New Book Life in a Shell: A Physiologist's View of a Turtle Hardcover, Donald C. Jackson, Hardcover, 192 pages, Harvard University Press, $29.95 plus $6.00 S&H
Product Description Trundling along in essentially the same form for some 220 million years, turtles have seen dinosaurs come and go, mammals emerge, and humankind expand its dominion. Is it any wonder the persistent reptile bested the hare? In this engaging book physiologist Donald Jackson shares a lifetime of observation of this curious creature, allowing us a look under the shell of an animal at once so familiar and so strange. Here we discover how the turtles proverbial slowness helps it survive a long, cold winter under ice. How the shell not only serves as a protective home but also influences such essential functions as buoyancy control, breathing, and surviving remarkably long periods without oxygen, and how many other physiological features help define this unique animal. Jackson offers insight into what exactly its like to live inside a shellto carry the heavy carapace on land and in water, to breathe without an expandable ribcage, to have sex with all that body armor intervening. Along the way we also learn something about the process of scientific discoveryhow the answer to one question leads to new questions, how a chance observation can change the direction of study, and above all how new research always builds on the previous work of others. A clear and informative exposition of physiological concepts using the turtle as a model organism, the book is as interesting for what it tells us about scientific investigation as it is for its deep and detailed understanding of how the enduring turtle works. About the Author Donald C. Jackson is Professor Emeritus of Medical Science, Brown University. REMEMBER All Proceeds Go to HerpDigest.org: The Only Free Weekly E-zine Which Reports on the Latest Reptile and Amphibian Science and Conservation News. A non-profit corporation. TO ORDER: 1) Send a check to Herpdigest/Allen Salzberg/67-87 Booth Street -5B/Forest Hills, NY 11375. Make the check out to Herpdigest. 2) By Paypal - our account is [email protected] 3) By credit card, Master or Visa, Discover and Amex, only, send us your credit card number, expiration date, billing and shipping address to [email protected]. (Though I haven't heard of this happening, a credit card number stolen from an email, I'm told to prevent this send ccard number divided into two emails.) And dont forget to include those last 3 numbers from the back of the credit card. The CVV numbers. 4) By phone, call us at 1-718-275-2190 Eastern Standard Time (NYC) - Any Day Of The Week, 11 A.M.- 6 P.M. If not in, leave message and we'll call back.
