Recent instances of bioinvasion, such as the emergence of the zebra mussel in the American Great Lakes, generated a demand among marine biologists and ecologists for groundbreaking new references that detail how organisms colonize hard substrates, and how to prevent damaging biomass concentrations. Marine Biofouling: Colonization Processes a

"Vladimir Vernadsky was a brilliant and prescient scholar-a true scientific visionary who saw the deep connections between life on Earth and the rest of the planet and understood the profound implications for life as a cosmic phenomenon." -DAVID H. GRINSPOON, AUTHOR OF VENUS REVEALED "The Biosphere should be required reading for all entry level students in earth and planetary sciences." -ERIC D. SCHNEIDER, AUTHOR OF INTO THE COOL: THE NEW THERMODYNAMICS OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

A groundbreaking study that distinguishes the natural time of the cosmos from artificial mechanistic time. • Reveals September 11 as the signal of the end of artificial time according to the Law of Time. • Long awaited sequel to the author's bestselling book The Mayan Factor. • Explains the Great Calendar Change of 2004 and its enormous potential for the future of humanity. In Time and the Technosphere, José Argüelles presents a groundbreaking study that distinguishes the natural time of the cosmos from the artificial mechanistic time under which we currently live. Argüelles defines the actual nature of time as the frequency of synchronization. Applying this Law of Time to an understanding of the entire system of life on Earth, he shows that in order to not destroy Earth's ability to sustain life, we must change our definition of time and adopt a natural harmonic calendar based on the 13-moon 28-day cycle. Until the creation of the Gregorian calendar and the 60-minute hour, most of humanity lived by the 28-day cycle of natural time. The adoption of artificial time has subjected us to a 12:60 time frequency that governs the entire global industrialized civilization--the technosphere. With the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, a fissure was created in this artificial technosphere, opening up the noosphere (Earth's mental envelope). Humanity has a golden opportunity to leave the strife of the past and enter a time of peace by adopting a harmonious natural calendar that will repair the damages caused by the irregular tempo of technospheric time. Our last best chance to adopt this natural time and step into the bright new future promised by the galactic shift of 2012 is the Great Calendar Change of 2004, a new discovery based on the author's mathematical research into the Mayan calendar first begun in his landmark work The Mayan Factor. In Time and the Technosphere, Argüelles reveals the clear distinction between third-dimensional astronomical time and the fourth-dimensional synchronic order of the Law of Time, which holds enormous potential for the future of humanity.

It has been said that new discoveries and developments in the human, social, and natural sciences hang "in the air" (Bowler, 1983; 2008) prior to their consummation. While neo-Darwinist biology has been powerfully served by its mechanistic metaphysic and a reductionist methodology in which living organisms are considered machines, many of the chapters in this volume place this paradigm into question. Pairing scientists and philosophers together, this volume explores what might be termed "the New Frontiers" of biology, namely contemporary areas of research that appear to call an updating, a supplementation, or a relaxation of some of the main tenets of the Modern Synthesis. Such areas of investigation include: Emergence Theory, Systems Biology, Biosemiotics, Homeostasis, Symbiogenesis, Niche Construction, the Theory of Organic Selection (also known as "the Baldwin Effect"), Self-Organization and Teleodynamics, as well as Epigenetics. Most of the chapters in this book offer critical reflections on the neo-Darwinist outlook and work to promote a novel synthesis that is open to a greater degree of inclusivity as well as to a more holistic orientation in the biological sciences.

Artificial Earth: A Genealogy of Planetary Technicity offers an intellectual history of humanity as a geological force, focusing on a prevalent contradiction in the Anthropocene discourse on global environmental change: on the one hand, it has been argued that there are hardly any pristine environments anymore, to the degree that the concept of nature has lost its meaning; while on the other, that anthropogenic environmental change has become so prevailing that it ought to be conceived of as a force of nature, in the literal sense of the expression. Artificial Earth argues that to fully grasp the stakes of this discourse, we need not only understand the contemporary scientific and technological transformations behind the Anthropocene, but also explore the history of an ontological concern tied up with it. In order to do so, Artificial Earth examines reflections on the ontological dualism between nature and artifice within the history of earth science from the late eighteenth century onwards. Paying particular attention to its consequences for how human subjectivity has been conceptualized in the Anthropocene, it then enrolls these resources in an effort to problematize attempts since the 1980s to formalize earth science in systems theoretical terminology. In sum, the aim is to investigate the historical conditions for the possibility of conceiving human artifice as an integral part of the earth's terrestrial environment, with the conviction that such an investigation may assist in resolving the aforementioned contradiction or at least to understand it better by tracing its historical lineage. J. Daniel Andersson is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department for Thematic Studies, Linköping University. His research interests lie at the intersection between the technical cultures, political imaginaries, and historical processes that have shaped the ways in which the global environment has been understood and valued. A general fascination with how concepts and discursive vocabularies become solidified in scientific modes of organization has consistently informed his theoretical and methodological approaches. He has previously written about, for instance, the relationship between future-orientation and valuation in integrated assessment models, climate engineering as a sociotechnical imaginary, and the intellectual history of risk management in global change science. His writing has appeared in journals such as Environment & Planning, Anthropocenes, and Cosmos & History.

Several important developments in our understanding of the chemistry of weathering have occurred in the last few years: 1. There has been a major breakthrough in our understanding of the mechanisms controlling the kinetics of sil icate dissolution, and there have been major advances in computer modeling of weathering processes. 2. There has been a growing recognition of the importance of organic solutes in the weathering process, and hence of the inter-relationships between mineral weathering and the terrestrial ecosystem. 3. The impact of acid deposition ("acid rain") has been widely recognized. The processes by which acid deposition is neutral ized are closely related to the processes of normal chemical weathering; an understanding of the chemistry of weathering is thus essential for predicting the effects of acid deposition. 4. More high-qual ity data have become available on the chemical dynamics of smal I watersheds and large river systems, which represent the integrated effects of chemical weathering.