A useful reference for those using or interested in cultured invertebrate cells, this two-volume text provides information about techniques and advances in invertebrate tissue culture. Cell lines for Insecta, Crustacea, Mollusca, and Nematoda are introduces along with their characterizations. Developments in insect biotechnology, including foreign protein production by insect cells infected with recombinant virus are described. Fundamental studies for introducing foreign genes into culture...

The first book on entomophagy written in this manner, Edible Insects of the World is an enumeration of 2,141 species of edible insects. For the reader’s convenience, insect names are arranged much like a dictionary, first by taxonomic group and then by country. In addition to taxonomic and location information, entries contain applicable details about the history of entomophagy, collecting, cooking, and medicinal uses.

In this dynamic account, award-winning science writer Ann Gibbons chronicles an extraordinary quest to answer the most primal of questions: When and where was the dawn of humankind?Following four intensely competitive international teams of scientists in a heated race to find the “missing link”–the fossil of the earliest human ancestor–Gibbons ventures to Africa, where she encounters a fascinating array of fossil hunters: Tim White, the irreverent Californian who discovered the partial ske...

New discoveries in the field of stem cell research have frequently appeared in the news and in scientific literature. Research in this area promises to lead to new therapies for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and a wide variety of other diseases. This two-volume reference integrates this exciting area of biology, combining the prerequisites for a general understanding of adult and embryonic stem cells, the tools, methods, and experimental protocols needed to study and characterize stem c...

This "excellent guide to the history of our planet" offers a bugs-eye view of evolution, biodiversity, and todays ecological crises ( The Guardian, UK).According to entomologist Scott Richard Shaw, dinosaurs never ruled the earth—and neither do humans. The true potentates of our planet are, and always have been, insects. Starting in the shallow oceans of ancient Earth and ending in the far reaches of outer space—where insect-like aliens may also reign—

Experts in the field of cellular biology have shown that the reactivation of pluripotency inherent in all cells can allow us to reprogram cells into a specific cell line. This reprogramming paradigm is steadily enhancing our understanding of cell differentiation processes and cellular identity. Consequently, new prospects for cellular therapies of diseases and in vivo regeneration have risen. Stem Cells Between Regeneration and Tumorigenesis focuses on organ specific molecular pathways tha...

Charles Darwin struggled to explain how forty thousand bees working in the dark, seemingly by instinct alone, could organize themselves to construct something as perfect as a honey comb. How do bees accomplish such incredible tasks? Synthesizing the findings of decades of experiments, The Spirit of the Hive presents a comprehensive picture of the genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying the division of labor in honey bee colonies and explains how bees’ complex social behavi...

Insects are the most diverse group of organisms in the 3 billion-year history of life on Earth, and the most ecologically dominant animals on land. This book chronicles for the first time the complete evolutionary history of insects: their living diversity, relationships and 400 million years of fossils. Whereas other volumes have focused on either living species or fossils, this is the first comprehensive synthesis of all aspects of insect evolution. The book is illustrated with 955 photo...

The stingless bees are one of the most diverse, attractive, fascinating, conspicuous and useful of all the insect groups of the tropical world. This is a formidable and contentious claim but I believe it can be backed up. They are fifty times more species rich than the honey bees, the other tribe of highly eusocial bees. They are ubiquitous in the tropics and thrive in tropical cities. In rural areas, they nest in a diversity of sites and are found on the flowers of a broad diversity of cr...

This is the second edition of a very well received book that details how the sumoylation system functions and how it modulates numerous cellular activities. SUMO is a post-translational modifier in the ubiquitin super-family that has gained recognition over the last twenty years as an essential and prevalent regulatory molecule.Individual chapters explore the biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology of the sumoylation system and its substrate proteins.The book is d...

The fascinating and complex evolutionary relationship of the monarch butterfly and the milkweed plantMonarch butterflies are one of nature's most recognizable creatures, known for their bright colors and epic annual migration from the United States and Canada to Mexico. Yet there is much more to the monarch than its distinctive presence and mythic journeying. In Monarchs and Milkweed, Anurag Agrawal presents a vivid investigation into how the monarch butte...