Biology Books

I bought this for a friend's child who is on a higher reading level than most his age, he LOVES this book! It's so interesting! This child particularly loves science in general and is a great book who's mind is like a sponge. Other books this child loves are Magic School bus and anything that has to do with Marine life.

I got so tired of my 5 year old saying "poop". And giggling with her friends about "poop".

Then I found this book at the library. It was fun and educational.... did I mention fun? Anyway, now that my little one knows all about animals and poop... she finds the science of poop so interesting... that the giggling about poop is gone! (For now at least!)

The book is really intersting and engaging. I loved it too!

As did my Mom... who teaches 5th grade... she had me buy the book for school!

My three boy's ( 10,11,14) are no eager readers. So I'm in constant search for the unusual, different. We'll this is one of those booklets not to much to read and it is full of amazing information we never had thought about it,but worthy to know.

In Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionables (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2004), author Nicola Davies and illustrator Neal Layton explore the scientific wonders of feces-from their biological functions to the many different shapes and forms of excrement. Most of the subjects are animals, with a few references to human defecation.

Davies, who holds a degree in zoology, successfully tackles the arcane and often hush-hush topic with a mixture of humor and straightforward biology. For example, the appearance of whale poop is explained plainly: it looks like "giant blobs of strawberry ice cream breaking up in the water." The glossary at the end, though, offers vague definitions, at best. With that said, Davies has an ability for seamlessly combining the scientific terminology with colloquialisms. The words poop and feces are used interchangeably.

The book's second person "you" point-of-view speaks directly and gently to the audience. However, Davies may assume too much about her audience. She disregards non-Christian readers in describing the mistletoe "we use to decorate our homes at Christmas."

The product of many unconventional artistic mediums-including an old toothbrush and a cake-icing bag-Neal Layton's hilarious illustrations will stir up giggles from children and adults alike. Especially funny are the personifications of animals, with thought bubbles above their heads. Some actual photographs of some of the subjects would be helpful (their outward appearance, not their waste).

Obvious comparisons can be drawn between this and Susan Goodman's The Truth About Poop, illustrated by Elwood H. Smith, and The Scoop on Poop by Wayne Lynch.

Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionables is not a book for every youngster. The faint of heart or queasy of stomach need not read. Otherwise, this is a great book for a second to fifth grader interested in learning more about the brown stuff.

In my opinion, this is the best book I have come acrorss in terms of "PRINCIPLES" The book focuses on general principles, not specific therapeutic areas. Topics covered range from drug discovery and development to individualization and quality assessment of drug therapy. This is an excellent resource for those in post-graduate Clinical Pharmacology training or who are working in this area. Readers will,
however, need a basic knowledge of pharmacology as this book is not suitable as the first and only Clinical Pharmacology textbook for medical or undergraduate students.

In my opinion, this is the best book I have come acrorss in terms of "PRINCIPLES" The book focuses on general principles, not specific therapeutic areas. Topics covered range from drug discovery and development to individualization and quality assessment of drug therapy. This is an excellent resource for those in post-graduate Clinical Pharmacology training or who are working in this area. Readers will,
however, need a basic knowledge of pharmacology as this book is not suitable as the first and only Clinical Pharmacology textbook for medical or undergraduate students.

I think this is the best book so far when it comes to "PRINCIPLES". The book focused on general principles, not any particular therapeutic areas. It covers from drug discovery and development to individualization and quality assessment of drug therapy. Excellent resource for people in post-graduate Clinical Pharmacology training or working in this area. However, readers will need basic knowledge of pharmacology from other sources. This is not suitable to be the first and only Clinical Pharmacology textbook for medical students or undergraduate students.

In my opinion, this is the best book on general principles without going into detail on specific therapeutic areas. I would consider it a must-read for those in clinical pharmacology post-graduate training or those working in clin pharm. However, previous knowledge of pharmacology is needed, as this book is not suitable as a first primer for medical and undergrad students.

