaining wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. As he says in the prologue to his book, Michael Checchio likes his fly-fishing on big western rivers where there are lots of mountains to look at, and where the steelhead don't come out of a hatchery but are born as nature intended, in the cold gravel of a clean stream. He finds all this and more up in British Columbia on his search for some of the last great runs of wild steelhead left on earth. Steelhead, the great sea-run rainbow trout of the Pacific Northwest, have long been sought by fly-fishermen. To Checchio, they have become a powerful symbol for the last of the wild in the Pacific Northwest and are to the Northwest what lions are to the Serengeti. And like their cousins, the salmon, they are among the species of fish most threatened by the modern world. A passionate fly-fisherman, Checchio discovered steelhead when he moved to the West Coast a little more than a decade ago. Fishing for ever diminishing returns of these magnificent fish in the rivers of northern California and Oregon, he dreamed of faraway waters in Alaska and Kamchatka, where he might find the last strongholds of wild steelhead remaining on the planet. Finally, he was able to take a dream vacation north to experience for the first time the steelhead Valhalla awaiting the fly-fisherman in British Columbia. Michael Checchio has been praised by the fishing community as a passionate writer on the plight of the great outdoors and the steelhead trout. But this book is not written just for the fly-fishing fraternity, but rather to the general reader who has a love of nature and the outdoors, and a deep interest in the fate of wildlife and the future of the environment. Checchio's personal steelhead journey leads him on a quest toward rivers and landscapes ever more pristine and wild, providing illuminating sights and thoughts along the way.

From the creator of Myths Retold comes a hilarious collection of Greek, Norse, Chinese and even Sumerian myths retold in their purest, bawdiest forms! All our lives, we’ve been fed watered-down, PC versions of the classic myths. In reality, mythology is more screwed up than a schizophrenic shaman doing hits of unidentified…wait, it all makes sense now. In Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes, Cory O’Brien, creator of Myths RETOLD!, sets the stories straight. These are rude, crude, totally sacred texts told the way they were meant to be told: loudly, and with lots of four-letter words. Did you know? Cronus liked to eat babies. Narcissus probably should have just learned to masturbate. Odin got construction discounts with bestiality. Isis had bad taste in jewelry. Ganesh was the very definition of an unplanned pregnancy. And Abraham was totally cool about stabbing his kid in the face. Still skeptical? Here are a few more gems to consider: • Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed. • The entire Egyptian universe was saved because Sekhmet just got too hammered to keep murdering everyone. • The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies. • The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace. And there’s more dysfunctional goodness where that came from.

Forget about science, the scientific method and all that other junk you learned before: this is the guide for the public-health superstar wanna-be!