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Showing 121 - 140 of 680 items
By Frances Westall, Barbara Cavalazzi. 2019
This book aims at providing a brief but broad overview of biosignatures. The topics addressed range from prebiotic signatures in…
extraterrestrial materials to the signatures characterising extant life as well as fossilised life, biosignatures related to space, and space flight instrumentation to detect biosignatures either in situ or from orbit. The book ends with philosophical reflections on the implications of life elsewhere. In the 15 chapters written by an interdisciplinary team of experts, it provides both detailed explanations on the nature of biosignatures as well as useful case studies showing how they are used and identified in ancient rocks, for example. One case study addresses the controversial finding of traces of fossil life in a meteorite from Mars. The book will be of interest not only to astrobiologists but also to terrestrial paleontologists as well as any reader interested in the prospects of finding a second example of life on another planet.By Matthew Bennett, Marcin Budka. 2019
“There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing…
footsteps. Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to me.” Sherlock Holmes, Study of Scarlet.Despite the fictional nature of Sherlock Holmes this statement rings true today. The study of footwear is neglected in modern forensic practice and does have much to offer. What it needs is an injection of technology and modern analytical tools. These tools are emerging from the digital revolution currently transforming vertebrate ichnology. Ichnology is the discipline of earth science which focuses on the study of trace fossils such as footprints. This book draws upon both disciplines - geology (ichnology) and forensic science - to show how the two have much to learn from each other especially with regard to the digital capture and analysis of footprints. This book presents field and laboratory methods associated with the collection, analysis and presentation of three-dimensional tracks (footprints) whether from a crime scene or a geological/archaeological excavation. It shows students, researchers and practitioners how to collect and analyse 3D data and take advantage of the digital revolution transforming ichnology. This book is not only essential reading for forensic and earth science students but also for professional forensic practitioners as well as for applied computer scientists developing new tools for visualization and analysis of 3D data. The book forms a natural methods focused complement to the successful text Fossilised Locomotion published by Springer 2014.By Mark A S McMenamin. 2018
Using a series of case studies, the book demonstrates the power of dynamic analysis as applied to the fossil record.…
The book considers how we think about certain types of paleontological questions and shows how to answer them. The analytical tools presented here will have wide application to other fields of knowledge; as such the book represents a major contribution to the deployment of modern scientific method as it builds on author's previous book, Dynamic Paleontology. Students and seasoned professionals alike will find this book to be of great utility for refining their approach to their ongoing and future research projects.How can the tracks of dinosaurs best be interpreted and used to reconstruct them? In many Mesozoic sedimentary rock formations,…
fossilized footprints of bipedal, three-toed (tridactyl) dinosaurs are preserved in huge numbers, often with few or no skeletons. Such tracks sometimes provide the only clues to the former presence of dinosaurs, but their interpretation can be challenging: How different in size and shape can footprints be and yet have been made by the same kind of dinosaur? How similar can they be and yet have been made by different kinds of dinosaurs? To what extent can tridactyl dinosaur footprints serve as proxies for the biodiversity of their makers? Profusely illustrated and meticulously researched, Noah’s Ravens quantitatively explores a variety of approaches to interpreting the tracks, carefully examining within-species and across-species variability in foot and footprint shape in nonavian dinosaurs and their close living relatives. The results help decipher one of the world’s most important assemblages of fossil dinosaur tracks, found in sedimentary rocks deposited in ancient rift valleys of eastern North America. Those often beautifully preserved tracks were among the first studied by paleontologists, and they were initially interpreted as having been made by big birds—one of which was jokingly identified as Noah’s legendary raven.By Igor Popov. 2018
This book reviews the convoluted history of orthogenesis with an emphasis of non-English sources, untangles relationships between various concepts of…
directed evolution and argues whether orthogenesis has something to offer modern biology. Darwinism claims that evolution occurs by selection from an extensive random variability. An alternative viewpoint—that the material for variability is limited and organisms are predisposed to vary in certain directions—is the essence of evolutionary concepts that can be grouped together under the name of orthogenesis. Dating back to Lamarck, orthogenesis has existed in many guises. Branded as mystical and discarded as unscientific, it keeps re-emerging in evolutionary discussions.By Peter Schouten, Ross D MacPhee. 2019