The Principles of Life, by Tibor Ganti is a brilliant diamond sparkling in a river bed of dark gravel. Published in 1971 in Hungarian. It remained unknown to all, but his Hungarian students. Thirty-seven years of astounding advances in molecular biology have passed since publication, yet Ganti's book remains as relevant and profoundly insightful today, as the day it was published. Written in a style that flows effortlessly through the mind. It provides deep insights into questions about the organization of living systems. Paragraph by paragraph, he develops his Chemoton theory. Then, with his theory in hand, he walks though the forest of ideas surrounding the origin of life. Slicing through the seemingly unknowable. Laying it bare, for anyone to see. I feel like Ganti grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, and shook me awake. He made me see a new, chemical way, of looking at the problems of the origin of life. Each paragraph raised thought provoking ideas, that had me pondering for hours. The excellent margin notes by Szathmary and Griesemer added depth, clarity, and historical context to Ganti's thoughts. Reining him in when he stepped too far, and bringing up relevant issues from the latest research, that either supported, or challenged his ideas.
After I finished the book. And having gotten a good grasp of his Chemoton theory. I immediately began reading it again, to re-experience the secret delight I felt, the first time I read it. How often has that happen to you?
I consider Ganti's book to be essential reading for anyone interested in the origin of life story. And mandatory reading for those who will go on to read Ganti's magnum opus, Chemoton Theory, the next book on my reading list.

Tibor Gánti is the least known of the scientists who have tried to develop a theory of life in the past half-century (since the time of Erwin Schrödinger), but undeservedly so. As he wrote mainly in Hungarian his original writings are closed to nearly all of us, and we have had to find out what he thought at second-hand. Fortunately Oxford University Press have done a superb job of making his most important ideas available in English, accompanied by masterly commentaries from James Griesemer and Eörs Szathmáry, a philosopher and a biologist (and former student of Gánti) respectively.

One of the things that is most immediately striking about Gánti's book is how well and clearly written it is -- vastly easier to read than the work of Robert Rosen ("Life Itself"), for example, less work than reading Stuart Kauffman ("The Origins of Order"), more down to earth than Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela ("Autopoiesis and Cognition"). Moreover, Gánti recognizes from the outset that a theory of life must be firmly rooted in a knowledge of chemistry, and that it has to take account of thermodynamics, but that chemistry and thermodynamics by themselves are not enough. There needs to be an explanation of how an organized system can arise from these components, and for Gánti this explanation lies in what he calls a chemoton, a system of (at least) three interacting cycles that take care of energy management, metabolic activity and storage of information.

The notes by Griesemer and Szathmáry constitute one of the most valuable features of the book, and the publisher has used a typographically intelligent design to make these as useful as possible. Not end-notes, requiring endless flipping backwards and forwards, and not footnotes either, breaking the thread of reading (albeit less), but side-notes, printed in most cases alongside the relevant text. In these notes they bring Gánti's ideas up-to-date when necessary (though this is necessary surprisingly little) and commenting on recent additions to knowledge that amplify them. In most cases they add real insights, with only rare exceptions, for example where Griesemer's discussion of Gánti's description of the chemical effect of removing an atom from an acetic acid molecule obscures more than it clarifies.

In summary, this is a book that anyone seriously interested in the nature of life needs to read.

Although the various threads of ideas about the nature of life overlap to a considerable extent, they all seem to have been developed in isolation from one another, and the different authors refer hardly at all to one another. This is very unfortunate, and there is a real need for a book that brings all the threads together.

"what ist life?" Schrödinger asked over 50 years ago. This book brings new light to this neglected topic now. Ganti lists five real (absolute) life criteria: - inherent unity, - metabolism, - inherent stability, - informatiion-carrying subsystem, - program control. In addition he lists three potential life criteria: - growth and reproduction, - capability of heredity change and evolution, - mortality. His criterias are interesting, but I miss a presentation of finding of other researchers.

I am enthusiastic about this book. For the first time I have the feeling that I understand the origin of life problem. I wished I had had Gánti as a teacher. He is a genius and a gifted populariser of science. This book is a translation of the 1971 Hungarian edition and makes Gánti's insights for the first time available to the rest of the world. The footnotes of the editors significantly enhance the value of the book. I hope that a publisher soon will produce a paperback edition of this important work, especially because the book has been written for the specialist and the non-specialist. For a full review see the web site Was Darwin Wrong? including a comparison with other books on the origin of life.

This textbook is excellent for life science students who want to approach ecology from the point of view of ecosystem functioning. A precise and clear systematic description of ecosystems organisazion is given, from physiology to complex communities organization. It also focuses on the emrgence of new functions and features every time the complexity level increases, which is essential to have a full systematic comprehension of ecosystems. Underlying physical-chemical processes are always taken into considaration, which contributes to easily understand all the general aspects of ecosystem functions. A must read.

a technical book written for ecosystem ecologists but easy to read. I had to get it for a class, but it was well put-together and organized.

