Based on the data contained in the four-volume Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, BMDB-9 also includes new genera and species, new combinations, and new taxa published through the January 1992 issue of the IJSB. Users will find short general descriptions that encompass all organisms by Groups; shape and size, Gram reaction, other pertinent morphological features, motility and flagella, relations to oxygen, basic type of metabolism, carbon and energy sources, habitat and ecology. BMDB-9 also includes discussions of difficulties in identification, keys or tables to genera and species, genus descriptions, synonyms, other nomenclatural changes, and numerous illustrations.

The Manual is designed to assist in the identification of bacteria and to indicate the relationships that exist between the various kinds of bacteria. The Manual is presented as various "sections" based on a few readily determined criteria. Each section bears a vernacular name. All accepted genera have been placed in what seems the most appropriate section. Each article dealing with a bacterial genus is presented wherever possible in a definite sequence. In each article dealing with a genus, there are generally three kinds of tables.

Twenty specialized camera teams shot over 7,000 hours of footage in more than 200 locations around the world and descended as far as 5,000 meters in the most powerful submersible crafts to bring the audience this spectacle of underwater exploration into the secret lives of sea creatures.

Although modern cell biology is often considered to have arisen following World War II in tandem with certain technological and methodological advances--in particular, the electron microscope and cell fractionation--its origins actually date to the 1830s and the development of cytology, the scientific study of cells. By 1924, with the publication of Edmund Vincent Cowdry's General Cytology, the discipline had stretched beyond the bounds of purely microscopic observation to include the chemical, physical, and genetic analysis of cells. Inspired by Cowdry's classic, watershed work, this book collects contributions from cell biologists, historians, and philosophers of science to explore the history and current status of cell biology. Despite extraordinary advances in describing both the structure and function of cells, cell biology tends to be overshadowed by molecular biology, a field that developed contemporaneously. This book remedies that unjust disparity through an investigation of cell biology's evolution and its role in pushing forward the boundaries of biological understanding. Contributors show that modern concepts of cell organization, mechanistic explanations, epigenetics, molecular thinking, and even computational approaches all can be placed on the continuum of cell studies from cytology to cell biology and beyond. The first book in the series Convening Science: Discovery at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Visions of Cell Biology sheds new light on a century of cellular discovery.

An iconoclast and best-selling author of both nonfiction and fiction, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing, thinking, and writing about the cultures of animals such as lions, wolves, dogs, deer, and humans. In this compulsively readable book, she provides a plainspoken, big-picture look at the commonality of life on our planet, from the littlest microbes to the largest lizards. Inspired by the idea of symbiosis in evolution-that all living things evolve in a series of cooperative relationships-Thomas takes readers on a journey through the progression of life. Along the way she shares the universal likenesses, experiences, and environments of "Gaia's creatures," from amoebas in plant soil to the pets we love, from proud primates to Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers on the African savanna. Fervently rejecting "anthropodenial," the notion that nonhuman life does not share characteristics with humans, Thomas instead shows that paramecia can learn, plants can communicate, humans aren't really as special as we think we are-and that it doesn't take a scientist to marvel at the smallest inhabitants of the natural world and their connections to all living things. A unique voice on anthropology and animal behavior, Thomas challenges scientific convention and the jargon that prevents us all from understanding all living things better. This joyfully written book is a fascinating look at the challenges and behaviors shared by creatures from bacteria to larvae to parasitic fungi, a potted hyacinth to the author herself, and all those in between.