Bats of the United States and Canada is the only complete and accessible guide to all forty-seven species of bats found in the region. Bats are among the world’s most fascinating creatures. The only mammals capable of true flight, these animals are marvels of evolution. A wide variety of species lives in the United States and Canada, ranging from the California leaf-nosed bat to the Florida bonneted bat, from the eastern small-footed bat to the northern long-eared Bat. Fact-filled and easy to use, this guide includes accurate range maps, detailed biological information, and useful identification tips. J. Scott Altenbach's stunning photographs accompany each species account, capturing the amazing diversity of these winged mammals. This guide also includes helpful information on the natural history of bats from across the globe. Bats today face ever-increasing danger from destruction of habitat, new technologies such as wind turbines, chemical toxicants, and devastating diseases like white-nose syndrome, which is killing millions of cave bats in the United States and Canada. The authors discuss these threats and others as well as the latest conservation efforts to protect bats around the world. Written by three of the world’s leading bat experts, this volume is the most comprehensive guide to the bat species of the United States and Canada available.

Providing the philosophical, practical, and theoretical leverage for abandoning evolution and development in favor of engineering human beings, Becoming Immortal examines the directions biological change might take if civilization were to take charge of its own destiny. With the aid of embryonic manipulation, cloning, and stem-cell therapy, immortality would seem within the reach of future generations. The question is, “Do we presently have the wisdom to undertake creating immortal organisms?” The author examines every facet of this question, from theory to practice, and provides an answer through an in-depth analysis of life and death.

A comprehensive introduction to innovative methods in the field of biomedical signal analysis, covering both theory and practice.

The volume is a memorial to his achievements and comprises 22 papers presented at a symposium in his honour during the IX International Malacological Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1986.

This is a comprehensive catalogue of the living marine Bivalvia of China. Over 1,140 species are arranged in systematic order reflecting the phylogenetic relationships of the supraspecific taxa, together with almost 3,500 binomina which fall into synonymy.

From 1974 to the present, the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Texas at Austin has carried out archaeological excavations in the ancient territory (chora) of Metaponto, now located in the modern province of Basilicata on the southern coast of Italy. This wide-ranging investigation, which covers a number of sites and a time period ranging from prehistory to the Roman Empire, has unearthed a wealth of new information about the ancient rural economy in southern Italy. These discoveries will be published in a multi-volume series titled The Chora of Metaponto. This volume on archaeozoology—the study of animal remains from archaeological sites—is the second in the series, following The Chora of Metaponto: The Necropoleis (1998). Archaeozoology at Pantanello and Five Other Sites describes the animal remains found throughout Metaponto and discusses what they reveal about ancient practices of hunting and herding, domestication and importation of new breeds, people’s attitudes toward animals, and what animal remains indicate about past environments. A chapter devoted to bird bones, which are a relatively rare find because of their fragility, provides high quality information on the environment and methods of fowling, as well as on the beliefs and symbolism associated with birds. The final chapter covers tools—some simple, others sophisticated and richly decorated—made from animal bones.

This book provides a comprehensive and up to date review and critique of corporate governance reforms and related financial reforms in China during the country’s transition to a market economy, involving its enterprise, banking and capital markets sectors.

How are biological diversity, protected areas, indigenous knowledge and religious worldviews related? From an anthropological perspective, this book provides an introduction into the complex subject of conservation policies that cannot be addressed without recognising the encompassing relationship between discursive, political, economic, social and ecological facets. By facing these interdependencies across global, national and local dynamics, it draws on an ethnographic case study among Maya-Q'eqchi' communities living in the margins of protected areas in Guatemala. In documenting the cultural aspects of landscape, the study explores the coherence of diverse expressions of indigenous knowledge. It intends to remind of cultural values and beliefs closely tied to subsistence activities and ritual practices that define local perceptions of the natural environment. The basic idea is to illustrate that there are different ways of knowing and reasoning, seeing and endowing the world with meaning, which include visible material and invisible interpretative understandings. These tend to be underestimated issues in international debates and may provide an alternative approach upon which conservation initiatives responsive to the needs of the humans involved should be based on.

This book inquires into the swarm of ontological, epistemological, and ethical questions provoked by psychedelic experience in the context of global ecological crisis. Richard M. Doyle is professor of English and science, technology, and society at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of On Beyond Living and Wetwares.