My research is on integration of terrestrial carbon modelling with remote sensing and I was looking for a book which explains different aspects of the terrestrial ecosystem along with latest research results. This book by some of the famous researchers on the subject explains in a very lucid way every aspects of the terrestrial ecosystem while not failing to include the minute yet important details of the same. I found the chapters on carbon input to terrestrial ecosystems, terrestrial production processes and global biogeochemical cycle very stimulating. The book starts with the basic concepts and then go on to dig deeper to help nourish the curiosity with latest findings and reports. Best for begineers in ecosystem ecology or related field to get a crisp and clear idea on complex interlinking of different processes of the earth's terrestrial ecosystem. Additional readings at the end of each chapter would cater the need for the more hungry ones to go deeper. very nicely sequenced and fun to read with excellent drawings/diagrams.

This is one heck of a book! I'm very, very impressed. I'm certainly going to use for my courses, and I think it will be used by many others teachers and professor. I think it will find itself along side Schlesinger's Biogeochemistry as a standard textbook for ecologists and global change scientists.

The text is written by some of the best ecologists on the planet, and is very complete and up-to-date. Amazingly, it is also very well written and completely understandable to the average biology student.

I especially like the organization of the book into four major sections: context, mechanisms, patterns, and integration. This works very, very well.

Each chapter is about the right length, with the right level of detail. I also like the use of highlighting, and the list of suggested readings. They work very well.

Overall, this is a fantastic book -- destined to become a classic in the field.

This book, autobiographical though it may be, is really about all scientists, particularly those of us who study natural history. Why do we do it? What motivates us, inspires us, even drives us? Geerat Vermeij chronicles his own voyage of discovery, along the way offering some hints, and not a little insight, into just exactly why anyone would choose to "do" natural history.

I bought several copies of this book to give to friends and family, including my non-scientist wife. It explains why I do what I do much more elegantly than I have ever been able to. I highly recommend this book. Read it if you want to know what makes natural historians tick. Give it to someone you wish to understand you a bit better.

Incidentally, Vermeij also happens to be blind. But that is, at best, a leitmotif in this story.

I think I might be a little critical of this book because I personally did not care for the way it ended. His life is an amazing one and being able to view the world through his thoughts was a wonderful ride. However, unfortunately, I felt that his stance on a supreme being towards the end seemed to bring a "cold" ending to the book. Science and God go together just fine, even though I can understand his frustration with highly religious people. Otherwise, I learned a lot and really enjoyed being able to see the world through a person without sight. Great!

I wish Geerat Vermeij's "Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life" would earn the wide readership it deserves. Surely Vermeij's remarkable life is one which should resonate strongly with many readers, especially those accustomed to reading tales of poverty and woe told with ample literary grace and skill by writers as diverse as Mary Karr and Frank McCourt. Like Karr and McCourt, Vermeij is a splendid writer too, and yet in many respects, his own life story seems far more remarkable, if not as mesmerizing as theirs. Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, Vermeij clung to his childhood fascination with mollusk shells, had a successful graduate career at Yale University, and is now a prominent evolutionary biologist. Presently a professor of geology at the University of California, Davis, Geerat Vermeij's major scientific contributions range from advancing our understanding of molluscan shell architecture to his idea of escalation, in which he recognizes that the history of life on Earth - at least during the past half billion years or so - has been a coevolutionary arms race between predators and prey. Without a doubt, "Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life" is the finest recent personal saga on science told by one of the world's greatest scientists. It is also a poignant personal odyssey on blindness, made remarkable by Vermeij's determination to overcome what would be in others a crippling disability; instead, he has turned it into an important asset for his brilliant scientific research.

