Life at the Extremes by Frances Ashcroft
The debut of a female Steve Jones – likeable, literate, lucid and laconic. A sumptous, lavishly illustrated book on the science of human survival
How do people survive extremes of heat, cold, depth and height? This book explains all.
For the geneticist, inheritance is all. But for the physiologist, extremism is all. This book explores the limits to human survival and the physiological adaptations which enable us to exist under extreme conditions. In man’s battle for survival in the harshest of environments, the knowledge imparted by physiology, the ‘logic of life’, is crucial.
Man can only tolerate a limited range of environmental conditions, whereas other lifeforms thrive in the most intense conditions – in 100°+ heat or many, many leagues under the sea in utter darkness or deep in the middle of rocks. Why is this so?
Height – Why did physiologists initially predict man would never reach the summit of Everest unaided? How does altitude work?
• Cold – How long can you survive immersed in ice-cold water? Why can aborigines sleep in the outback when Caucasians can’t? Why don’t penguins get frostbite?
• Heat – Why do marathon runners collapse from heat? How do we sense heat? What is the secret of the Kalahari bushmen?
• Depth – What are the bends? Why don’t sperm whales get them? Why do deep-sea divers suffer bone disorders?
• Speed – Is there a limit to how fast we can run, jump, swim or cycle? Will men always be faster than women? Why can animals always beat us?
• Space – How much acceleration can the human body withstand? How does an astronaut survive? How far into deep space can a body travel?
Frances Ashcroft is a professor of Physiology at Oxford and a Fellow of Trinity College and the Royal Society. She divides her time between research on insulin (the hormone that controls the blood sugar level), teaching and writing books. She has experienced several of the extremes discussed in this book, but has yet to try spaceflight. This is her first work for the general reader.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780002559461 |
| ISBN 10 | 0002559463 |
| Title | Life at the Extremes |
| Author | Frances Ashcroft |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Year published | 2000-07-03 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |