(Part 3) Best biology books according to redditors

I'm not exceptionally well-versed on the current theories of time-keeping in the brain, but know enough to say that there are multiple neural mechanisms that span timescales.
Your specific example is sensitivity to coincident input from two delay lines of different length. This works for millisecond resolution timing discrimination, as is necessary for binaural object localization in auditory cortex brainstem. However, it probably is not the mechanism when we look at timescales longer than a few tens of milliseconds, the timescale of synaptic integration in a dendrite.

Here are some example mechanisms for other timescales.

• Brain-wide regular oscillations of neural activity (i.e. theta band of 8Hz, Gamma band of 40Hz) can serve as your 'clock' for subsecond time measurement see Rhythms of the Brain .
  
  
• Linear ramps in neural activity in motor planning areas can code for time over seconds timescales, see work by Fetz.
  
  
• Neurons can specifically fire at extremely precise times within a motor sequence, see the work in songbirds of Michael Fee.
  
  
• Cognitive knowledge of our percent progress towards the completion of a task with estimated total duration could code for minutes to hour scales.
  
  
• Day-long oscillations in gene-expression and neural activity in the superchiasmatic nucleus (circadian rhythm center) works for timescales of more than a few hours.
  
  The brain likely integrates all these mechanisms and others to form the gestalt of 'what time is it?' and 'how long have I been doing this?'
  

OH YEAH. He is one of my favorite authors, ever. The Diversity of Life won him a Pulitzer if I recall correctly, and is a must read for anyone who loves non-fiction and biology. Consilience is a heady read and well worth the time. The Future of Life is a call to arms in defense of the environment, and as well written and straightfoward as anyone could ask. Kind of like An Inconvenient Truth, if it was written by one of the most brilliant and silver-tongued biologists of our time instead of the inventor of the internet.

Start by picking a guide for your area and reading it thoroughly, especially focusing on the anatomy of a mushroom. Go hunting a lot bringing back what you find, take spore prints and work though the IDs. Also joining a NAMA affiliated club will help tremendously.

Regional guides

Alaska

Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams

Western US

All The Rain Promises and More
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest

Midwestern US

Mushrooms of the Midwest

Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States

Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest

Southern US

Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide

Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States

Midwestern US

Mushrooms of the Midwest

Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States

Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest

Eastern US

Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians

Mushrooms of Northeast North America (This was out of print for awhile but it's they're supposed to be reprinting so the price will be normal again)

Mushrooms of Northeastern North America

Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America(Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America)

Mushrooms of Cape Cod and the National Seashore

More specific guides

Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World

North American Boletes

Tricholomas of North America

Milk Mushrooms of North America

Waxcap Mushrooms of North America

Ascomycete of North America

Ascomycete in colour

Fungi of Switzerland: Vol. 1 Ascomycetes

PDFs

For Pholiotas

For Chlorophyllum

For parasitic fungi, Hypomyces etc "Mushrooms that Grow on other Mushrooms" by John Plischke. There's a free link to it somewhere but I cant find it.

Websites that aren't in the sidebar

For Amanita

For coprinoids

For Ascos

MycoQuebec: they have a kickass app but it's In French

Messiah college this has a lot of weird species for polypores and other things

Books that provide more info than field Mycology

The Kingdom of Fungi Excellent coffee table book has nice pictures and a breif guide to Fungal taxonomy and biology.

The Fifth Kingdom A bit more in depth

Introduction toFungi Textbook outlining metobolic, taxonomic and ecological roles of fungi. Need some level of biochemistry to have a grasp for this one but it's a good book to have.

The yolk is not free to move inside the egg. Bird eggs are produced via sequential adding of layers, and a specialized pair of structures holds the yolk in place in the central layers. The unfertilized ovum leaves the ovary into a structure called the infundibulum (which looks like a funnel more or less) where it is fertilized. It then moves through a specialized section of the oviduct called the "magnum" where four layers of albumin (the "egg white") are added. The inside of the oviduct has a spiral of cellular ridges which spin the yolk and twist strands of the albumin into "chalazae" which act as essentially springs to keep the yolk position stabilized. The developing egg continues through other specialized sections of the oviduct where additional layers of albumin, some membranes, and the egg shell and pigments are added. Note there are several membranes within an egg to keep things in place. The yolk itself is contained in a membrane called the vitelline membrane which is what you break if you want to have over hard eggs as opposed to over easy eggs.

Source: PhD in ornithology, also I taught ornithology at a University for 4 years.

for further reading see: this website

the classic textbook on the subject, which covers this quite well

edit:typos

When workers accept or reject a queen is fairly complex, and depends on a lot of circumstances, including presence of existing queen(s), pheremonal similarity, possibly environmental or species differences, etc. There's been some study of it lately because of scientific curiosity over how large ant colonies interact and sometimes merge into "supercolonies" that act in a functionally unified way. There seem to be some interspecific (containing multiple ant species) colonies as well, though when that happens isn't fully understood.

One citation to a small piece of the puzzle, summarizing studies on interacting networks of fire-ant colonies:
> [Ken] Ross and others showed that if enough of the ants in a colony, about 15%, have a certain allele, the colony will accept extra queens into the nest. This could be a response to interaction rate. Perhaps the ants respond to the rate at which they meet other ants that have the polygyne allele, b, which seems to affect the odor of the ant that carries it. Perhaps if the rate of interaction with b reaches a certain threshold, possibly leading workers to broaden the range of odors they include in their experience of nestmates, then the workers are more likely to accept a foreign queen.

