Product Description

Why are elephants' ears so big? Why do humans get the bends when dolphins don't? Imagine being able to consume 250,000 calories (50 Christmas dinners) daily without gaining weight! If we had the metabolism of a shrew, we could, and we would have to. In this text, Eric Widmaier offers a physiologist's view of the features and abilities humans and other creatures have evolved to meet the seemingly impossible challenges of survival.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2073533 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Library Journal
This well-written, easy-to-read book discusses reasons for some aspects of human and animal physiology. Recent books on Darwinian medicine such as R.M. Neese and G.C. Williams's Why We Get Sick (Times Bks., 1994) and Margi Profet's Pregnancy Sickness (Addison-Wesley, 1997) deal with evolutionary reasons for disease and sickness. This book complements them by examining the evolution of normal human and animal physiology, why we work the way we do, and a few conditions where adaptations from our ancestors are not so useful in modern life, for example, diabetes, stress, and the obesity mentioned in the title. What really makes this book stand out are the lucid explanations of how scientific method?observation, hypothesis, research, and testing?is used to learn about human and animal physiology. For public and academic libraries.?Margaret Henderson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Libs., NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up-Discusses the mechanisms humans and other creatures have evolved to gauge their need for food; gather water and oxygen; circulate blood; regulate body temperature; respond to stressful situations; and maintain other survival needs. By Eric P. Widmaier.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review