Scientific Illustration

Magyarorszag Gasteromycetai by Ladislaus Hollós, Franklin-Tarsulat, Budapest.

You can view the full text here:

http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/spa/Libro.php?Libro=4625

Drawing & Painting Birds by Tim Wootton

Birds are much admired, revered and envied. They have featured in art for many thousands of years and our fascination with them continues. They do though pose a challenge to paint and are not always the most cooperative of models. By understanding their anatomy and recognising their type, the artist can learn a shorthand way to capture movement and attitude. With technique and colour mastered, style develops and a special scene can be captured uniquely forever.

Explains bird types and how identifying specific similarities can help the artist Advises on painting in the field, using photographs and working in the studio Describes how to paint plumage and birds in flight Demonstrates how to compose a painting with emphasis on the birds’ habitat Gives insights into painting birds from 30 leading artists, as well as illustrations of their work, including John Busby, Robert Bateman and Charles Tuncliffe

Tim Wootton is the winner of the Birdwatch Artist of the Year 2011 Award

http://tim-wootton.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/drawing-painting-birds-new-book-release.html

bookbycover:

Cotingas and Manakins, by Guy M. Kirwan and Graeme Green.

2012 Princeton University Press.

alwaysalwaysalwaysthesea:

Reptiles and Amphibians by fotoflow / Oscar Arriola on Flickr.

(via compendium-of-beasts)

tetzoo:

Last year, Conway, Kosemen & Naish published All Yesterdays: a book devoted to speculation and the limits of palaeontological knowledge. Buy it!

cookedheads:

(via Beautiful Bindings)

(via chasinglinnaeus)

cookedheads:

(via Beautiful Bindings)

(via chasinglinnaeus)

Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex by Alice Domurat Dreger

Punctuated with remarkable case studies, this book explores extraordinary encounters between hermaphrodites—people born with “ambiguous” sexual anatomy—and the medical and scientific professionals who grappled with them. Alice Dreger focuses on events in France and Britain in the late nineteenth century, a moment of great tension for questions of sex roles. While feminists, homosexuals, and anthropological explorers openly questioned the natures and purposes of the two sexes, anatomical hermaphrodites suggested a deeper question: just how many human sexes are there? Ultimately hermaphrodites led doctors and scientists to another surprisingly difficult question: what is sex, really?

Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex takes us inside the doctors’ chambers to see how and why medical and scientific men constructed sex, gender, and sexuality as they did, and especially how the material conformation of hermaphroditic bodies—when combined with social exigencies—forced peculiar constructions. Throughout the book Dreger indicates how this history can help us to understand present-day conceptualizations of sex, gender, and sexuality. This leads to an epilogue, where the author discusses and questions the protocols employed today in the treatment of intersexuals (people born hermaphroditic). Given the history she has recounted, should these protocols be reconsidered and revised?

A meticulously researched account of a fascinating problem in the history of medicine, this book will compel the attention of historians, physicians, medical ethicists, intersexuals themselves, and anyone interested in the meanings and foundations of sexual identity.”

Evolutionary Perspectives on Pregnancy by John C. Avise

“Covering both the internal and external incubation of offspring, this book provides a biology-rich survey of the natural history, ecology, genetics, and evolution of pregnancy-like phenomena. From mammals and other live-bearing organisms to viviparous reptiles, male-pregnant fishes, larval-brooding worms, crabs, sea cucumbers, and corals, the world’s various species display pregnancy and other forms of parental devotion in surprisingly multifaceted ways. An adult female (or male) can incubate its offspring in a womb, stomach, mouth, vocal sac, gill chamber, epithelial pouch, backpack, leg pocket, nest, or an encasing of embryos, and by studying these diverse examples from a comparative vantage point, the ecological and evolutionary-genetic outcomes of different reproductive models become fascinatingly clear. 

John C. Avise discusses each mode of pregnancy and the decipherable genetic signatures it has left on the reproductive structures, physiologies, and innate sexual behaviors of extant species. By considering the many biological aspects of gestation from different evolutionary angles, Avise offers captivating new insights into the significance of “heavy” parental investment in progeny.”