(That quote from pp. 73-74 of this book).

> “Jeremy’s work represents potentially interesting exercises in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of simple abstract systems.” Any claims that it has to do with biology or the origins of life, he added, are “pure and shameless speculations.”

most important sentence. I really fail to see how his equations are qualitatively different than any of the examples posited by Stuart Kauffman years ago about how entropy can generate ever-changing patterns.

eg - https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Order-Self-Organization-Selection-Evolution/dp/0195079515

I know you said you aren't interested in debating, but I have a question: how can you be against something for theological reasons if you admit you don't fully understand what that thing is?

But to also provide a book recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/Population-Genetics-John-H-Gillespie/dp/0801880092 it wouldn't be a good starting point for someone without much background in math and science, but I think that you have enough background to be able to follow it.

Yes absolutely. Evolution is a highly mathematic science with a long history of mathematical theory describing how populations change over time. RA Fisher and Sewell Wright were some of the first and many many have followed.

For future reference, only populations can evolve, not individual organisms. Unfortunately most introductory material on evolution doesn't get into the math. I'd recommend this book as a good introduction to the math of evolution, but it assumes some pretty basic knowledge of the concepts of evolution already.

Once you land, look up this excellent book:

In the Company of Crows and Ravens

I would recommend The diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson.

"Wilson, internationally regarded as the dean of biodiversity studies, conducts us on a tour through time, traces the processes that create new species in bursts of adaptive radiation, and points out the cataclysmic events that have disrupted evolution and diminished global diversity over the past 600 million years. The five enormous natural blows to the planet (such as meteorite strikes and climatic changes) required 10 to 100 million years of evolutionary repair. The sixth great spasm of extinction on earth--caused this time entirely by humans--may be the one that breaks the crucible of life. Wilson identifies this crisis in countless ecosystems around the globe: coral reefs, grasslands, rain forests, and other natural habitats. Drawing on a variety of examples such as the decline of bird populations in the United States, the extinction of many species of freshwater fish in Africa and Asia, and the rapid disappearance of flora and fauna as the rain forests are cut down, he poignantly describes the death throes of the living world's diversity--projected to decline as much as 20 percent by the year 2020."

Here are a couple of main reasons why it is good to try and conserve species and prevent them from going extinct:

1. They are a keystone species, which basically are the glue which hold the whole ecosystem together. Without them the ecosystem falls apart. "is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its environment relative to its abundance. Such species are described as playing a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and numbers of various other species in the community." The most famous example are sea otters, which were nearly hunted to extinction because of their soft thick pelts. Once they were removed sea urchin population exploded (whose predator is the sea otter). Sea urchins eat sea weed which in the area was quickly all eaten. Sea weed in this area grows in big gardens, like a forest. Basically the urchins deforested the ocean and any other animals that used the forest were negatively affected - spawning ground for fish, protection from predators, refuge from bad climate etc.
   
   
2. Umbrella species: These are typically very charismatic species like Pandas or Tigers which are able to get a lot of support from the public. These species often require a lot of land to survive and so by protecting them and their habitat you also end up protecting other species which may be less charismatic but perhaps more ecologically significant.
   
   
3. Ecosystems sometimes work like a jenga tower. You remove one and the stable is still very structurally sound, remove two and everything still looks ok. But by the 10th or maybe 15th brick things are starting to look pretty shaky. And the 16th may be the one that causes the whole thing to collapse. The problem here is we don't know which bricks we are removing sometimes (keystone species?), we don't know how many were removing and we don't really know how fast. So we are just taking out bricks without thinking about the tower. If you remove the keystone species first, the tower collapses right away (as if the tower were built on a single brick platform).
   
   
4. Healthy ecosystems provide you with many services including: clean water, clean air, clean soil, food, shelter and medicine. When we begin to have ecosystems collapsing they no longer provide us these free services which we then must provide ourselves which are usually less efficient and more costly.
   
   
5. Finally, nature is in itself worthy. This is known as deep ecology which may sound like hippy bullshit, but questions regarding environmental ethics are very important to discuss as we are not removed from the environment but rely on it for our very existence and survival. Contemporary ecological philosophy distinguished by its advocacy of the inherent worth of living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. Deep ecology argues that the natural world is a subtle balance of complex inter-relationships in which the existence of organisms is dependent on the existence of others within ecosystems. Human interference with or destruction of the natural world poses a threat therefore not only to humans but to all organisms constituting the natural order."

I'm a graduate student in cancer epigenetics, I literally read about this for a living. All cancer is not the same, and doctors aren't trying to kill you while making money. Believing these things displays a fundamental lack of understand of cancer biology and the workings of the American medical system, much less the motivations of the average researcher/physician.

I'd encourage you to watch lectures from prominent researchers to better understand the nature of cancer. I would also specifically recommend this textbook as a jumping off point - it's written by Bob Weinberg and does a good job at explaining the basics of cancer.

If you prefer something in print, I highly recommend Campbell's Biology. You can get a used copy for less than $10.

It's readable, engaging, and accurate. It was my AP Bio textbook in high school, and then I bought myself a copy after graduating from college with a biology degree.

Have you considered becoming a population geneticist? All of those questions are things that evolutionary/population geneticists are very interested in.

Let's break this into pieces. The first piece:

What is the eventual fate of a new mutation, and how does it depend on a) it's selection coefficient (a measure of how beneficial/deleterious it is), and b) the population size.

