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30 Animals That Made Us Smarter
Stories of the Natural World That Inspired Human Ingenuity
Patrick Aryee
Island Press, 2022
Did you know that mosquitoes’ mouthparts are helping to develop pain-free surgical needles? Who'd have thought that the humble mussel could inspire so many useful things, from plywood production to a “glue” that can cement the crowns on teeth? Or that the design of polar bear fur may one day help keep humans warm in space? In everything from fashion to architecture, medicine to transportation, it may surprise you how many extraordinary inventions have been inspired by the natural world.

Take the woodpecker as one incredible example. Woodpeckers can face up to 1,2000 Gs of force, but they’re protected from brain damage by the design of their beaks and skulls. These marvels of nature have inspired an array of cutting-edge ideas, from an advanced black box recorder for airplanes to an exceptionally strong bike helmet. In 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter, join wildlife biologist, TV host, and BBC podcaster Patrick Aryee as he tells stories of biomimicry, or innovations inspired by the natural world, which enrich our lives every day—and in some cases, save them.

With Aryee’s infectious curiosity and sense of wonder as inspiration, venture with us into the hidden world of biomimicry. 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter will reveal animals’ exceptional powers and change the way you look at the natural world forever.
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Adaptation and Natural Selection in Caves
The Evolution of Gammarus minus
David C. Culver, Thomas C. Kane, and Daniel W. Fong
Harvard University Press, 1995

The harsh environment of caves--dark, damp, sparse of food--is home to a variety of "bizarre" creatures. Biologists, for their part, often treat these delicate, colorless organisms having no eyes, or at least greatly reduced eyes, as mere oddities with little to tell us about a topic as grand as evolution. Focusing on one cave-dwelling crustacean, Gammarus minus, this book shows that, to the contrary, cave life can provide a valuable empirical model for the study of evolution, particularly adaptation.

Authors David Culver, Thomas Kane, and Daniel Fong marshal many years of extensive research into the genetics, ecology, morphology, and systematics of Gammarus minus. They explain how these biological factors have been shaped by physical constraints, such as the structure and development of caves and karst terrains, groundwater hydrology, and drainage basin patterns. Their work reveals the advantages of caves for studying natural selection: the highly simplified habitats found underground serve as a natural laboratory for the evolutionary biologist, and the distinctive morphological features of cave fauna provide a wealth of data on evolutionary history and natural selection.

A detailed evolutionary study of a single organism in a particular environment, this book advances Gammarus minus as a paradigm for cave colonization and adaptation, and as a general case study of the role of natural selection and adaptation in evolution.

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Adaptation in Metapopulations
How Interaction Changes Evolution
Michael J. Wade
University of Chicago Press, 2016
All organisms live in clusters, but such fractured local populations, or demes, nonetheless maintain connectivity with one another by some amount of gene flow between them. Most such metapopulations occur naturally, like clusters of amphibians in vernal ponds or baboon troops spread across the African veldt. Others have been created as human activities fragment natural landscapes, as in stands of trees separated by roads. As landscape change has accelerated, understanding how these metapopulations function—and specifically how they adapt—has become crucial to ecology and to our very understanding of evolution itself.

With Adaptation in Metapopulations, Michael J. Wade explores a key component of this new understanding of evolution: interaction. Synthesizing decades of work in the lab and in the field in a book both empirically grounded and underpinned by a strong conceptual framework, Wade looks at the role of interaction across scales from gene selection to selection at the level of individuals, kin, and groups. In so doing, he integrates molecular and organismal biology to reveal the true complexities of evolutionary dynamics from genes to metapopulations.
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Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence
Edited by Johannes Fehrle and Werner Schäfke
Amsterdam University Press, 2019
This collection considers new phenomena emerging in a convergence environment from the perspective of adaptation studies. The contributions take the most prominent methods within the field to offer reconsiderations of theoretical concepts and practices in participatory culture, transmedia franchises, and new media adaptations. The authors discuss phenomena ranging from mash-ups of novels and YouTube cover songs to negotiations of authorial control and interpretative authority between media producers and fan communities to perspectives on the fictional and legal framework of brands and franchises. In this fashion, the collection expands the horizons of both adaptation and transmedia studies and provides reassessments of frequently discussed (BBC’s Sherlock or the LEGO franchise) and previously largely ignored phenomena (self-censorship in transnational franchises, mash-up novels, or YouTube cover videos).
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Adaptation to Life
George E. Vaillant
Harvard University Press, 1998

Between 1939 and 1942, one of America's leading universities recruited 268 of its healthiest and most promising undergraduates to participate in a revolutionary new study of the human life cycle. The originators of the program, which came to be known as the Grant Study, felt that medical research was too heavily weighted in the direction of disease, and their intent was to chart the ways in which a group of promising individuals coped with their lives over the course of many years.

Nearly forty years later, George E. Vaillant, director of the Study, took the measure of the Grant Study men. The result was the compelling, provocative classic, Adaptation to Life, which poses fundamental questions about the individual differences in confronting life's stresses. Why do some of us cope so well with the portion life offers us, while others, who have had similar advantages (or disadvantages), cope badly or not at all? Are there ways we can effectively alter those patterns of behavior that make us unhappy, unhealthy, and unwise?