Is this the story of a blind scientist? No! This is the story of a great scientist who happens to be blind, but who is certainly not without a vision of the world around him. Dr. Vermeij chronicles his life and development as a scientific thinker and worker. He draws the reader in as he tells what it's like to work one's way through the ranks and halls of academia, and how he had to simultaneously overcome prejudices and preconceptions others hold about what it means to be blind. He also tells of an ongoing life centered on the accumulation of knowledge, contemplation of those ideas, and the generation of important contributions to his field. The account of his development as a scientific thinker and worker was a great read, but the perspective he provides on life without sight is outstanding. I'd rate the book 5 stars for myself, and 4 stars for a more general audience: five stars for myself because, as an invertebrate zoologist, I felt a strong connection to the topics and experiences described; and 4 starts for a non-scientific audience. It's clear that this book was written prior to the end of his career, and I hope to see another installment on Dr. Vermeij's life in another decade or two.

This is a well organized book that includes relevant real-world examples and all the latest in contemporary population dynamics. Aside from an appalling cover design, this book is a winner!

This one is a keeper! A comprehensive masterpiece of the world of dynamic fish populaton modeling. Excellent examples using a multitude of fish species makes this book a must for anyone involved in fishery research or management into the new millenium. I give the books content 5 stars although I, also, would like to see the release of a new book jacket.

This is the book -I- keep on the nightstand. Covers a broad base of contemporary population dynamics with relevant examples. Disregarding the insipid cover design, its an essential addition to any biologist's library

An excellent resource for anyone involved in the world of fisheries stock assessment or population dynamics. I only give it 4 stars because of the poor cover design.

The list of contributors to this book reads like a "Who's Who" of the world of Botanical Sciences. This is not, however, one of those stuffy books which are so hard to understand by anyone with less than a PhD to their name. Certainly not! This is a book for those with an interest in the Rainforests of the world (which should be all of us!) and is written in a variety of styles - each of which will allow expert and layman alike to appreciate the various messages which are here to be learned.

Packed with some of the most exciting photography I have seen in a long time (I especially liked the picture of the Giant Fruit Bat in flight), this is a book which is so expertly put together, I didn't find so much as a minor fault anywhere. For those readers who (like me) do not fully understand and appreciate the overall subject matter, the book commences with an excellent overview, which explains the Rainforest exactly as it should be explained. Then, having so skilfully set the underlying scene, each different contributor adds their own particular expertise on different aspects of the Rainforest until, segment by segment, we are presented with a complete understanding "and" appreciation, of what is probably the most important habitat on earth.

Rainforests of the world is a large subject which, in this case, is professionally and cleverly described and I congratulate the team on an excellent authoritative work.

NM

Not only will the astounding photographs enchant the reader but the text will also provide him with a collection of important information. The pictures will captivate the reader and further serve to impact oneself upon learning of the daily destruction of the animals and plants behind the images. The information of the text is well delivered and insightful and the photographs are a must see.

The photographs in this book have the power to transport you to the very lands it depicts; the rainforests come alive. These visual reminders only heighten the impact of the horrible statistics that detail the daily destruction of the world's rainforests

I am a teacher building an Ecology unit around Rainforests--I have checked out 32 library books to aid my students in their research. This title is definately the stand out!!!

Reincarnation and Biology (Volume 2)Victims of extremist hate crimes, women and men, are ritually positioned and mutilated by their assailants. I maintain that applied dream analysis, spectrometric analysis, and verification of current bodily and personality anomalies of current living subjects (grounded in the work of Ian Stevenson) assists the F.B.I. and other internationally authorized forensic scientists to 1. identify past victims (i.e.: Horst Wessel; Margot Frank; Anne Frank; James Byron Dean; John F. Kennedy; Martin Luther King; and beheaded victims of Islamic extremists), 2. assist the current human subject to regain their inner-vision and control of their life, 3. deduce the circumstances of their murder, 4. identify their murderer or friends through ritual re-enactments, and 5. establish a sense of inner-peace and justice if not outright retaliation against their reincarnated murderers.

In this extensive compilation of information, Dr. Stevenson, provides powerful empirical and documentary evidence supporting the concept that something (soul, kamma, etc.?) passes from a person who has died to a person who has been born. The presence of birthmarks in young children who claim to have been a dead person living in a specific location (e.g. house) in which that person actually lived, and located where forensic history (photos and descriptions) showed that person died from a bullet, knife or other wound is rather difficult to dismiss as mere sophistry. This is particularly so given the comparatively large number of such cases. Although these cases make up only a small part of this tome, for me, as an empirical scientist, they provide strong evidence supporting what Jesus said in Mathew (17:10):

And his disciples asked him, saying `Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come before the arrival of the Messiah?' And Jesus answered and said unto them, `Elijah truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elijah is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.' Then the disciples understood that he spoke unto them of John the Baptist.