The selection coefficient (which we'll denote by s) is a measure of the "per generation percent fitness advantage" enjoyed by an individual who carries a particular mutation, relative to those who do not carry the mutation. To a first order approximation, the probability that a beneficial mutation that has just arisen (and thus resides only in a single individual) escapes loss from the population and eventually becomes "fixed" (i.e. present in every individual) does not depend on the population size, and is equal to about 2s, or two times the selection coefficient. In other words, if a particular mutation causes its carriers to leave approximately 1% more offspring to the next generation, relatively to non-carriers, then it has about a 2% chance of not being lost from the population. If it's not lost during those early generations, then it will eventually rise in frequency and become fixed.

Now, this is a rough approximations, and with a better approximation, we find that the population size does matter somewhat. This is because when the population size gets small, the chance events of genetic drift become more impactful, and it becomes harder for selection to overcome them. This is basically exactly the example you gave, but in reverse. Basically, even if a mutation has a fitness advantage, if it's present in only 10 out of 100 individuals in a population, it can happen to be lost by chance if it has a couple bad years in a row. In a population of 1 million, however, a mutation that's at 10% frequency would take a lot of bad years in a row, in order to be lost, which is very unlikely, so natural selection will eventually win out and push the mutation to fixation.

However, it is true that mutations change frequency faster in populations of smaller size (pretty much for the reason you surmise). If we condition on (i.e. assume that) the mutation eventually becomes fixed, then it is more likely to have done so quickly if the population size was small than if it was larger. The time it takes for a beneficial mutation to become fixed, assuming it does become fixed, is proportional to log(N), the logarithm of the population size. So if you increase the population size by a factor of 10, it takes twice as long for a beneficial mutation to transit through the population. By a factor of 100: three times as long.

However, there's one last factor we should consider, which is how the population size interacts with the mutation rate. Consider a population that exists in some environment in which it has an "adaptive need". In other words, the environmental conditions are such that if a certain mutation (or class of mutations, if we consider that mutations at multiple different base pairs might be able to solve the same problem) would be beneficial, were it to arise, then we can ask how long until we expect the population to adapt. If we say that the per individual rate at which beneficial alleles are created is given by µ, and there are N individuals in the population, then to a first order approximation in each generation there is a 2Nµ probability that a beneficial mutation arises somewhere in the population (there's a 2 because we're thinking about diploids). Then, using the simple 2s approximation from above (which is good enough for this point), the probability that a mutation both arises somewhere in the population and manages to escape being lost in those early generations is 4Nµs.

Using the properties of the geometric distribution, this means that we expect it to take about (4Nµs)^(-1) generations until the mutation that will eventually come to dominate the population arises. Then, it will take of order log(N) generations for the mutation to sweep through the population.

So when this effect is factored in, an increase in population size of 10-fold means you wait roughly one tenth as long for a beneficial mutation to arise, but only twice as long for it to fix. A 100-fold increase in population size means you wait roughly 1/100 as long for the mutation to arise, but then only 3 times as long for it to sweep through the population, meaning that in general, larger populations should adapt faster than smaller populations. However, if we're thinking about populations that are already so large that beneficial mutations occur somewhere in the population almost every generations (like bacteria, for example), then a different set of mathematics takes over, and this is still an active area of research (see here for a recent review).

These calculations all rely on what are pretty much "standard" results in population genetics, so any good population genetics text book should work as a decent reference. If you're interested in these kind of questions, a good place to start might be John Gillespie's "Population Genetics: A Concise Guide"

The Insects: An Outline of Entomology by Gullan & Cranston is pretty much the standard textbook on entomology.

• Every Thing Must Go: James Ladyman & Don Ross
  
  
• The Philosophy of Complex Systems: Anthology edited by Cliff Hooker
  
  
• Natural Born Cyborgs: Andy Clark
  
  
• Cognitive Surplus: Clay Shirky
  
  
• Quantum Mechanics and Experience and Time & Chance: David Albert
  
  
• Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: Huw Price
  
  
• Science in the Age of Computer Simulation: Eric Winsberg
  
  
• Ant Encounters: Interactions Networks and Colony Behavior: Deborah Gordon
  
  
• The Construction of Social Reality: John Searle
  
  
• Unsimple Truths: Science, Complexity, and Policy: Sandra Mitchell
  
  
• The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction, and Emergence: Robert Batterman
  
  
• Complexity: A Guided Tour: Melanie Mitchell
  
  
• Scientific Metaphysics: Anthology edited James Ladyman
  
  
• Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering: Stephen Strogatz
  
  
• The Ethical Project: Philip Kitcher
  
  
• Foundations of Complex Systems Theories: Sunny Auyang
  
  
• A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming: Paul Edwards
  
  
• "Real Patterns": Dan Dennett (paper)
  
  
• "Why Integrative Pluralism?": Sandra Mitchell (paper)

Allaboutbirds.org is good for taxonomy.

I don't know of any books besides (expensive) textbooks that would be inclusive. My suggestion would be to see what recent ornithology books your library has. I think if the book is fairly recent and understandable to you, then it would good.
If someone else has a better book suggestion, you could always do the interlibrary loan thing.

If you do want a textbook, I've seen this one used a fair amount.

Biology doesn't the work the way the Neo-Darwinists, who you're thinking of, tells it does.

