Ant
Ant

Author: Charlotte Sleigh

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2004-04-04

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1861894813

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Ants are legion: at present there are 11,006 species of ant known; they live everywhere in the world except the polar icecaps; and the combined weight of the ant population has been estimated to make up half the mass of all insects alive today. When we encounter them outdoors, ants fascinate us; discovered in our kitchen cupboards, they elicit horror and disgust. Charlotte Sleigh’s Ant elucidates the cultural reasons behind our varied reactions to these extraordinary insects, and considers the variety of responses that humans have expressed at different times and in different places to their intricate, miniature societies. Ants have figured as fantasy miniature armies, as models of good behavior, as infiltrating communists and as creatures on the borderline between the realms of the organic and the machine: in 1977 British Telecom hired ant experts to help solve problems with their massive information network. This is the first book to examine ants in these and many other such guises, and in so doing opens up broader issues about the history of science and humans’ relations with the natural world. It will be of interest to anyone who likes natural history or cultural studies, or who has ever rushed out and bought a can of RaidTM. "[Charlotte Sleigh's] stylish, engaging and informative study deserves to win new members for the ant fan club."—Jonathan Bate, The Times

Science in Modern Poetry
Science in Modern Poetry

Author: John Holmes

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2012-03-31

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1781388342

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Leading experts on modern poetry and on literature and science explore how poets have used scientific language in their poems, how poetry can offer new perspectives on science, and how the 'Two Cultures' can and have come together in the work of poets from Britain and Ireland, America and Australia.

Six Legs Better
Six Legs Better

Author: Charlotte Sleigh

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2007-03-05

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 9780801884450

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Marking the centenary of the coining of "myrmecologyto describe the study of ants, Six Legs Better demonstrates the remarkable historical role played by ants as a node where notions of animal, human, and automaton intersect.

Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History [2 volumes]
Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History [2 volumes]

Author: Jack S. Blocker Jr.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2003-12-17

Total Pages: 805

ISBN-13: 1576078345

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A comprehensive encyclopedia on all aspects of the production, consumption, and social impact of alcohol. Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia spans the history of alcohol production and consumption from the development of distilled spirits and modern manufacturing and distribution methods to the present. Authoritative and unbiased, it brings together the work of hundreds of experts from a variety of disciplines with an emphasis on the extraordinary wealth of scholarship developed in the past several decades. Its nearly 500 alphabetically organized entries range beyond the principal alcoholic beverages and major producers and retailers to explore attitudes toward alcohol in various countries and religions, traditional drinking occasions and rituals, and images of drinking and temperance in art, painting, literature, and drama. Other entries describe international treaties and organizations related to alcohol production and distribution, global consumption patterns, and research and treatment institutions, as well as temperance, prohibition, and antiprohibitionist efforts worldwide.

Big Brains and the Human Superorganism
Big Brains and the Human Superorganism

Author: Niccolo Leo Caldararo

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1498540880

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This book examines why humans have big brains, what big brains enable us to do, and how specialized brains are associated with eusociality in animals. It explores why brains expanded so slowly, and then why they stopped growing. This book whittles down the theories on brain size evolution to a few that represent testable hypotheses to identify logical and practical explanations for the phenomenon. At the core of this book is data derived from original, previously unpublished research on brain size in a number of social mammals. This data supports the idea that evolution of the brain in humans is the result of social interaction. This book also traces the products of the social brain: ideology, religion, urban life, housing, and learning and adapting to dense complex social interactions. It uniquely compares brain evolution in social animals across the animal kingdom, and examines the nature of the human brain and its evolution within the social and historical context of complex human social structures.