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A visual tour of the inside of your body. Each topic has animations, hundreds of graphics, and thousands of descriptive links. Study the anatomy of the human body. It's fun, interactive, and an ideal reference site for students -- or those who just want to know more about the medical descriptions used by doctors and nurses. Pretty cool. From This is True for 3 September 2005 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Mary Roach List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $16.47 Editorial Review: The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. The study of sexual physiology—what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better—has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic. Mary Roach, "the funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women—or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations.  By: Norman Doidge List Price: $16.00 Amazon Price: $10.88 Editorial Review: An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. In this revolutionary look at the brain, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., provides an introduction to both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed. From stroke patients learning to speak again to the remarkable case of a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, The Brain That Changes Itself will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.  By: Leslie Kaminoff List Price: $19.95 Amazon Price: $13.57 Editorial Review: See inside every yoga pose! With clear, expert instruction and full-color, detailed anatomical drawings, Yoga Anatomy depicts the most common asanas to provide a deeper understanding of the structures and principles underlying each movement and of yoga itself. From breathing to standing poses, see how each muscle is used, how slight alterations of a pose can enhance or reduce effectiveness, and how the spine, breathing, and body position are all fundamentally linked. Whether you are just beginning your journey or have been practicing yoga for years, Yoga Anatomy will be an invaluable resource--one that allows you to see each movement in an entirely new light. Author Leslie Kaminoff is a recognized expert and teacher in anatomy, breathing, and bodywork. He is the founder of The Breathing Project, New York City's premiere yoga studio dedicated to the teaching of individualized, breath-centered yoga practice and therapy.  By: Frederic Delavier List Price: $19.95 Amazon Price: $13.57 Editorial Review: Discover for yourself the magic of Strength Training Anatomy, one of the best-selling strength training books ever published! Get an inside look at the human form in action with more than 400 full-color illustrations. This detailed artwork showcases the muscles used during each exercise and delineates how these muscles interact with surrounding joints and skeletal structures. Like having an X-ray for each exercise, the information gives you a multifaceted view of strength training not seen in any other resource. This updated bestseller also contains detailed anatomical analysis of training injuries and preventive measures to help you exercise safely. Chapters are devoted to each major muscle group, with 115 total exercises for arms, shoulders, chest, back, legs, buttocks, and abdomen. The former editor in chief of PowerMag in France, author and illustrator Frédéric Delavier is a journalist for Le Monde du Muscle and a contributor to Men's Health Germany and several other strength publications.  By: Neil Shubin List Price: $24.00 Amazon Price: $16.32 Editorial Review: Oliver Sacks on Your Inner Fish Since the 1970 publication of Migraine, neurologist Oliver Sacks's unusual and fascinating case histories of "differently brained" people and phenomena--a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, a community of people born totally colorblind, musical hallucinations, to name a few--have been marked by extraordinary compassion and humanity, focusing on the patient as much as the condition. His books include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings (which inspired the Oscar-nominated film), and 2007's Musicophilia. He lives in New York City, where he is Professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia University. Your Inner Fish is my favorite sort of book--an intelligent, exhilarating, and compelling scientific adventure story, one which will change forever how you understand what it means to be human. The field of evolutionary biology is just beginning an exciting new age of discovery, and Neil Shubin's research expeditions around the world have redefined the way we now look at the origins of mammals, frogs, crocodiles, tetrapods, and sarcopterygian fish--and thus the way we look at the descent of humankind. One of Shubin's groundbreaking discoveries, only a year and a half ago, was the unearthing of a fish with elbows and a neck, a long-sought evolutionary "missing link" between creatures of the sea and land-dwellers. My own mother was a surgeon and a comparative anatomist, and she drummed it into me, and into all of her students, that our own anatomy is unintelligible without a knowledge of its evolutionary origins and precursors. The human body becomes infinitely fascinating with such knowledge, which Shubin provides here with grace and clarity. Your Inner Fish shows us how, like the fish with elbows, we carry the whole history of evolution within our own bodies, and how the human genome links us with the rest of life on earth. Shubin is not only a distinguished scientist, but a wonderfully lucid and elegant writer; he is an irrepressibly enthusiastic teacher whose humor and intelligence and spellbinding narrative make this book an absolute delight. Your Inner Fish is not only a great read; it marks the debut of a science writer of the first rank. (Photo © Elena Seibert) A Note from Author Neil Shubin This book grew out of an extraordinary circumstance in my life. On account of faculty departures, I ended up directing the human anatomy course at the University of Chicago medical school. Anatomy is the course during which nervous first-year medical students dissect human cadavers while learning the names and organization of most of the organs, holes, nerves, and vessels in the body. This is their grand entrance to the world of medicine, a formative experience on their path to becoming physicians. At first glance, you couldn't have imagined a worse candidate for the job of training the next generation of doctors: I'm a fish paleontologist. It turns out that being a paleontologist is a huge advantage in teaching human anatomy. Why? The best roadmaps to human bodies lie in the bodies of other animals. The simplest way to teach students the nerves in the human head is to show them the state of affairs in sharks. The easiest roadmap to their limbs lies in fish. Reptiles are a real help with the structure of the brain. The reason is that the bodies of these creatures are simpler versions of ours. During the summer of my second year leading the course, working in the Arctic, my colleagues and I discovered fossil fish that gave us powerful new insights into the invasion of land by fish over 375 million years ago. That discovery and my foray into teaching human anatomy led me to a profound connection. That connection became this book. Click on thumbnails for larger images The crew removing the first Tiktaalik in 2004 Ted Daeschler and Neil Shubin propecting for new sites (Credit: Andrew Gillis) The valley where Tiktaalik was discovered (credit: Ted Daeschler, Academy of Natural Sciences) The models of Tiktaalik being constructed for exhibition (Tyler Keillor, University of Chicago) Me with one of the models (John Weinstein, Field Museum) Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? Are breasts, sweat glands, and scales connected in some way? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today's most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies, and even fish. Neil Shubin, a leading paleontologist and professor of anatomy who discovered Tiktaalik—the "missing link" that made headlines around the world in April 2006—tells the story of evolution by tracing the organs of the human body back millions of years, long before the first creatures walked the earth. By examining fossils and DNA, Shubin shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our head is organized like that of a long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genome look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Shubin makes us see ourselves and our world in a completely new light. Your Inner Fish is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible, and told with irresistible enthusiasm. |
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