Seagrasses are a vital and widespread but often overlooked coastal marine habitat. This volume provides a global survey of their distribution and conservation status.

This Research Topic is the second volume of "The Adaptive Value of Languages: Non-Linguistic Causes of Language Diversity". Please see the first volume here.The goal of this Research Topic is to shed light on the non-linguistic causes of language diversity and, specifically, to explore the possibility that some aspects of the structure of languages may result from an adaptation to the natural and/or human-made environment. Traditionally, language diversity has been claimed to result from random, internally-motivated changes in language structure. Ongoing research suggests instead that different factors that are external to language can promote language change and ultimately account for aspects of language diversity. Accordingly, linguistic complexity has been found to correlate with features of the social environment, such as the absence of cross-cultural exchanges or the number of native speakers. Likewise, language structure could be influenced by the physical environment, as the effect of dry climates on tone seemingly shows. Finally, core properties of human languages, like duality of patterning, have been argued to result from iterative learning and cultural evolution, as research in village sign languages illustrates. On the whole this means that some aspects of languages could be an adaptation to ecological, social, or even technological niches. Eventually, certain gene alleles, provided that they bias language acquisition or processing, may affect language change through iterated cultural transmission, and ultimately, to language structure.

While Scotland gave birth to whisky, its progeny now populate all four corners of the globe - from the U.S. to Japan, South Africa to Scandinavia. Today whisky sales are booming, making the timing perfect for this massive, witty, gorgeously illustrated volume. An ideal whisky "bible" for either connoisseur or neophyte, THE WORLD ATLAS OF WHISKY covers the history, process, distilleries and expressions of the world great whiskies, complete with detailed maps and 150 labels.

"Packaging today is a potent visual symbol of our 'throw-away' culture; a culture which likes its fresh fruit shrink-wrapped and every product presented in a shiny new package. Towering landfill sites, decimated forests and the ever present hole in the ozone layer, all attest to the destructive effects of the modern world's insatiable consumerist appetites. Our attitudes to packaging need to change, and to aid this process, it must be the responsibility of the designer to recognise, through a systemic approach, environmental issues at the very inception of the design idea." "This resource book explains the systems by which improvements can be made in the pre-production, manufacture and distribution of a packaging product - illustrating the results of these improvements with a collection of superb packs, the quality and efficiency of which are enough to encourage any design professional or student to start 'thinking green'."--Jacket

"World history explores the human past, around the globe, to help us understand the world we live in today. It seeks to identify how major forces, like patterns of migration or world trade, have developed over time. It explores the cultures and political institutions of different regions, to help explain commonalities and differences. World history builds on a growing body of historical scholarship, some of which has truly altered the picture of the past. It involves a rich array of stories and examples of human variety, intriguing in themselves. It helps develop skills that are vital not just to the history classroom, but to effective operation in a global society-skills like comparing different societies, appreciating various viewpoints, and identifying big changes and continuities in the human experience. Always, however, it uses the past as a prologue to the present. World historians argue that no one society, past or present, can be understood without reference to other societies and to larger global forces. They argue, even more vigorously, that the present-which clearly involves relationships that embrace the whole world-cannot be grasped without a sense of the global historical record. From its first edition, World Civilizations: The Global Experience has aimed at capturing a truly global approach by discussing and comparing major societies and focusing on their interactions. The goal is to present a clear factual framework while stimulating analysis about global contacts, regional patterns, and the whole process of change and continuity on a world stage. This kind of world history, focused on the development over time of the forces that shape the world today, helps students make sense of the present and prepare to meet the challenges of the future. It is hard to imagine a more important topic. Embracing the whole world's history obviously requires selectivity and explicit points of emphasis. This text gains coherence through decisions about time, about place, and about topic. In all three cases, the book encourages analysis, relating facts to vital issues of interpretation. Through analysis and interpretation students become active, engaged learners, rather than serving as passive vessels for torrents of historical facts. Underpinning analysis, the issues of time, place, and topic are the three keys to an intelligible global past"--