I recommend you take a look at this paper: http://videnssamfundet.au.dk/fileadmin/www.videnssamfundet.au.dk/nyheder/kalender/afviklede_aktiviteter/ingold.pdf

I also would recommend at the work of biologists like:

The famous physiologist Denis Noble and his two books:

"Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity": https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Tune-Life-Biological-Relativity/dp/1107176247/

"The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes": https://www.amazon.com/Music-Life-Biology-Beyond-Genes/dp/0199228361/

James A. Shapiro's "Evolution: A View from the 21st Century": https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-View-21st-Century-paperback/dp/0133435539

Magpies are incredible birds! They are members of the Corvid family and very intelligent. Magpies are part of a select group of animals with self awareness and recognize themselves in mirrors. They are on a very short list of 10 animals total capable of this. The other 9 are:

• Humans
  
• Orangutans
  
• Chimpanzees
  
• Gorillas
  
• Bottlenose Dolphins
  
• Elephants
  
• Orcas
  
• Bonobos
  
• Rhesus Macaws
  
  There are 15 species of Magpie found throughout the world. In China and Korea they are the symbol of good luck. In England though I've heard a few stories where they probably wouldn't be considered very lucky. For instance, I read that a group of magpies had learned to ring the doorbell of an older couple's house. When they did the woman would come out and feed them. She loved having them around. Her husband, however, would yell at them when they rang the bell and never fed them. In retaliation the Magpies would defecate and drop things on his car (never her car, they knew the difference). There are a lot of great stories out there of Corvids showing just how intelligent they are. A great book recommendation if you are interested in this topic is: In the Company of Crows and Ravens.
  

> I honestly don't know why I ever bother trying to reason with people on here. The same thing always happens. Nobody listens, tonnes of haters jump on me left right and centre and my comments get downvoted into oblivion.

You need to use reason if you're going to reason with people. Saying that your lack of understanding is a flaw of science is flawed reasoning. Your examples scream of a lack of basic scientific knowlege. And by 'scientific' I don't mean 'godless', I mean backed up by evidence.

Just because you don't understand something, that doesn't mean that others don't understand it either.

I found a book (at a used book sale at a church of all places), 'The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution', and it really opened my eyes to how these things can work. How things can very easily organize out of nothing because of a few basic constant properties of physics. You really should read that book or something like it if you want to better engage in these kinds of debates.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Order-Self-Organization-Selection/dp/0195079515

Just graduated in may with my BS in Biology. I used Essential Cell Biology by Alberts for my cell bio class. I'll be honest in saying across my 4 years in the major this was the best book. The illustrations and diagrams are incredible and the book is clear. The reviews speak for itself, as someone said below you can probably get it for free from a torrent.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cell-Biology-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341296

The Insects: An Outline of Entomology is used in many intro entomology classes and covers everything from taxonomy to physiology.

Check your library for Gill's Ornithology. It's pretty much the gold standard on the topic.

Good luck, OP. Let me know how this works out.

If you're interested in some "light" reading, I suggest The Biology of Cancer by Weinberg. You also might be able to find the PDF floating about the web. It's a pretty good general resource.

better to learn both poisonous and edible.

Eastern US

Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada The most recently published for the NE

Mushrooms of the Northeast by Walt Sturgeon An excellent pocket guide, Walt does a good job mentioning the lesser known look alikes.

Mushrooms of Northeast North America A great guide for beginners, with many pictorial and dichotomous guides to ID fungi.

Mushrooms of Northeastern North America Has the most species listed for the NE.

Gill's 3rd edition is what I used for ornithology subjects and it is great, very broad.

There's an out of print book called Population limitation in birds by Ian Newton which has loads of info from research up until the early 90s on mating systems, predator-prey relationships etc.

I have used Ornithology by Frank B. Gill.

It looks like this: https://www.amazon.com/Ornithology-Frank-B-Gill/dp/0716749831

I'm a bacteria guy, so I'll recommend a book of microbiology essays:

http://www.amazon.ca/Microbes-Evolution-World-Darwin-Never/dp/1555815405

There's lots of cool stuff going on with the organisms that we can't see!

This book was absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Kraken-Curious-Exciting-Slightly-Disturbing/dp/0810984652

...if you like squid. I'm a squid scientist so I'm a bit biased.

One of the standard general bio textbooks is Campbell Biology. Any edition is fine, but I think the 8th edition is the sweet spot for a balance between age and cost. I wasn't a very big fan of the genetics textbook that my university used, but I do remember the cell biology textbook being pretty approachable (Essential Cell Biology, $10 used).

Most mutations are indeed deleterious/bad, but there are also beneficial/good mutations. A good example is the ability to metabolize lactose as adults - since we've domesticated cows/goats/etc. and milk is a good source of nutrition, there is positive selection on this trait being maintained on a population. That's why this mutation, or trait, is very common among European and African populations.

It's helpful to think of selection as a "force" that pushes a trait to become more or less common in a population. If selection against a trait is strong enough, it will die out (go to 0% incidence in a population), and if it is strong enough, it will "fix" (go to 100%).

In addition to selection, there is genetic "drift." Because of how people pair off to mate and how traits get passed on, there is a degree of randomness that causes the percentage incidence of a trait in a population to fluctuate - like a random walk in physics.

Just from these factors alone, with the introduction of new traits (mostly bad, but some good), there is always going to be diversity within a population. But because we have two copies of each chromosome and each gene, one from mom and one from dad, you can also have interesting situations where having one mutation has a very different outcome than none or two. In some of these cases, you can get a stable percentage of a trait in a population at a value between 0% and 100%. A good example is the mutation that causes sickle cell anemia if you have two copies, but may protect against malaria if you have one copy.