Anyone attempting to understand the scientific evidence suggestive of reincarnation MUST read this comprehensive text. Here, Stevenson has assembled an encyclopedia of what is arguably the most compelling aspect of the cases he has documented for over forty years - that some of these young children who claim to have experienced previous lives (or to whom previous lives have been attributed) bear highly unusual birthmarks or suffer from birth defects that correspond with wounds on the alleged "previous personalities" to a degree that defies coincidence. Stevenson's cautious and meticulous nature shine in his delineation of case after case, and ultimately the sheer number of strong, compelling case studies causes one to reexamine one's position on the possibility of reincarnation. At the least, Stevenson has documented a highly puzzling cultural phenomenon too pervasive to ignore. At best, he demonstrates a scientific vision that matches that of the greatest pioneers in the history of science.

This is the most convincing study of reincarnation that hasever been undertaken by anyone. It provides page after page of genuinephysical evidence of the transmigration of souls. One of the things that one notices over and over again is that the physical injuries that have occurred in past lives are often likely to take the form of some sort of bodily peculiarity in the next life, such as the man who had been killed by a shotgun blast in a civil war battle, and whose next incarnation had a birthmark of exactly similar proportion and location as the wound. This is of far more value than the research into NDE's, I think, because of the physical evidence gathered. Although, it is impossible to absolutely prove such a thing, there are far too many well-documented cases for all of them to be passed off as merely coincidence. An excellent book for all those interested in the subject despite the outrageous price. Check in university libraries for this one like I did . . . unless you feel that you absolutely NEED to own this one.

For the first few million years of life, time was measured by sunrise and sunset. Now we have switched to clocks. But the biological clocks that are within all of us don't know how to read clocks. Breakfast, lunch and dinner occur at standard times. Tooth pain is lowest after lunch; proof reading and sprint swimming are best performed in the evening; labour pains more often begin at night and most natural births occur in the early hours; sudden cardiac death is more likely in the morning (from Chapter 1).

The study of biological clocks has gone on for a long time, but as a science is a fairly recent development. Research in just the last few years has dramatically altered the way scientists view them. This book is a snapshot of the way the science appears right now. The pair who wrote the book are a leading researcher in the field and a professional science writer. This is a good combination that gives good enjoyable writing combined with accurate reporting.

What do the disasters of the _Titanic_, the _Exxon Valdez_, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and the Union Carbide plant explosion in Bhopal all have in common? They involved human error, and they all happened when the humans ought, by biological fiat, to have been sleeping. We are ruled by our clocks now, but even in the unnatural world we have made for ourselves, we cannot get away from the natural clocks that our cells expect us to follow. Like almost all living things in the planet, from plants to bacteria to birds, we have "a biological clock that was first set ticking more than three billion years ago." In _Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing_ (Yale University Press), Russell G. Foster, a professor of molecular neuroscience, and Leon Kreitzman, a writer and broadcaster, have examined the investigations of a relatively new science, chronobiology, to show just how much sway natural time has over us and other organisms. It isn't just a tale of sleepy people in control making bad judgments, although cognition and prudence do have their daily cycles. We tend to have babies (natural birthing) in the early mornings, and heart attacks in the later morning, and lovemaking around 10 p.m. Physical coordination, liver metabolism, body temperature, heart rate, kidney function, and much more all are paying attention to the biological clock, and when we jump time zones or do shift work, we do so at our peril.

Many of these cycles are specifically examined here, along with the historical hunt for the biological roots of the rhythmicity. A couple of the chapters dealing with the dance of molecules will be daunting for those uninitiated into the basics of cellular biology, but they do well to show the intricacies of the molecular mechanisms and the depth of work that has been done in this field. There are not just daily rhythms, but annual ones. Migratory birds the whole world over know when to start their travels north or south; they do so not by counting the days or paying attention to when the weather changes, but by regulation from the annual changes of lengths of day and night. Plants cannot migrate, but they are regulated by day length, too; wheat flowers, for instance, when the days get long enough, and barley does so when the days start to shorten. The almost universal attention that species pay to daily or annual changes indicates that success comes from being able to predict when winter, or summer, or nightfall, or other events, are coming, and from timing leaf drop, coitus, or swimming upstream to meet the optimum times and conditions. Evolution has selected the species that are best able to predict the future.

