Showing results for "michael benton"

Over the past twenty years, the study of dinosaurs has transformed into a true scientific discipline. New technologies have revealed secrets locked in prehistoric bones that no one could have previously predicted. We can now work out the color of dinosaurs, the force of their bite, their top speeds, and even how they cared for their young.Remarkable new fossil discoveries—giant sauropod dinosaur skeletons in Patagonia, dinosaurs with feathers in China, and a tiny dinosaur tail in B...

Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near collapse of life on Earth, illuminates our current dilemmas in exquisite detail.Beginning with the oldest, Professor Michael J. Benton takes us through the "big five" die outs: the Late Ordovician, which s...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring There are few stories more remarkable than the evolution of life on earth. Where did humans come from? Where did life come from? New fields of study, such as molecular biology and astrobiology, are shedding remarkable new light on the origin of life and the origin of sex. In this Very Short Introduction Michael J. Benton covers all the main fossil groups including dinosaurs, and the upheavals such as mass extinctions t...

First published in 1988, Young Readers Responding to Poems adopts a teacher-researcher approach to the processes of responding to poems. It shows experienced teachers exploring how their students, aged fourteen and above, read and respond to poetry, sets their innovative practices against the background of traditional theory in poetry teaching, and theorises these practices so as to generate new concepts to help teachers understand how readers and poems interact. Governed by the f...

In this fascinating and accessible overview, renowned paleontologist Michael J. Benton reveals how our understanding of dinosaurs is being transformed by recent fossil finds and new technology.Over the past twenty years, the study of dinosaurs has transformed into a true scientific discipline. New technologies have revealed secrets locked in prehistoric bones that no one could have previously predicted. We can now work out the color of dinosaurs, the force of their...

A journey through the great mass extinction events that have shaped our Earth.This timely and original book lays out the latest scientific understanding of mass extinction on our planet. Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near c...

“The focus is the most severe mass extinction known in earth’s history. The science on which the book is based is up-to-date, thorough, and balanced. Highly recommended.” —ChoiceToday it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. It is far less widely understood that a much greater catastrophe took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago:...

There are few stories more remarkable than the evolution of life on earth. This Very Short Introduction presents a succinct guide to the key episodes in that story - from the very origins of life four million years ago to the extraordinary diversity of species around the globe today. Beginning with an explanation of the controversies surrounding the birth of life itself, each following chapter tells of a major breakthrough that made new forms of life possible: including sex and mu...

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the science of the history of life. Paleobiologists bring many analytical tools to bear in interpreting the fossil record and the book introduces the latest techniques, from multivariate investigations of biogeography and biostratigraphy to engineering analysis of dinosaur skulls, and from homeobox genes to cladistics.All the well-known fossil groups are included, including microfossils and invertebrates, but an important feature is th...

A newly revised and fully updated edition of the market-leading introduction to paleontologyDesigned for students and anyone else with an interest in the history of life on our planet, the new edition of this classic text describes the biological evolution of Earth’s organisms, and reconstructs their adaptations and the ecology and environments in which they functioned.Cowen's History of Life, 6th Edition includes major updates, including substanti...

"Michael Benton's splendid book brings back to Earth Science a sense of adventure. . . . It is both a wonderfully good read and a valued reference." —James Lovelock, author of Gaia and Homage to GaiaToday it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. Far less well-known is a much greater catastrophe that took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years a...

Michael Benton's book develops the concept of spectatorship as an answer to these questions. It explores the similarities and differences in our experiences of literature and the visual arts, and discusses their implications for pedagogy and their applications in cross-curricular work in the classroom. Teachers will find that, while many of the visual and verbal texts may be familiar, the approaches to them offer fresh insights and a rich agenda for the classroom. Shakespeare, Fielding, Ho...