If you want to learn more, Population Genetics by Gillespe is an accessible (and cheap) book on this subject. I think a little bit of calculus helps for the math.

http://www.amazon.com/Population-Genetics-A-Concise-Guide/dp/0801880092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408234938&sr=8-1&keywords=population+genetics

The analysis of biological data is fantastic for foundation stuff. Really recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Biological-Data-Michael-Whitlock/dp/0981519407

Though large for a field guide, I really like "Mushrooms of Northeastern North America"

Hello there!

You can pick up an older copy of the Raven/Johnson Biology book used from Amazon pretty cheaply: http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Peter-Raven/dp/0077350022/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404482342&sr=8-2&keywords=raven+johnson+biology

Same goes for the Campbell/Reece: http://www.amazon.com/Biology-8th-Edition-Neil-Campbell/dp/0805368442/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404482401&sr=8-2&keywords=campbell+reece+biology

Hope this helps!

The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey.

https://www.amazon.ca/Epigenetics-Revolution-Rewriting-Understanding-Inheritance/dp/0231161174

It's a pretty good read, could have used a bit more editing -- it'll give you a flavour of some of the key findings, unusual anecdotes, history of the field, etc. It's from 2013 so will not have the latest details.

You're very welcome. And, yes, you do have to do the double sum, over all possible n_B, good catch!

Why Poisson? There are some biological reasons that it's reasonable (that are currently eluding me) but also because an individual can't have 1.532 offspring. A discrete outcome needs a discrete probability distribution. The poisson happens to be discrete and unbounded, so it fits the bill. A negative binomial or geometric could also work, if you just want to plug in a distribution. It is not, however, inordinately hard to simulate a Poisson RV given the ability to simulate a uniform(0,1) RV.

I wouldn't say that the example is unfair by merit of using the same survival probabilities. There are two ways for an allele/genotype to have a higher fitness than other alleles/genotypes: higher survival and/or higher fecundity. By merit of the way you set up the problem A is already fitter than B. If you want to assign s_A and s_B you can do so as well, the binomial distributions used to calculate the probabilities of n_A and n_B simply change. In general (or at least in a lot of classical population genetics), people abstract away from survival vs fecundity effects and simply talk in terms of relative or absolute fitnesses (the product of survival and fecundity).

Last note: if you're interested in population genetics, it has a very rich theoretical foundation, and you should do some reading on the subject if you're curious. I think you'll find that most problems under the sun have been discussed somewhere at some point. As starting points, Felsenstein has a free and surprisingly comprehensive book available online. Gillespie has a not free and surprisingly concise book. Both are excellent.

literally the cover of Alan Bessette's Mushrooms of Northeastern North America

I agree with Hygrocybe sp.

I believe the canonical text on the current understanding of cancer is Weinberg's The Biology of Cancer which is really fantastic. If you can get a hold of a copy you might try working through that book. Don't get discouraged if it goes over your head repeatedly -- just being exposed to the jargon goes a long way to obtaining understanding.

Good luck!

It can be hilarious when bots encounter other bots. My favorite, which I think will be hard to top, was when two pricing bots on Amazon got into a loop.

Bot 1 was from seller 1, a long time book seller who had a near perfect rating based on a very large number of customer reports. Bot 2 was from seller 2, a newer seller with a very good reputation but based on much fewer reports.

When people see a book at both a high reputation/high feedback seller and a almost as high/much less feedback seller, they will often buy from the first even if the price is a little higher there.

A clever high reputation/high feedback seller can take advantage of this to get a cut of sales on books that he does not have. Find a lower reputation seller listing a book you don't have, and list it on your store, pricing it at their price plus shipping plus a profit for you. For instance, if they are selling it for $20, and it costs $3 to ship it from them, you might price it at $25. Many people will buy directly from the other seller, to save $5, but some will prefer to go with the safe choice and will buy from you. When that happens, you simply buy it for $20+$3 from the other seller and ship it on to your customer.

Seller 1's bot implemented this. It looked for suitable books and listed them on seller 1's site at a higher price than they were at the other sites. It would list them on seller 1's site at 1.27059 times the price they were on the other sites.

Seller 2's bot looked for other sellers selling the same books, and tried to undercut them on price, setting the price to 0.9983 times what it was at the other sites.

When seller 2 listed an obscure book on fly genetics, bot 1 discovered it and listed it for seller 1. Bot 2 noticed that, and adjusted the price. Bot 1 noticed and adjusted.

The price reached $23.7 million (plus $3.99 shipping) before the sellers caught on and stopped their bots.

Here is an article about this particular bot fight.

The full NOVA episode from 2010, "A Murder of Crows", is free to stream at video.pbs.org.

There was a New York Times article about the UW research in 2008 that explains the research as well.

The UW professor, Dr. John Marzluff, wrote two books on the subject: Gifts of the Crow and In the Company of Crows and Ravens.

Awesome, a fellow Southern(ish)er. This one covers Kentucky and is budget friendly:

Mushrooms of the Southeast (A Timber Press Field Guide) https://www.amazon.com/dp/160469730X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_DZMPBbPTFWDWP

I think that supplemented with Mushrooms Demystified for advanced keying will have you covered.

Some suggestions are below. They aren't "field guides" but are still some good choices. I admit I haven't finished March of the Microbes or Missing Microbes but Microbes and Evolution is a fantastic collection of essays.

March of the Microbes

Microbes and Evolution: The World Darwin Never Saw

Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues

If you're still interested in cephalopods, I highly recommend this book. It was so fun to read! More about squid than octopus and cuttlefish, but definitely wonderful.

