A scientific and historical study of crops and their age-old relationship with human civilizationThe cultivation and harvesting of crops have been at the heart of human culture and development for thousands of years. As we have grown from hunter-gatherers into agrarian societies and industrial economies, our ongoing relationship with the plants that feed us and support our manufacturing has also evolved. So too, of course, have those plants themselves, with the com...

Peanuts: Genetics, Processing, and Utilization (Oilseed Monograph) presents innovations in crop productivity and processing technologies that help ensure global food security and high quality peanut products. The authors cover three central themes, modern breeding methods for development of agronomic varieties in the U.S., China, West Central Africa, and India, enhanced crop protection and quality through information from the peanut genome sequence, and state-of-the-art processing and manu...

Just 28,000 years ago, the blink of an eye in geological time, the last of Neanderthals died out in their last outpost, in caves near Gibraltar. Thanks to cartoons and folk accounts we have a distorted view of these other humans - for that is what they were. We think of them as crude and clumsy and not very bright, easily driven to extinction by the lithe, smart modern humans that came out of Africa some 100,000 years ago.But was it really as simple as that? Clive Finlayson reminds us that...

**'A masterpiece of evocative scientific storytelling.' BRIAN COX****'Will appeal to fans of Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens'. Mail on Sunday **The extraordinary story of the species that became our allies.Dogs became our companionsWheat fed a booming populationCattle gave us meat and milkMaize fuelled the growth o...

'Everyone interested in the natural world will enjoy The Secret Life of Trees. I found myself reading out whole chunks to friends' The Times, Books of the YearWhat is a tree? As this celebration of the trees shows, they are our countryside; our ancestors descended from them; they gave us air to breathe. Yet while the stories of trees are as plentiful as leaves in a forest, they are rarely told.Here, Colin Tudge travels from his own back garden round the world to explore the...

"Not since Darwin has an author so lifted the science of ecology with insight and delightful imagery" - Richard Dawkins In this book a master scientist tells the great story of how life on earth evolved. E.O. Wilson eloquently describes how the species of the world became diverse, and why the threat to this diversity today is beyond the scope of anything we have known before. In an extensive new foreword for this edition, Professor Wilson addresses the explosion of the field of conservatio...

The bananas we eat today aren't your parents' bananas: We eat a recognizable, consistent breakfast fruit that was standardized in the 1960s from dozens into one basic banana. But because of that, the banana we love is dangerously susceptible to a pathogen that might wipe them out.That's the story of our food today: Modern science has brought us produce in perpetual abundance once-rare fruits are seemingly never out of season, and we breed and clone the hardiest, best-tasting variet...

A "delectably erudite" study of how natural selection has shaped the foods we eat: "This intricate scientific banquet is a marvelous read: bon appétit." — NatureWhat do eggs, flour, and milk have in common? They form the basis of waffles, of course, but these breakfast staples also share an evolutionary function: eggs, seeds (from which we derive flour by grinding), and milk have each evolved to nourish offspring. Indeed, ponder the genesis of your breakfas...

This full-color illustrated textbook offers the first comprehensive introduction to all major aspects of tropical ecology. It explains why the world's tropical rain forests are so universally rich in species, what factors may contribute to high species richness, how nutrient cycles affect rain forest ecology, and how ecologists investigate the complex interrelationships among flora and fauna. It covers tropical montane ecology, riverine ecosystems, savanna, dry forest--and more.

Where did we come from? Where are we going?Homo sapiens is the most successful, the most widespread and the most influential species ever to walk the Earth. In the blink of an evolutionary eye we have spread around the globe, taken control of Earth's biological and mineral resources, transformed the environment, discovered the secrets of the universe and travelled into space.Yet just 7 million years ago, we were just another species of great ape mak...

Taking an ecological approach to our evolution, Clive Finlayson considers the origins of modern humans within the context of a drying climate and changing landscapes. Finlayson argues that environmental change, particularly availability of water, played a critical role in shaping the direction of human evolution, contributing to our spread and success. He argues that our ancestors carved a niche for themselves by leaving the forest and forcing their way into a long-established community of...

Plants evolved seeds to hack time. Thanks to seeds they can cast their genes forward into the future, enabling species to endure across seasons, years, and occasionally millennia. When a 2000-year-old extinct date palm seed was discovered, no one expected it to still be alive. But it sprouted a healthy young date palm. That seeds produced millennia ago could still be viable today suggests seeds are capable of extreme lifespans. Yet many seeds, including those crucial to our everyday lives,...