We humans share Earth with 1.4 million known species and millions more species that are still unrecorded. Yet we know surprisingly little about the practical work that produced the vast inventory we have to date of our fellow creatures. How were these multitudinous creatures collected, recorded, and named? When, and by whom? Here a distinguished historian of science tells the story of the modern discovery of biodiversity. Robert Kohler argues that the work begun by Linnaeus culminated around 1900, when collecting and inventory were organized on a grand scale in natural history surveys. Supported by governments, museums, and universities, biologists launched hundreds of collecting expeditions to every corner of the world. Kohler conveys to readers the experience and feel of expeditionary travel: the customs and rhythms of collectors' daily work, and its special pleasures and pains. A novel twist in this story is that survey collecting was rooted not just in science but also in new customs of outdoor recreation, such as hiking, camping, and sport hunting. These popular pursuits engendered a wide scientific interest in animals and plants and inspired wealthy nature-goers to pay for expeditions. The modern discovery of biodiversity became a reality when scientists' desire to know intersected with the culture of outdoor vacationing. General readers as well as scholars will find this book fascinating.
Treatment Marshes for Runoff and Polishing represents the most comprehensive and up-date-date resource for the design, construction, and operation of marsh treatment systems. This new edition represents a complete rewrite of the surface flow sections of previous editions of Treatment Wetlands. It is based on the performance hundreds of treatment marshes over the past 40 years. Treatment Marshes focuses on urban and agricultural runoff, river and lake water improvement, and highly treated municipal effluents. New information from the past dozen years is used to improve data interpretation and design concepts. Topics included in this book are Diversity of marsh vegetation Analyses of the human use of treatment marshes New concepts of underground processes and functions Spectrum of marsh values spanning mitigation, restoration, enhancement, and water quality improvement Improved methods for calculation of evapotranspiration and wetland water temperatures Hydraulics of surface and subsurface flows in marshes Analysis of long track records for deterministic and probabilistic behavior Consideration of integrated microbial and vegetative contaminant removals via mass balances Uptake and emission of gases Performance of urban and agricultural wetlands Design procedures for urban and agricultural wetlands Reduction of trace metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, and trace organics Updated capital and O&M economics, and valuation of ancillary benefits An updated list of over 1900 references
What is it like to do field biology in a world that exalts experiments and laboratories? How have field biologists assimilated laboratory values and practices, and crafted an exact, quantitative science without losing their naturalist souls? In Landscapes and Labscapes, Robert E. Kohler explores the people, places, and practices of field biology in the United States from the 1890s to the 1950s. He takes readers into the fields and forests where field biologists learned to count and measure nature and to read the imperfect records of "nature's experiments." He shows how field researchers use nature's particularities to develop "practices of place" that achieve in nature what laboratory researchers can only do with simplified experiments. Using historical frontiers as models, Kohler shows how biologists created vigorous new border sciences of ecology and evolutionary biology.
Robert Kohler shows exactly how entrepreneurial academic scientists became intimate "partners in science" with the officers of the large foundations created by John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, and in so doing tells a fascinating story of how the modern system of grant-getting and grant-giving evolved, and how this funding process has changed the way laboratory scientists make their careers and do their work. "This book is a rich historical tapestry of people, institutions and scientific ideas. It will stand for a long time as a source of precise and detailed information about an important aspect of the scientific enterprise. . .It also contains many valuable lessons for the coming years."—John Ziman, Times Higher Education Supplement
Originally inhabited by Native American tribes, territorial Mississippi has a complex history rife with fierce contention. Since 1540, when Hernando de Soto of Spain journeyed across the Atlantic and became the first European to stumble across its borders, the territory has been the center of passionate international disagreements. After numerous boundary shifts, Mississippi was finally admitted as the twentieth state of the Union on December 10, 1817. In The Mississippi Territory and the Southwest Frontier, 1795–1817, Robert V. Haynes does more than recount history; he explores the political and diplomatic situations that led to the formation and expansion of the Mississippi Territory. Extensively researched and exceptionally written, Haynes details critical events in Mississippi’s rich history, such as ongoing border violence, the arrest of infamous traitor Aaron Burr, and the bloody Creek War.
In this comprehensive social history of Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), Robert McCaughey combines archival research with oral testimony and contemporary interviews to build a critical and celebratory portrait of one of the oldest engineering schools in the United States. McCaughey follows the evolving, occasionally rocky, and now integrated relationship between SEAS's engineers and the rest of the Columbia University student body, faculty, and administration. He also revisits the interaction between the SEAS staff and the inhabitants and institutions of the City of New York, where the school has resided since its founding in 1864. McCaughey compares the historical struggles and achievements of the school's engineers with their present-day battles and accomplishments, and he contrasts their teaching and research approaches with those of their peers at other free-standing and Ivy League engineering schools. What begins as a localized history of a school striving to define itself within a university known for its strengths in the humanities and the social sciences becomes a wider story of the transformation of the applied sciences into a critical component of American technology and education.
Global Health: Diseases, Programs, Systems, and Policies, Fourth Edition brings together contributions from the world's leading authorities into a single comprehensive text. It thoroughly examines the wide range of global health challenges facing low- and middle-income countries today and the various approaches nations adopt to deal with them. These challenges include measurement of health status, infectious and chronic diseases, injuries, nutrition, reproductive health, global environmental health, and complex emergencies. The book also explores the financing and management of emerging health systems as well as the roles of nation states, international agencies, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations in promoting health. Designed for graduate-level students, this text provides an expansive view of today's issues and challenges in global health and be an invaluable resource in the years to come. Updated throughout to reflect new and emerging issues, the Fourth Edition o
Fully updated and expanded to reflect recent advances, this Fourth Edition of the classic text provides students and professional chemists with an excellent introduction to the principles and general properties of organometallic compounds, as well as including practical information on reaction mechanisms and detailed descriptions of contemporary applications.
Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.
Paul describes the rise of statistical cosmology and how it has set the stage for many of the most significant developments of twentieth-century astronomy.
A retrospective of twenty years of rock-and-roll history as recorded by the popular genre magazine features iconoclastic photographs, articles, and graphic artist illustrations.
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