John Allen

Though we have other distinguishing characteristics (walking on two legs, for instance, and relative hairlessness), the brain and the behavior it produces are what truly set us apart from the other apes and primates. And how this three-pound organ composed of water, fat, and protein turned a mammal species into the dominant animal on earth today is the story the author seeks to tell in this book. Adopting what he calls a bottom-up approach to the...

"Basin Analysis is an advanced undergraduate and postgraduate text aimed at understanding sedimentary basins as geodynamic entities. The rationale of the book is that knowledge of the basic principles of the thermo-mechanical behaviour of the lithosphere, the dynamics of the mantle, and the functioning of sediment routing systems provides a sound background for studying sedimentary basins, and is a pre-requisite for the exploitation of resources contained...

"In the United States alone, more than twenty-two million people were infected with Spanish flu and an estimated 675,000 died. Experts believe the virus killed between fifty million and one hundred million people worldwide. The Spanish flu is estimated to have killed about 2.7 percent of the world's population at the time. It laid bare the inadequacies of medical care around the world. It also led to calls for more doctors, nurses, and hospitals,...