James Schwartz – författare

The mystery of inheritance has captivated thinkers since antiquity, and the unlocking of this mystery—the development of classical genetics—is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. This great scientific and human drama is the story told fully and for the first time in this book.Acclaimed science writer James Schwartz presents the history of genetics through the eyes of a dozen or so central players, beginning with Charles Darwin and ending with Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller. In tracing the emerging idea of the gene, Schwartz deconstructs many often-told stories that were meant to reflect glory on the participants and finds that the “official” version of discovery often hides a far more complex and illuminating narrative. The discovery of the structure of DNA and the more recent advances in genome science represent the culmination of one hundred years of concentrated inquiry into the nature of the gene. Schwartz’s multifaceted training as a mathematician, geneticist, and writer enables him to provide a remarkably lucid account of the development of the central ideas about heredity, and at the same time bring to life the brilliant and often eccentric individuals who shaped these ideas.In the spirit of the late Stephen Jay Gould, this book offers a thoroughly engaging story about one of the oldest and most controversial fields of scientific inquiry. It offers readers the background they need to understand the latest findings in genetics and those still to come in the search for the genetic basis of complex diseases and traits.

In the early nineteenth century, the pioneers who came from New England to the Northwest Territory envisioned themselves taming the wilderness. As they cleared the forests for their crops and livestock, these settlers also sought to transform the social landscape for the cultivation of their own moral values, political beliefs, and cultural institutions. Using Michigan as a case study, James Schwartz explains how settlers employed both legal tactics and moral suasion to impose their vision of a civilized society.Yankees were concerned not only with the barbarism of the Native Americans in Michigan but also with the savagery of the territory's white inhabitants who violated the norms of genteel society. Michigan leaders sought to eliminate this compound threat by establishing two kinds of boundaries—formal legal barriers and informal restraints. Combining these elements of civic culture allowed settlers to enact laws while also placing emphasis on families, schools, community groups, and print culture to reestablish social norms in a new environment. The elected legislature passed anti-vice laws to control drunks and gamblers while it debated ways in which to curb unscrupulous speculators and avaricious bankers. Meanwhile crusaders advocated religious instruction and education to civilize the state's youth.Conflict on the Michigan Frontier touches on one of the oldest debates in American history: whether westerners created new cultures or simply transplanted those in which they had been raised. Schwartz concludes that, while efforts to transform the physical and social landscape of the Northwest Territory generally succeeded, Michigan's settlers blended New England and the frontier, establishing a landscape that resembled, but was not identical to, that of the East. Despite the focus on Michigan, Schwartz's study sheds important new light on how settlers transplanted eastern culture not just to the Midwest, but to the entire American frontier.

Dieses umfassende Lehrbuch für Studenten und Dozenten der Neurobiologie sowie an der Hirnforschung Interessierter aus Medizin und Psychologie ist die erste integrierende Darstellung der modernen Neurowissenschaften. Zahlreiche Disziplinen versuchen gemeinsam, menschliches Denken und Verhalten sowie deren Störungen auf biologische Strukturen und Vorgänge bzw. ihre Veränderung zurückzuführen. Der 'Kandel/Schwartz/Jessell' setzt nur (Oberstufen-)Schulwissen voraus und entwickelt aus der umfassenden Präsentation der molekularen und zellulären Grundeinheiten und -funktionen des Nervensystems geschickt das Verständnis von Wahrnehmungsprozessen, der Bewegungssteuerung und schließlich der höhreren geistigen Hirnleistungen wie Sprache, Lernen und Gedächtnis.Um das von Studierenden nachgefragte Buch auch weiterhin lieferbar halten zu können, wurde es schwarzweiß gedruckt.