The fascinating lives and puzzling demise of some of the largest animals on earth. Until a few thousand years ago,…
creatures that could have been from a sci-fi thriller—including gorilla-sized lemurs, 500-pound birds, and crocodiles that weighed a ton or more—roamed the earth. These great beasts, or “megafauna,” lived on every habitable continent and on many islands. With a handful of exceptions, all are now gone. What caused the disappearance of these prehistoric behemoths? No one event can be pinpointed as a specific cause, but several factors may have played a role. Paleomammalogist Ross D. E. MacPhee explores them all, examining the leading extinction theories, weighing the evidence, and presenting his own conclusions. He shows how theories of human overhunting and catastrophic climate change fail to account for critical features of these extinctions, and how new thinking is needed to elucidate these mysterious losses. Along the way, we learn how time is determined in earth history; how DNA is used to explain the genomics and phylogenetic history of megafauna—and how synthetic biology and genetic engineering may be able to reintroduce these giants of the past. Until then, gorgeous four-color illustrations by Peter Schouten re-create these megabeasts here in vivid detail.By Paige Williams. 2018
In 2012, a New York auction catalogue boasted an unusual offering: "a superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton." In fact, Lot 49135 consisted…
of a nearly complete T. bataar, a close cousin to the most famous animal that ever lived. The fossils now on display in a Manhattan event space had been unearthed in Mongolia, more than 6,000 miles away. At eight-feet high and 24 feet long, the specimen was spectacular, and when the gavel sounded the winning bid was over $1 million. Eric Prokopi, a thirty-eight-year-old Floridian, was the man who had brought this extraordinary skeleton to market. A onetime swimmer who spent his teenage years diving for shark teeth, Prokopi's singular obsession with fossils fueled a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens, to clients ranging from natural history museums to avid private collectors like actor Leonardo DiCaprio. But there was a problem. This time, facing financial strain, had Prokopi gone too far? As the T. bataar went to auction, a network of paleontologists alerted the government of Mongolia to the eye-catching lot. As an international custody battle ensued, Prokopi watched as his own world unraveled. In the tradition of The Orchid Thief, The Dinosaur Artist is a stunning work of narrative journalism about humans' relationship with natural history and a seemingly intractable conflict between science and commerce. A story that stretches from Florida's Land O' Lakes to the Gobi Desert, The Dinosaur Artist illuminates the history of fossil collecting--a murky, sometimes risky business, populated by eccentrics and obsessives, where the lines between poacher and hunter, collector and smuggler, enthusiast and opportunist, can easily blur. In her first book, Paige Williams has given readers an irresistible story that spans continents, cultures, and millennia as she examines the question of who, ultimately, owns the past.By Rob McClurkan. 2018
Click, Jane, and CeCe go digging for dinosaur bones. When they finally dig up a bone, Click and CeCe are…
sure it’s a dinosaur bone but Jane thinks it is too small. Cloo teaches them something surprising – dinosaurs were all different sizes!By Matthew E Clapham. 2018
Lecturing has been a staple of university pedagogy, but a shift is ongoing because of evidence that active engagement with…
content helps strengthen learning and build more advanced skills. The flipped classroom, which delivers content to students outside of the class meeting, is one approach to maximize time for active learning. The fundamental benefit of a flipped class is that students learn more, but ensuring student preparation and engagement can be challenging. Evaluation policies can provide incentives to guide student effort. Flipping a class requires an initial time commitment, but the workload associated with evaluating student work during the course can be mitigated. The personal interactions from active learning are extremely rewarding for students and instructors, especially when class sizes are small and suitable room layouts are available. Overall, flipping a course doesn't require special training, just a willingness to experiment, reflect, and adjust.By Margaret M Yacobucci. 2018
People hold a variety of prior conceptions that impact their learning. Prior conceptions that include erroneous or incomplete understandings represent…
a significant barrier to durable learning, as they are often difficult to change. While researchers have documented students' prior conceptions in many areas of geoscience, little is known about prior conceptions involving paleontology. In this book, data on student prior conceptions from two introductory undergraduate paleontology courses are presented. In addition to more general misunderstandings about the nature of science, many students hold incorrect ideas about methods of historical geology, Earth history, ancient life, and evolution. Of special note are student perceptions of the limits of paleontology as scientific inquiry. By intentionally eliciting students' prior conceptions and implementing the pedagogical strategies described in other Elements in this series, lecturers can shape instruction to challenge this negative view of paleontology and improve student learning.Hands-on learning in paleontology, and geology in general, is fairly common practice. Students regularly use rocks, fossils, and data in…
