This book corrals global scholarship on ancient writing systems from China, Mesopotamia, Central America, the Mediterranean, to more recent newly created scripts such as the Rongorongo from Easter Island, the Caroline Island scripts, as well as the alphabet. The aim is to dig into the foundations of writing and showcase the complexities and varieties of scripts, from their invention to the pote…
Research efforts on how to repair radiation effects resulted from observations on radiation damage among survivors of the atomic bomb explosions in Japan (reviewed in van Bekkum and de Vries 1967). In 1949, Jacobson and colleagues discov-ered protection of mice from TBI by shielding their spleens with lead. Two years later, Lorenz and colleagues reported radiation prot…
The boreal forest is a vast biome encompassing approximately one-third (30%) of the world’s forest area. It harbors about half of the world’s remaining natural and near-natural forests and provides important ecological, economic, social, and cultural services and values that benefit human communities (Burton et al., 2010; Gauthier et al., 2015a). …
Among the top ten oil exporters in the world and a founding member of OPEC, Venezuela currently supplies 11 percent of U.S. crude oil imports. But when the country elected the fiery populist politician Hugo Chavez in 1998, tensions rose with this key trading partner and relations have been strained ever since. In this concise, accessible addition to Oxford's What Everyone Needs to Know® ser…
This open access book offers a comprehensive overview of the history of genomics across three different species and four decades, from the 1980s to the recent past. It takes an inclusive approach in order to capture not only the international initiatives to map and sequence the genomes of various organisms, but also the work of smaller-scale institutions engaged in the mapping and sequencing of…
For years, surgeons have been developing surgi-cal approaches attempting to achieve maximal surgical exposure with minimal brain retraction, advantages found within the frontotemporal or pterional approach, first described by Yasargil, four decades ago . Compared to its prede-cessors, this approach allowed for wider fronto-basal exposure, secondary to more sig…
In The Four Agreements, don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.