In the famous experiments where humans lived in caves or other light-deprived environments, with no capacity to tell time, they eventually locked into their own cycles of a little more than 24 hours. Like most creatures, we have an internal daily rhythm which is not exact, but only approximate; the day night cycle (or for us, such cues as an alarm clock) "entrain" the internal cycle and keep it synchronous with the rest of the creatures on Earth. There are mutant rats and flies who have cycles that are too long or too short, and researchers have productively transplanted brain parts to find out where the actual clocks are. Chronobiologists (a term that even some chronobiologists think of as pompous) are not just doing ivory tower investigations. There are many practical implications of this sort of work. Breast cancers, for example, have an annual pattern of increased and decreased growths, and so searching for the cancer would be more productive at certain times of the year. Chemotherapy for cancers involves poisoning the cancer cells with drugs that are also poisons for regular cells, but cancer cells, with their out-of-control growth, lose their rhythm of growth and division that normal cells retain. Thus it is possible that administering anti-cancer drugs at the time of day when they will interfere the least with the normal cells could reduce the worrisome side effects of the drugs. Asthma is most prevalent at night; medicine for it would be best taken in higher doses at nighttime, rather than every eight hours. The timing of doses in some cases may be as important as what the doses contain. The authors have given a detailed but readable introduction into a new science that will have increasing importance for human health as more is learned.

A comprehensive and fascinating book about the last few decades of chronobiological research. Are you a "early bird" or a "night owl"? Do you want to know how to deal with jet lag and winter blues? Are you interested in biological rhythms from a scientific or professional point of view? The you have to read this book immediately. It contains nearly everything you always wanted to know about rhythms but were afraid to ask. It's a must-read for medical professionals, psychologists, teachers, trainers and consultants of all kind.

A comprehensive and fascinating book about the last few decades of chronobiological research. Are you an "early bird" or a "night owl"? Do you want to know how to deal with jet lag and winter blues? Are you interested in biological rhythms from a scientific or professional point of view? The you have to read this book immediately. It contains nearly everything you always wanted to know about rhythms but were afraid to ask. It's a must-read for medical professionals, psychologists, teachers, trainers and consultants of all kind.

This is a meticulously researched book that reflects the author's deep commitment to the ocean environment. At the same time Dr. Vanstrum describes his adventures while surfing and diving all over the world. It's a fun, serious book.

Relying on interviews and communications with some of the foremost authorities on coral reefs (Dr. Richard Grigg) and ocean fisheries, Dr. Vanstrum makes a compelling case for the establishment of meaningful marine reserves in this country.

It is a shame that costs prevented the publication of Dr. Vanstrum's marvelous photographs in color. I have seen the originals in color and they are breathtaking. Even the black and whites reflect the skill and commitment of a superb photographer. For a sample of his photography in color I would recommend a visit to his Web site: www.Vanstrum.net.

This book is really well researched and presented in a very entertaining way. The author has a vast wealth of experience and understanding about the intricate balances of the ocean. If you've ever wanted to know, "what's down there?" or "what's so great about the oceans?" this is the book for you. I've been interested in the ocean and its life, and this book satisfies my curiosity.

Vanstrum has written a book that balances scientific substance with the sheer delight of scuba diving. The 18 chapters of The Saltwater Wilderness are set mainly as trips to exotic places (like Fiji, Tonga, and Palau) and the author is masterful at conveying the human and humane character of the people and places he visits. But what makes this book different from many of its peers is that Vanstrum uses his knowledge of marine science to highlight the amazing things he sees beneath the waves in a way that makes them even more extraordinary.

For example, in chapter 8 the image of a seven foot barracuda floating over a brain coral (in Honduras) becomes a meditation on evolutionary history and in the process helps explain why THAT fish is stationed exactly over THAT coral. In one of my favorite chapters (13) I learned that for the millions of bacteria living in every liter of sea water, the ocean does not behave as a liquid, but more like viscous honey. Meaning? Where surfers see big waves crashing on underlying rocks, the microscopic bacteria riding those waves feel nothing of the kind--they live in a still place. It is this skillful contrasting of scales of both time and place that makes Vanstrum's book a very satisfying read.

This is a personal account of youthful excitement plus much mature information. Worthy of a scholar, a scientist and a surfer-diver.