the classroom throughout their undergraduate career, but they typically do it sitting in a chair in a lab. Kinesthetic learning is a teaching model that requires students to be physically active while learning. Students may be involved in a physical activity during class or might be using their own bodies to model some important concept. This book briefly discusses the theory behind kinesthetic learning and how it fits into a student-centered, active-learning classroom. It then describes in detail methods for incorporating it into student exercises on biostratigraphy, assessment of sampling completeness, and modeling evolutionary processes. Assessment data demonstrates that these exercises have led to significantly improved student learning outcomes tied to these concepts.By Robyn Mieko Dahl. 2018
Research on learning and cognition in geoscience education research and other discipline-based education communities suggests that effective instruction should include…
three key components: a) activation of students' prior knowledge on the subject, b) an active learning pedagogy that allows students to address any existing misconceptions and then build a new understanding of the concept, and c) metacognitive reflections that require students to evaluate their own learning processes during the lesson. This Element provides an overview of the research on student-centered pedagogy in introductory geoscience and paleontology courses and gives examples of these instructional approaches. Student-centered learning shifts the power and attention in a classroom from the instructor to the students. In a student-centered classroom, students are in control of their learning experience and the instructor functions primarily as a guide. Student-centered classrooms trade traditional lecture for conceptually-oriented tasks, collaborative learning activities, new technology, inquiry-based learning, and metacognitive reflection.By John W Williams, Carol Ormond, James S Oliver, Amy Myrbo, Shane Loeffler, Russell Graham, Simon James Goring. 2018
Paleoecological data from the Quaternary Period (2.6 million years ago to present) provides an opportunity for educational outreach for the…
earth and biological sciences. Paleoecology data repositories serve as technical hubs and focal points within their disciplinary communities and so are uniquely situated to help produce teaching modules and engagement resources. The Neotoma Paleoecology Database provides support to educators from primary schools to graduate students. In collaboration with pedagogical experts, the Neotoma Paleoecology Database team has developed teaching modules and model workflows. Early education is centered on discovery; higher-level educational tools focus on illustrating best practices for technical tasks. Collaborations among pedagogic experts, technical experts and data stewards, centered around data resources such as Neotoma, provide an important role within research communities, and an important service to society, supporting best practices, translating current research advances to interested audiences, and communicating the importance of individual research disciplines.By Darrin Pagnac. 2018
University dinosaur courses provide an influential venue for developing aptitude beyond knowledge of terrestrial Mesozoic reptiles. Passion for dinosaurs, when…
properly directed, can trigger interest in science and be used to develop critical thinking skills. Examination of dinosaur paleontology can develop competence in information analysis, perception of flawed arguments, recognition of persuasion techniques, and application of disciplined thought processes. Three methods for developing critical thought are outlined in this book. The first uses dinosaur paleontology to illustrate logical fallacies and flawed arguments. The second is a method for evaluating primary dinosaur literature by students of any major. The final example entails critique of dinosaur documentaries based on the appearance of dinosaurs and the disconnect between scientific fact and storytelling techniques. Students are owed more than dinosaur facts; lecturers should foster a set of skills that equips students with the tools necessary to be perceptive citizens and science advocates.By Shanan Peters, Rowan Lockwood, Phoebe A Cohen. 2018
New online resources are opening doors for education and outreach in the Earth sciences. One of the most innovative online…
earth science portals is Macrostrat and its mobile client Rockd - an interface that combines geolocated geological maps with stratigraphic information, lithological data, and crowd-sourced images and descriptions of outcrops. These tools provide a unique educational opportunity for students to interact with primary geological data, create connections between local outcrops and global patterns, and make new field observations. Rockd incorporates an aspect of social media to its platform, which creates a sense of community for users. This book outlines these resources, gives instructions on how to use them, and provides examples of how to integrate these resources into a variety of paleontology and earth science courses.By Alison N Olcott. 2018