So natural selection may be now taking place. But the over-arching hypothesis is that after the Dust Bowl in the 30s we built shelter belts all across the prairies to prevent winds from eroding soils like that again. These trees in places where there weren't naturally trees gave a corridor for Barred Owls (an east coast species) could use those to extend its range until it made it west and started taking over Spotted Owl habitat. At that point the larger, more aggressive and more generalist Barred Owl had a competitive advantage. So, you can say it's natural selection now, but it seems to be caused by us. So now that becomes a question of responsibility - should we do something to save a species when we have been at the heart of its decline.

As far as "keeping everything alive for our won amusement": that's just a gross misinterpretation of conservation. I suggest this book to give you a better background.

I feel bad suggesting this one because I actually haven't read it yet. It's sitting on my shelf to be read, but The Extreme Life of the Sea

Kraken is one that I have read and enjoyed. It deals specifically with squid. I felt that the subtitle on this one was a little misleading. There really isn't any new information on the science of squid in it. Also, it felt more like "how science is benefiting from squid" rather than" the science behind squid". It was still interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/Mushrooms-Southeast-Timber-Press-Field/dp/160469730X/ref=nodl_

That's ridiculous - synchrony arises out of some very simple neuron-level processes. Neurons are basically built to synchronize based on the interaction of excitation and inhibition with their natural time constants. This was (first?) demonstrated for interneurons by Wang and Buzsaki in (1) and my very own adviser describes mechanisms for excitatory/inhibitory synchronous activity in a recent paper (2). Now these papers describe local and cross columnar synchronization (except the Tiesinga paper does utilize long range excitation to synchronize a local network), but the the mechanism is essentially the same.

You have different parts of the brain, all oscillating all the time as a natural result of their dynamics. Long distance connections cause these oscillations to change phase/frequency content, sometimes locking two areas and sometimes unlocking them. Buszaki has written an entire book about this, if you are interested (3). It would be approachable by an enthusiastic layman. He basically asserts oscillations are the essential building blocks of non trivial neuronal computations. No quantum mechanics involved.

• • *
    
    (1)
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8815919?dopt=Abstract
    (2) http://neuro.physics.unc.edu/pdfs/CalinJCNS06.pdf
    (3)
    http://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Brain-Gyorgy-Buzsaki/dp/0195301064/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210429334&sr=8-1

Whitlock and Schluter's "The Analysis of Biological Data" is a great introduction. It is written for biologists but doesn't leave out the more rigorous stuff either. Also there's an R package with all the data they used in the book, so you can recreate their studies easily.

Well if it is stats you are looking for then the standard in my department is Gotelli's A primer of ecological statistics. For more general biological stats look at Whitlock & Schluter and Quinn & Keough. Also don't forget the classic Biostatistical Analysis.

I think you should start with the seven part PBS series Evolution, which you can Netflix, torrent, or get through your public library. It's a very accessible introduction to the subject (first saw it in high school during A.P. Bio) with enough visuals and cultural tie-ins so that it's not dry. If you're still interested, Dawkin's The Selfish Gene is a good introduction to the nuts-and-bolts of evolution, giving you a more in depth introduction to the process without the math. Finally, if you're really serious about studying evolution, my junior year textbook for my evolution class was the one by Ridley, and it's actually pretty readable as far as college textbooks go. You can get the second edition cheap, but you'll need to have at least a working knowledge of college algebra to get through it.

Glad someone asked!

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Life-Biology-Beyond-Genes/dp/0199228361/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280144167&sr=8-2-spell

http://www.musicoflife.co.uk/

My sisters doing medicine at Oxford uni and recommended it.

They certainly have the potential to be dickish. One of my favourite examples is of teenage male crows seeking out predators to harass, just to show the girls how tough they are. I strongly suggest this book for anyone interested.

Also, they can be pretty sexist, in most species studied the territory belongs to the male. If the female dies, the male finds a new mate and continues to hold the territory. However if the male dies, the female usually gets kicked out of her home by another adult pair.

But what strikes me the most is their positive qualities. Crows will be loyal to their mate for life, and are extremely dutiful parents. If a member of their group is sick or injured, they'll care for it, feed it, and if it is dying they'll sit with it until it is over. If they find a dead crow they'll have a "funeral", the largest of which I've seen involved 100 crows gathering around the corpse cawing loudly. They're also very protective of each other, and are known to attack people holding a black scarf/beanie in case it's a crow.

I'm unaware of this study about crows framing each other, but I'm curious now and going to look it up!

Does she like to read? There's lots of really good everyday reading genetics books, like this or this for example.

The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease, and Inheritance:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0231161174/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51xwQxZljmL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL100_SR100%2C100_&psc=1&refRID=Y92YH4WPFMCNMYNTFAYF

A couple of years ago, in a talk, Aubrey waved two big books when the topic came up about how to get started. The books were:

• Essential Cell Biology
  
• Molecular Biology of the Cell
  
  (and SENS would most likely also recommend keeping Ending Aging handy).

Ive really enjoyed David Quamman's Song of the DoDo and E.O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life They both follow similar themes of Island Biogeography, extinction, and biodiversity. They also explain a lot of fundamental concepts in Ecology really well. E.O. is obviously an Entomologist so most of the large concepts he goes over are explained using insect models.

Loosing genetic information is often just another way of saying that a species became more efficient.

