Some animals and plants injure or kill millions of people annually, others cause trillions of dollars in property damage and loss. Such harmful species are understandably hated. However, the vast majority of the planet’s millions of species are disliked simply because of how they look and act. This bias is endangering numerous species that play important roles in maintaining both the natural ecosystems and the human economies of the world. In Defense of the World’s Most Despised Species examines the psychological motivations that lead people to make judgments about the attractiveness of species, noting the overwhelming importance of visual cues. It describes in considerable detail the physical and behavioral traits of species that lead us to love or hate them. Full color illustrations throughout present beautiful, charming animals and plants, species that seem loathsome, behavior of people in relation to such divergent species and their characteristics, and numerous explanatory diagrams of relevant biological and psychological phenomena. The aim of this book is to give readers insights into how we humans arrive at biased judgments and to promote the welfare of valuable, albeit sometimes unlovable animals and plants that consequently suffer from discrimination. Many of the ugliest, most disgusting, and feared species, such as vultures, toads, hyenas, sharks, spiders, and even the vast majority of cockroaches, in reality are some of our most valuable friends. Features Theme of the book – human preferences for and against species – is novel, scarcely examined to date. Multidisciplinary analysis, especially psychology, biological conservation science, and ecology, as well as philosophy, agriculture, urban planning, human health, and law. Text is accessible, user-friendly, concise, and well-organized, making numerous complex topics comprehensible, readable not only by specialists, but also by students and the educated layperson. Includes over 2,000 high-quality, entertaining, and informative color figures.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

Target Earth is the continuing saga and greatly anticipated sequel of the award winning book, Earth is Ours, "Best" Fantasy/SciFi 2005 from the prestigious San Diego Book Awards Association. The beloved characters developed in the original story evolve and begin an exciting new adventure as they defy monstrous, invading aliens dedicated to the total destruction of the human race. Amy is a self-aware female computer whose only connection to the outside world is through a telepathic link. Levi was a dying elderly Indian man who is rejuvenated through this telepathic connection with Amy. It is a story of this forced symbiotic relationship dictated by mutual needs for their survival in a world stripped of technology. Although they have separate and individual minds, they must co-exist in Levi's augmented body, sharing differing emotions and motivations, while simultaneously battling the enemy. Female brains and male brawn must unite as one in love and power to create a new entity to lead the fight against the aliens. They are aided in this war by human armies and rescued alien slaves, but they are still vastly outnumbered in this conflict. These affable aliens will touch your heart with their loyalty and action, while the enemy will rouse your rage and fear. This is truly a Good versus Evil tale, but does good always win? The male versus female conflict of minds, emotions and motivations remain a large portion of the story as it unfolds from both viewpoints. The struggle continues against formidable invaders led by an awe inspiring supreme leader. In this fast paced and compelling adventure, battles wage across the California and Arizona deserts. These unique characters, and the riveting story, are strong and their saga continues into the third book of this series Earth's Dragons.

The quality and availability of fresh water are of critical importance to human and ecosystem health. Given its central role in the functioning of all living systems, water is arguably the most important of all natural resources. Produced biennially, The World's Water provides a comprehensive examination of issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. It offers analysis of the most significant trends worldwide along with the most current data available on a variety of water-related topics. This 2000-2001 edition features overview chapters on: water as a human right water and food desalination stocks and flows of fresh water international watersheds and water-related conflicts water reclamation/recycling the removal of dams It also includes brief reports on issues such as arsenic in ground water in Bangladesh, the collection of fog as a source of water in remote regions, the role of nongovernmental organizations in meeting basic water needs, and an update on water and the internet. Following the overview chapters are more than thirty charts and tables that offer data on topics including: water use by country, agricultural water use, salinization, endangered aquatic species, major rivers in China, dam capacity, desalination capacity, and more. The World's Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources and the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with them. It is an essential reference for water resource professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use.

A timely history of the connections between science, segregation, and species in twentieth-century South Africa. Throughout the twentieth century, rural South Africa was dominated by systems of racial segregation and apartheid that brutally oppressed its Black population. At the same time, the countryside was defined by a related settler obsession: the control of animals that farmers, scientists, and state officials considered pests. Elephants rampaged on farmlands, trampling fences, crops, and occasionally humans. Grain-eating birds flocked on plantations, devouring harvests. Bubonic plague crept across the veld in the bodies of burrowing and crop-devouring rodents. In Segregated Species, Jules Skotnes-Brown argues that racial segregation and pest control were closely connected in early twentieth-century South Africa. Strategies for the containment of pests were redeployed for the management of humans and vice versa. Settlers blamed racialized populations for the abundance of pests and mobilized metaphors of pestilence to dehumanize them. Even knowledge produced about pests was segregated into the binary categories of "native" and "scientific." Black South Africans critiqued such injustices, and some circulated revolutionary rhetoric through images and metaphors of locusts. Ultimately, pest-control practices played an important role in shaping colonial hierarchies of race and species and in mediating relationships among human groups. Skotnes-Brown demonstrates that the history of South Africa—and colonial history generally—cannot be fully understood without analyzing the treatment of both animals and humans.

The relationship between humans and animals has always been strong, symbiotic and complicated. Animals, real and fictional, have been a mainstay in the arts and entertainment, figuring prominently in literature, film, television, social media, and live performances. Increasingly, though, people are anthropomorphizing animals, assigning them humanoid roles, tasks and identities. At the same time, humans, such as members of the furry culture or college mascots, find pleasure in adopting animal identities and characteristics. This book is the first of its kind to explore these growing phenomena across media. The contributors to this collection represent various disciplines, to include the arts, humanities, social sciences, and healthcare. Their essays demonstrate the various ways that human and animal lives are intertwined and constantly evolving.

In a far future, two anthropologists, gross, powerful, dissolute Emilio Rodriguez, and aspiring, young, naive Allan Brenner, who, unbeknownst to himself, carries ancient genes, of a sort no longer welcome on Home World, have been assigned to conduct a study on Abydos, a deeply forested, wilderness planet of little note, whose only evidence of civilization is a single enclave, small, rough, dingy Company Station, a fueling station occasionally utilized by star freighters. Within the forest, some days from Company Station, are the Pons, a group of small, simian-seeming organisms which seems near the crossroads between animal and rational creature, between nature and culture. They would seem to constitute an ideal object of study with respect to the origins of, and foundations of, civilization. How came it about, so to speak, that something once emerged from the lair, or cave, that was different, radically so? What lies at the beginning? The results of the study have already been politically prescribed on Home World, that the Pons are to shed light on humanity, that it is, in its original and unspoiled nature, polite, sweet, kind, deferent, diffident, social, noncompetitive, and innocent. Both Rodriguez and Brenner have a trait in common, however, which may explain why they have been sent, exiled in a sense, to such an out-of-the-way locale. Both seek the truth. They enter the forest.