The educational benefits of replacing in-class lectures with hands-on activities are clear. Such active learning is a natural fit for…
paleontology, which can provide opportunities for examining fossils, analyzing data and writing. Additionally, there are a number of topics in the field that are exciting to geology majors and non-majors alike: very few can resist the lure of dinosaurs, huge meteor impacts, vicious Cretaceous sharks or a giant Pleistocene land mammal. However, it can seem difficult to introduce these techniques into a large general education class full of non-majors: paleontological specimens provide a natural starting point for hands-on classroom activities, but in a large class it is not always practical or possible to provide enough fossil material for all students. The book introduces different types of active learning approaches, and then explains how they have been applied to a large introductory paleontology class for non-majors.By Mike Weinstein, Kirsten Guerin. 2018
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stand next to a real dinosaur? Millions of years ago,…
Dinosaurs ruled the earth and left their fossils behind for us to find all over the world. These fossils help archaeologists and paleontologists learn about what dinosaurs may have looked like. Some were really big and some were really small. In this story, you will learn all of the different shapes & sizes of your favorite dinosaurs before they went extinct. How will you measure up next to your favorite dinosaur?By Martha Richter, Charlie Underwood, Zerina Johanson. 2019
Fish, or lower vertebrates, occupy the basal nodes of the vertebrate phylogeny, and are therefore crucial in interpreting almost every…
feature of more advanced vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Recent research focuses on combining evolutionary observations - primarily from the fish fossil record - with developmental data from living fishes, in order to better interpret evolutionary history and vertebrate phylogeny. This book highlights the importance of this research in the interpretation of vertebrate evolution, bringing together world-class palaeontologists and biologists to summarise the most interesting, current and cutting-edge topics in fish evolution and development. It will be an invaluable tool for researchers in early vertebrate palaeontology and evolution, and those particularly interested in the interface between evolution and development.By Kathi Wagner, Sheryl Racine. 2005
Stomp, crash, and thrash through hours of puzzles, games, and activities!The Everything Kids' Dinosaur Book combines exciting and educational facts…
about dinosaurs with super-cool puzzles and awesome activities that will keep kids roaring, stomping and leaping for more. Inside they'll find out about the different types of dinosaurs, where they came from, how they lived and a ton (or two) more!With The Everything Kids' Dinosaur Book, kids can:Learn about what paleontologists studyManeuver through swampy amphibian mazesCreate big dino fun with crafty art and cooking projectsHunt for hidden dinosaurs in the most unlikely placesDiscover modern-day fun facts about fossilsPart educational tool, part activity book, The Everything Kids Dinosaur Book is guaranteed to keep kids entertained--and learning--for hours at a time.By Adriana Oliver. 2018
Las respuestas de la ciencia a las preguntas fundamentales sobre el origen de la vida y el origen del ser…
humano. Desde las primeras bacterias -3.800 millones de años- y los primeros organismos, plantas y vertebrados, hasta la conquista de la tierra, la era de los dinosaurios, los mamíferos y la aparición de los homínidos en el mioceno hace 7 millones de años. ¿Son primas las ballenas y las vacas?, ¿Cómo eran las primeras formas de vida?, ¿Cómo afectaron los cambios climáticos a la vida?, ¿Cómo pudo surgir la primera célula?, ¿Qué es la explosión cámbrica?, ¿Por qué salieron los anfibios del agua?, ¿Es cierto que los dinosaurios tenían miedo a los ratones?, ¿Cómo perdieron las ballenas las patas traseras?, ¿Estamos llegando a la 6º extinción?, ¿Cuáles fueron los primeros europeos?, ¿Cuándo apareció el lenguaje?, ¿Existen fósiles vivientes? ¿Quién no se ha preguntado alguna vez por la aparición de los primeros seres vivos, los dinosaurios que habitaban la Tierra o el origen del ser humano? La paleontología, a través del estudio de los fósiles nos propone un emocionante viaje para conocer los seres vivos que habitaron la Tierra en las diferentes eras geológicas. En este libro te invitamos a bucear entre la historia de la vida en la Tierra y descubrir sus grandes momentos como la aparición de las primeras bacterias hace 3.800 millones de años, pasando por los primeros organismos acorazados, las primeras plantas terrestres, los primeros vertebrados, la conquista de la tierra, los primeros bosques, la era de los dinosaurios, la aparición de los mamíferos, la aparición de las plantas con flor o la aparición de los homínidos. ¿Te animas a descubrir cómo eran?