Perfect for middle- and high-school students and DIY enthusiasts, this full-color guide teaches you the basics of biology lab work and shows you how to set up a safe lab at home. Features more than 30 educational (and fun) experiments.

An explanation of challenging puzzles within the world of mathematics considers such topics as the link between a pineapple's spirals and the famous Fibonacci numbers, and the shape of the universe as reflected by a twisted strip of paper.

Friendly Biology opens the world of biology to high school students in a gentle, non-intimidating manner. Students are led through meaningful, well-written lessons and lab activities with the goal of attaining a greater respect for the beauty and complexity of living things.Topics covered include:Characteristics common to all living things;Basic chemistry as it pertains to living things;The roles of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids in living systems;Cytology;Mitosis and meiosis;Chromosome duplication and protein synthesis;The importance of pH in living systems;Methods of reproduction;Mendelian genetics;Taxonomy;A survey of members of each kingdom of living things with emphasis placed on various classes and orders of importance;An overview of all body systems of humans andEcology of living things.28 lessons with lab activities included.Worksheet pages sold separately in Student Workbook. Tests sold separately in Tests and Answer Keys Booklet.

John Parrington argues that social interaction and culture have deeply shaped the exceptional nature of human consciousness. The mental capacities of the human mind far outstrip those of other animals. Our imaginations and creativity have produced art, music, and literature; built bridges and cathedrals; enabled us to probe distant galaxies, and to ponder the meaning of our existence. When our minds become disordered, they can also take us to the depths of despair. What makes the human brain unique, and able to generate such a rich mental life? In this book, John Parrington draws on the latest research on the human brain to show how it differs strikingly from those of other animals in its structure and function at a molecular and cellular level. And he argues that this 'shift', enlarging the brain, giving it greater flexibility and enabling higher functions such as imagination, was driven by tool use, but especially by the development of one remarkable tool - language. The complex social interaction brought by language opened up the possibility of shared conceptual worlds, enriched with rhythmic sounds, and images that could be drawn on cave walls. This transformation enabled modern humans to leap rapidly beyond all other species, and generated an exceptional human consciousness, a sense of self that arises as a product of our brain biology and the social interactions we experience. Our minds, even those of identical twins, are unique because they are the result of this extraordinarily plastic brain, exquisitely shaped and tuned by the social and cultural environment in which we grew up and to which we continue to respond through life. Linking early work by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky to the findings of modern neuroscience, Parrington explores how language, culture, and society mediate brain function, and what this view of the human mind may bring to our understanding and treatment of mental illness.

Does your dog really know when you've had a bad day? Noted animal expert Wynne takes aim at the work of such renowned animal rights advocates as Peter Singer and Jane Goodall for falsely humanizing animals.

“Superb… a nuanced account of biological psychiatry.” —Richard J. McNally In Mind Fixers, “the preeminent historian of neuroscience” (Science magazine) Anne Harrington explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated efforts to understand mental disorder. She shows that psychiatry’s waxing and waning theories have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors. Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future.