Freaks of nature : and what they tell us about development and evolution
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Bibliographic Information
Freaks of nature : and what they tell us about development and evolution
Oxford University Press, 2009
- : hbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-307) and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Two-legged goats, conjoined twins, 'Cyclops' infants with a single eye in the middle of their forehead, double-headed snakes, and Laloo, a man with a partially formed twin attached to his chest...In Freaks of Nature, Mark S. Blumberg turns a scientist's eye on these unusual examples of humans and other animals, showing how a subject once relegated to the sideshow can help explain some of the deepest complexities of biology. These examples of extreme bodily anomalies are in fact the natural products of development, and it is through such developmental mechanisms that evolution works. And Blumberg shows how 'freak' deformities can provide valuable windows on the intimate connections between genetics, development, the environment, and evolution. In taking seriously a subject that has often been shunned as discomfiting and embarrassing, Freaks of Nature takes the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology to shed new light on how individuals-and entire species-develop, survive, and evolve.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. A Parliament Of Monsters
- 2. Arresting Features
- 3. Do The Locomotion
- 4. Life And Limb
- 5. Anything Goes
- Epilogue: Monstrous Behavior
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