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Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting to engage reluctant readers! Did you know that some animals have natural ninja-like talents? In this book, you'll learn all about them, including geckos, sea urchins, bombardier beetles, and more. For example, geckos can grip almost any surfaceincluding walls and ceilingswith their amazing toes. And when collector urchins are attacked, they release tiny, sharp objects that bear a striking resemblance to throwing stars. You will also meet the scientists who are studying these animals' amazing abilities.
Silk is a protein-based, usually fibrous, material produced by many invertebrates. It can be used to catch or subdue prey, protect the animal and/or its eggs, or for defence. Each type of silk has its own unique set of properties, which makes certain silks useful for human uses. One type of silk in particular, that produced by the mulberry silkworm moth, has been used for millennia as a fibre for developing luxurious textiles and apparel. Silk and the animals that produce it are thus very curious. This book overviews the diversity of silk-producing animals, comparing the types of silks produced by each of them and their functions, properties, and secretory mechanisms. The properties of each type of silk are explained by examining the chemistry of the proteins. Having established the mechanism of silk performance, the book investigates the applications of different silks, both throughout history and into the future, with explanations on how silk production is proceeding in the age of genetic engineering. Of particular mention is spider dragline (or major ampullate) silk, as it the silk considered the toughest of the silks, and is of research interest to the author.
Interrogating the language that gives meaning to IR theories and practice
The Triumph of Politics offers a comparative and historical interpretation of Venezuela's Chavez, Bolivia's Morales and Ecuador's Correa - South America's most prominent ‘21st century socialists'. It argues that the claims of these 21st century socialists should be taken seriously even though not necessarily at face value. The authors show how the consensual market oriented policymaking that characterized almost all of South America in the 1990s has now given way to something quite different. Polarization and intense political conflict have returned to much of the region. Although the Left has not always been the beneficiary of this changed pattern, the ‘21st century' governments of Chavez, Morales and Correa have been agenda setters. The questions raised by their emergence, style of governance and policy orientations resonate across Latin America and beyond. It is likely that the kind of politics with which they have been associated will be influential in the region for quite some time to come.
During the first decade of the century, Evo Morales and other leftists took control of governments across Latin America. In the case of Bolivia, Morales was that country’s first Indigenous president and was elected following five years of popular insurrection after decades of neoliberal governance. Now We Are in Power makes the argument that the so-called Pink Tide should be understood as a passive revolution, a process that has two phases: a period of subaltern struggle from average citizens strong enough to culminate in a political crisis, which is followed by a time of reconciliation and transformation. Angus McNelly examines this movement as it unfolded and evaluates how passive revolution plays out over a prolonged crisis, ultimately demonstrating the inherent contradictions and complications of the process.
This volume explores the Western-led liberal order that is claimed to be in crisis. Currently, the West appears less as a modernizing or civilizing entity leading the way and more as being engulfed in a deep crisis. Simultaneously, the West still appears to be needed in order to imagine the global order by promoters of liberal peace as well as its opponents. This book asks how and why “crisis” is needed for constituting “the West,” liberal, and global order and how these three are conjoined and reinvented. The book encompasses narratives endorsing and rejecting the West and the liberal international order, as well as alternative visions for a post-Western world conceived within the rising and challenging powers. The study is of interest to scholars and students of international relations, critical security studies, peace and conflict research, and social sciences in general.
Many creatures use adhesive polymers and structures to attach to inert substrates, to each other, or to other organisms. This is the first major review that brings together research on many of the well-known biological adhesives dealing with bacteria, fungi, algae, and marine and terrestrial animals. As we learn more about their molecular and mechanical properties we begin to understand why they adhere so well and with this comes broad applications in areas such as medicine, dentistry, and biotechnology.
The 1990s saw a constant increase in international peace missions, predominantly led by the United Nations, whose mandates were more and more extended to implement societal and political transformations in post-conflict societies. However, in many cases these missions did not meet the high expectations and did not acquire a sufficient legitimacy on the local level. Written by leading experts in the field, this edited volume brings together ‘liberal’ and ‘post-liberal’ approaches to peacebuilding. Besides challenging dominant peacebuilding paradigms, the book scrutinizes how far key concepts of post-liberal peacebuilding offer sound categories and new perspectives to reframe peacebuil...