This can be seen throughout nature. In Viruses particularly its interesting, a smaller and more efficient genome can help alot in efficiency. Loosing a gene that codes for a certain protein can make the virus overcome an Immune-defense of the host and thus be able to infect the cell.

Mass and quantity is not class.

Evolution is considerably more then just hoarding more genes. If you are interested in evolution i highly recommend this book

"Microbes and Evolution: The world that Darwin never saw"

Its a great book that explains some very complex things in very easy to understand terms.

Dude, you are embarrassing yourself. If you are really excited about science and want to discuss it intelligently you should read more textbooks and less books intended for lay people. Ridley's Evolution is a highly recommended introduction to the subject.

I'm currently reading and finding utterly fascinating The Epigenetics Revolution.

Campbell Biology 8th edition. Get is used, it's only a few bucks.

Neuroscience; exploring the brain is also a great book that goes far more in-depth. The first part of the book is devoted to the very basics of biology and cell structure following the same foundation as any other biology book.

"Evolution" by Mark Ridley can be a painfully dry read, but I've found it a good reference to keep on my shelf. Good luck on the exam!

Sorry, thought I checked it before submitting. Here's the correct link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Biology-Cancer-Robert-Weinberg/dp/0815342209

Check out The Origins of Order or other works by Stuart Kauffman. He has done done interesting work on the emergent properties of complex systems.

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Order-Self-Organization-Selection-Evolution/dp/0195079515

I've posted this elsewhere but here ya go...

> Avoid the Audubon guide. The Audubon guide is pretty terribad (bad photos, pithy descriptions, not user-friendly.)

> There are much better nationwide guides out there (like the Falcon Guide), but quite honestly you're better off with a regional guide.

> My recs for regional field guides:

> Alaska

> - Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams

> Western US

> - All The Rain Promises and More

• Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
  
  >Midwestern US
  >
  
• Mushrooms of the Midwest
  
• Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States
  
• Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest
  
  >Southern US
  >
  
• Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide
  >
  Eastern US
  >
  
• Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Cental Appalachians
  
• Mushrooms of Northeast North America
  
• Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America
  
  > As an aside, books like Mushrooms Demystified, Lichens of North America, Mushrooms of Northeastern North America, and Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States are too large and cumbersome to take out in the field, but are all excellent references to have at home for ID after a foray.

not anymore

Epigenetics refers to heritable changes in gene expression (and therefore phenotype) that are not coded in the DNA. Thus, two organisms which are genetically identical but phenotypically different are different because of epigenetics.

At the molecular level, DNA is wound around proteins called histones. Histones can be modified by the addition of small chemical groups (like acetyl or methyl groups) at certain positions in the genome. These modifications decorate the surface of the chromosome and can act to draw in enzymes such as RNA polymerase which then might "activate" a gene. Another major epigenetic mechanism is DNA methylation - again, chemical alterations this time to DNA itself (though not altering its sequence) can affect the expression level of surrounding genes. Small, non-coding RNAs might also be tools of epigenetics, but that might be complicating things.

Epigenetics is therefore about the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This is not something we're used to thinking about - it seems anti-Darwinian. But at the cellular level, inheritance of acquired characteristics dominates. After all, nearly all cells in our body have the same DNA sequence but have different phenotypes (liver cell, brain cell, skin cell, sperm cell) because they express different genes due to their different 'epigenetic environment'. When a liver cell divides it doesn't birth a brain cell or a sperm cell. Its progeny is another liver cell; the daughter cell has acquired the characteristics of the parent due to epigenetics.

I'm not sure I understand your question about 'adapted response' I'm afraid.

By the way, if you are interested in this topic I would highly recommend Denis Noble's book The Music of Life

No asking questions! You need to read this and this.

I'd recommend Gullan and Cranston's The Insects: An Outline of Entomology.

A field guide is fairly regional, so you'll need to let us know where you're located!

There is no single answer to the field guide question - you should just look for one relevant to your area. Conservative estimates put the number of insect species in the world around six million, so no single field guide is going to be able to tell you more than very common species for a specific area and maybe some family-level keys to give you a general idea.

As far as textbooks go this one is pretty decent. If you are in a university there's a good chance it's in your library, otherwise it's not super expensive 2nd hand.

For general ID there are three books I recommend for your area (linked below). I’ve used each of them and have many friends in the Mycology community that vouch for them. As what OP is saying, you will be limited no matter which book you get. There are thousands upon thousands of mushroom species and you’ll never get all of them. The way he pooh-poohed on books though is silly. LOL.
As far as psychoactive Mushrooms, you will definitely have better luck on the Internet. The one species I recommend you start out with psilocybe Ovoideosystidiata. It is probably the most common one in Virginia and you will have the best luck identifying it. I have been researching that one for quite a while and I can give you very specific indicators for location habitat and season dates. I’ll PM you those deets. Wouldn’t want them getting into the wrong hands 🙄.
Also I have much more active and recent threads for you to read up on for ovoids. The current ovoid season 2018 thread is very active. Actualy you will see me drop some bomber photos this evening. One of the first posts of non-cultivated specimen for fall 2018. Found some gymnopolus luteus also but it wasn’t much and far past prime. Problem with the other species the OP mentioned to look for is they are either not common or no potent or both. For gyms, you need to ingest a lot! Some people really like them and I recommend trying them once you find them, but unlike gyms, all you have to do with ovoids is find 2-5 caps and your already at an effective dose. We can discuss dosage in pm.
With caerulepes the issue is they usualy only fruit in fall and in smaller numbers than ovoids. Again, if you find them, try them. But don’t be bummed if you don’t find them first few seasons. I can give you a spot of two for ovoids I’m spring. It will be a sure fire harvest!
TLDR:
Get at least one book and learn the identification key. Look up ovoids.

Links-
Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813190398/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_G5k4BbEB9FWRD

Mushrooms of the Southeast (A Timber Press Field Guide) https://www.amazon.com/dp/160469730X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_oCl4Bb9E1RQT7

Amazon only has hard covered for this one. That price is ridiculous. Search on eBay and you’ll find one for 20 or less and soft cover.
Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States https://www.amazon.com/dp/081563112X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_KDl4BbFTCT9D6

And here’s the most current actives thread for your area.
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/25036526

>Life, assuming of course it is spontaneous, is a game of statistics.

Yes and no, and that is because "statistics" can mean many things. Iron does what it does, carbon does what it does, etc. If compound X can't form, it does not matter how often we try. If X takes so much energy that things will melt, then that is what it takes. I would suggest Kauffman's Origins of Order, but the book is astoundingly dense and math filled.

To look at this another way, the easy of making/breaking carbon bonds gives us orders of magnitude more opportunities for carbon based life. And that itself is sufficient to push us to look for carbon based life (assuming we have to chose).

E O Wilson's book, 'The Diversity of Life,' is an interesting and thoughtful read about the ecologically rich landscapes of earth. Much of it delves into how important diversity is and why it's invaluable and much be preserved. I think it's worth taking a look at if you are interested in that sort of thing.

This is a good book on the subject

> The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution.

> I'm not aware of too many articles, but you could try this one co-authored by
Kaufmann a few years before the book was published.

(u/[deleted])

I have this edition: https://www.amazon.es/Analysis-Biological-Data-Michael-Whitlock/dp/0981519407

Check this out:

https://www.amazon.com/Company-Crows-Ravens-John-Marzluff/dp/0300122551

Some crazy stuff about Ravens and other birds in this book.

When I started I was recommended Psychophysiological Recording but that's more general and covers ECG, respiration etc.

Possibly Rhythms of the Brain for background on frequency measures.

I'm not sure what would be good as a general EEG background. If I think of anything I'll let you know.

This one?

Biology doesn't work that way. Selection is not the single factor in evolution and selection doesn't operate at the level of the gene.

There's no "selfish gene", Neo-Darwinists like the asshole Dawkins are just arrogant pricks and not actual scientists.


I recommend you take a look at this paper: http://videnssamfundet.au.dk/fileadmin/www.videnssamfundet.au.dk/nyheder/kalender/afviklede_aktiviteter/ingold.pdf

And this: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-have-fun

I also would recommend at the work of biologists like:

The famous physiologist Denis Noble and his two books:

"Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity": https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Tune-Life-Biological-Relativity/dp/1107176247/

"The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes": https://www.amazon.com/Music-Life-Biology-Beyond-Genes/dp/0199228361/

James A. Shapiro's "Evolution: A View from the 21st Century": https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-View-21st-Century-paperback/dp/0133435539


What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes: https://www.amazon.com/What-Means-98%25-Chimpanzee-People/dp/0520226151/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Here is a fun book for you to read.

http://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Brain-Gyorgy-Buzsaki/dp/0195301064

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

I suggest Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid since it is an amazingly informative book about how squid have been used in numerous studies to help humans. It also generally entails how awesome they are.

As for a bucket list... I would have to say travel. Find a cheap flight somewhere or even pick a place you can drive to and go. If there are any music events or festivals you are interested in in another state maybe plane a trip around that!

I'm currently chewing my way through Microbes and Evolution: The World That Darwin Never Saw. It's a series of essays on microbial evolution.

I know you asked for online sources, and you've been given some good ones, but if you can take this book I'd recommend it. Really easy to follow, lots of pictures, and comprehensive. Good luck in your exams!

Reading through some of your comments, it sounds a bit like your biology class did what most HS bio classes do. Teach the bare minimum and then side step and downplay anything remotely controversial in order to avoid angering religious parents.

The side effect is that you get cheated and if/when you attend college you have this large learning curve of information to work through that should have been taught to you to begin with. The misunderstanding of the word theory and kids not being taught any natural selection makes teaching college bio students difficult.
You're probably having your history and literature classes watered down, too.

Seek this information yourself. If your parents don't mind, and they shouldn't, get some introductory college textbooks off of Amazon. Older editions of used books can be purchased for <$1 to $10 with $3.99 shipping. Campbell and Reece Biology are a good go-to bio text that is used in many colleges. It's big, semi-complex, but book layout is similar to HS books with all words defined and question/review sections. This could provide you with a primer for anything more complex discussed about natural selection, genetics, and even a tad bit of chemistry. You may also be able to find 6th-8th editions at thrift stores if there is a college anywhere near where you live. Book+internet+ time = learning some of what you were cheated out of in class.

Also, for fun, if you decide what interests you career wise and should you want to seek higher education for it - there are HS internship opportunities that may be open to you at your local college. Find a professor that has time for you, show sincere interest, and they will treat you like an adult (something HS teachers often lack the ability to do).

Some of the reviews are gold 5/7

Looks like its still going on for that book, although not as bad

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0632030488/sr=/qid=/ref=olp_tab_new?ie=UTF8&colid=&coliid=&condition=new&me=&qid=&seller=&sr=

There's a book you should read called "The Epigenetics Revolution" that answers all those questions and many others.
http://amzn.com/0231161174