Rat: How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top

Rat: How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top PDF Author: Jerry Langton
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312363842
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Examines the characteristics, physiology, habits, behavior, evolution, history, myth, and psyche of one of the world's most successful animals, in a study that explores the reasons why the ever-adaptable rat has risen to the top of the animal kingdom.

Rat: How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top

Rat: How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top PDF Author: Jerry Langton
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312363842
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Examines the characteristics, physiology, habits, behavior, evolution, history, myth, and psyche of one of the world's most successful animals, in a study that explores the reasons why the ever-adaptable rat has risen to the top of the animal kingdom.

Misunderstood

Misunderstood PDF Author: Rachel Toor
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374303096
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
As much a moving memoir as it is an amusing pet manual, Misunderstood is a unique nonfiction book for teens and tweens about domesticated rats in general and a wonderful rat named Iris in particular. Brimming with smarts and energy just like its furry subjects, Rachel Toor's text blends history and science with profiles of interesting people and autobiographical anecdotes as it joyfully sets the record straight about why this reviled creature is actually a most amazing species. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding and appreciation of domestic rats—and may be convinced to adopt one themselves.

Rat

Rat PDF Author: Jerry Langton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
If given the time, food, and freedom from predators, a rat can produce 128,000 offspring in one year.Plague carrier, city vermin and an out-and-out menace to modern man, the rat, like death and taxes, is a certain fixture on humankinds history. Rats are found in virtually every nook and cranny of the globe and their numbers are ever increasing. Popular movies such as Wilbur have only reinforced our terror of the rat and have given it a permanent place on our list of enemies. Rats are always adapting and they seem to outwit any attempts by humans to wipe them out. What makes the rat such a worthy adversary and how has it risen to the top of the animal kingdom? In Rat: How the Worlds Most Notorious Rodent Clawed its Way to the Top, Jerry Langton explores the history, myth, physiology, habits, and psyche of the rat and even speculates on the future of the rat and how they might evolve over the next few hundred years. From its origins in the swamps of Southeast Asia, to its role in the medieval Black Death to its unshakable niche in modern urban centres, the rat has incredible biological advantages that make it virtually indestructible. Rat: How the Worlds Most Notorious Rodent Clawed its Way to the Top transcends nature literature by combining biology with history, and social commentary with first-hand experience, to dispel the myths and expose the little-known facts about the ubiquitous rodent.

Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World

Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World PDF Author: Richard C. Francis
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393246515
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 507

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Book Description
Without domestication, civilization as we know it would not exist. Since that fateful day when the first wolf decided to stay close to human hunters, humans and their various animal companions have thrived far beyond nearly all wild species on earth. Tameness is the key trait in the domestication of cats, dogs, horses, cows, and other mammals, from rats to reindeer. Surprisingly, with selection for tameness comes a suite of seemingly unrelated alterations, including floppy ears, skeletal and coloration changes, and sex differences. It’s a package deal known as the domestication syndrome, elements of which are also found in humans. Our highly social nature—one of the keys to our evolutionary success—is due to our own tameness. In Domesticated, Richard C. Francis weaves history and anthropology with cutting-edge ideas in genomics and evo devo to tell the story of how we domesticated the world, and ourselves in the process.

In Defense of the World’s Most Despised Species

In Defense of the World’s Most Despised Species PDF Author: Ernest Small
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000953211
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1254

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Book Description
Some animals and plants injure or kill millions of people annually, others cause trillions of dollars in property damage and loss. Such harmful species are understandably hated. However, the vast majority of the planet’s millions of species are disliked simply because of how they look and act. This bias is endangering numerous species that play important roles in maintaining both the natural ecosystems and the human economies of the world. In Defense of the World’s Most Despised Species examines the psychological motivations that lead people to make judgments about the attractiveness of species, noting the overwhelming importance of visual cues. It describes in considerable detail the physical and behavioral traits of species that lead us to love or hate them. Full color illustrations throughout present beautiful, charming animals and plants, species that seem loathsome, behavior of people in relation to such divergent species and their characteristics, and numerous explanatory diagrams of relevant biological and psychological phenomena. The aim of this book is to give readers insights into how we humans arrive at biased judgments and to promote the welfare of valuable, albeit sometimes unlovable animals and plants that consequently suffer from discrimination. Many of the ugliest, most disgusting, and feared species, such as vultures, toads, hyenas, sharks, spiders, and even the vast majority of cockroaches, in reality are some of our most valuable friends. Features Theme of the book – human preferences for and against species – is novel, scarcely examined to date. Multidisciplinary analysis, especially psychology, biological conservation science, and ecology, as well as philosophy, agriculture, urban planning, human health, and law. Text is accessible, user-friendly, concise, and well-organized, making numerous complex topics comprehensible, readable not only by specialists, but also by students and the educated layperson. Includes over 2,000 high-quality, entertaining, and informative color figures.

Weirding the War

Weirding the War PDF Author: Stephen Berry
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820341851
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
"It is well that war is so terrible," Robert E. Lee reportedly said, "or we would grow too fond of it." The essays collected here make the case that we have grown too fond of it, and therefore we must make the war terrible again. Taking a "freakonomics" approach to Civil War studies, each contributor uses a seemingly unusual story, incident, or phenomenon to cast new light on the nature of the war itself. Collectively the essays remind us that war is always about damage, even at its most heroic and even when certain people and things deserve to be damaged. Here then is not only the grandness of the Civil War but its more than occasional littleness. Here are those who profited by the war and those who lost by it--and not just those who lost all save their honor, but those who lost their honor too. Here are the cowards, the coxcombs, the belles, the deserters, and the scavengers who hung back and so survived, even thrived. Here are dark topics like torture, hunger, and amputation. Here, in short, is war.

Motivating Change: Sustainable Design and Behaviour in the Built Environment

Motivating Change: Sustainable Design and Behaviour in the Built Environment PDF Author: Robert Crocker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135043841
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
Today’s most pressing challenges require behaviour change at many levels, from the city to the individual. This book focuses on the collective influences that can be seen to shape change. Exploring the underlying dimensions of behaviour change in terms of consumption, media, social innovation and urban systems, the essays in this book are from many disciplines, including architecture, urban design, industrial design and engineering, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, waste management and public policy. Aimed especially at designers and architects, Motivating Change explores the diversity of current approaches to change, and the multiple ways in which behaviour can be understood as an enactment of values and beliefs, standards and habitual practices in daily life, and more broadly in the urban environment.

Iced

Iced PDF Author: Jerry Langton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
This is the first book to expose every aspect of the epidemic for the general reader. From the perspective of experts in drug addiction and doctors, law enforcement, and stories from addicts and former addicts, "Iced" is a scary but compelling portrait of a seductive killer.

Wildlife Research

Wildlife Research PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Animals
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description


Library Journal

Library Journal PDF Author: Melvil Dewey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic journals
Languages : en
Pages : 894

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Book Description
Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.