George Vaillant discusses these and other questions in terms of a clearly defined scheme of "adaptive mechanisms" that are rated mature, neurotic, immature, or psychotic, and illustrates, with case histories, each method of coping.

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American Pronghorn
Social Adaptations and the Ghosts of Predators Past
John A. Byers
University of Chicago Press, 1997
Pronghorn antelope are the fastest runners in North America, clocked at speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour. Yet none of their current predators can come close to running this fast. Pronghorn also gather in groups, a behavior commonly viewed as a "safety in numbers" defense. But again, none of their living predators are fearsome enough to merit such a response.

In this elegantly written book, John A. Byers argues that these mystifying behaviors evolved in response to the dangerous predators with whom pronghorn shared their grassland home for nearly four million years: among them fleet hyenas, lions, and cheetahs. Although these predators died out ten thousand years ago, pronghorn still behave as if they were present—as if they were living with the ghosts of predators past.

Byers's provocative hypothesis will stimulate behavioral ecologists and mammalogists to consider whether other species' adaptations are also haunted by selective pressures from predators past. The book will also find a ready audience among evolutionary biologists and paleontologists.
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Biogeography and Adaptation
Patterns of Marine Life
Geerat J. Vermeij
Harvard University Press, 1978
The driving forces of natural selection leave their traces in the shapes of living creatures and their patterns of distribution. In this thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion of evolutionary process and adaptive response, Geerat Vermeij elucidates the general principles that underlie the great diversity of marine forms found in the world's great oceans.
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Bird Migration and Global Change
George W. Cox
Island Press, 2010
Changes in seasonal movements and population dynamics of migratory birds in response to ongoing changes resulting from global climate changes are a topic of great interest to conservation scientists and birdwatchers around the world. Because of their dependence on specific habitats and resources in different geographic regions at different phases of their annual cycle, migratory species are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
 
In Bird Migration and Global Change, eminent ecologist George W. Cox brings his extensive experience as a scientist and bird enthusiast to bear in evaluating the capacity of migratory birds to adapt to the challenges of a changing climate.
 
Cox reviews, synthesizes, and interprets recent and emerging science on the subject, beginning with a discussion of climate change and its effect on habitat, and followed by eleven chapters that examine responses of bird types across all regions of the globe. The final four chapters address the evolutionary capacity of birds, and consider how best to shape conservation strategies to protect migratory species in coming decades.
 
The rate of climate change is faster now than at any other moment in recent geological history. How best to manage migratory birds to deal with this challenge is a major conservation issue, and Bird Migration and Global Change is a unique and timely contribution to the literature.
 
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Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities
A Technical Input to the 2013 National Climate Assessment
Virginia Burkett and Margaret Davidson
Island Press, 2013
Developed to inform the 2013 National Climate Assessment, and a landmark study in terms of its breadth and depth of coverage and conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities examines the known effects and relationships of climate change variables on the coasts of the U.S.
 
This state of the art assessment comes from a broad range of experts in academia, private industry, state and local governments, NGOs, professional societies, and impacted communities. It includes case studies on topics such as adaptive capacity; climate change effects on. It highlights past climate trends, projected climate change and vulnerabilities, and impacts to specific sectors.
 
Rich in science and case studies, it examines the latest climate change impacts, scenarios, vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity for nine major coastal regions of the United States and provides essential guidance for decision-makers – as well as environmental academics, professionals, and advocates – who seek to better understand how climate variability and change impact the US coasts and its communities.
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Comics and Pop Culture
Adaptation from Panel to Frame
By Barry Keith Grant and Scott Henderson
University of Texas Press, 2019

It is hard to discuss the current film industry without acknowledging the impact of comic book adaptations, especially considering the blockbuster success of recent superhero movies. Yet transmedial adaptations are part of an evolution that can be traced to the turn of the last century, when comic strips such as “Little Nemo in Slumberland” and “Felix the Cat” were animated for the silver screen. Representing diverse academic fields, including technoculture, film studies, theater, feminist studies, popular culture, and queer studies, Comics and Pop Culture presents more than a dozen perspectives on this rich history and the effects of such adaptations.

Examining current debates and the questions raised by comics adaptations, including those around authorship, style, and textual fidelity, the contributors consider the topic from an array of approaches that take into account representations of sexuality, gender, and race as well as concepts of world-building and cultural appropriation in comics from Modesty Blaise to Black Panther. The result is a fascinating re-imagination of the texts that continue to push the boundaries of panel, frame, and popular culture.

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Engineering Animals
How Life Works
Mark Denny and Alan McFadzean
Harvard University Press, 2011

The alarm calls of birds make them difficult for predators to locate, while the howl of wolves and the croak of bullfrogs are designed to carry across long distances. From an engineer's perspective, how do such specialized adaptations among living things really work? And how does physics constrain evolution, channeling it in particular directions?

Writing with wit and a richly informed sense of wonder, Denny and McFadzean offer an expert look at animals as works of engineering, each exquisitely adapted to a specific manner of survival, whether that means spinning webs or flying across continents or hunting in the dark-or writing books. This particular book, containing more than a hundred illustrations, conveys clearly, for engineers and nonengineers alike, the physical principles underlying animal structure and behavior.

Pigeons, for instance-when understood as marvels of engineering-are flying remote sensors: they have wideband acoustical receivers, hi-res optics, magnetic sensing, and celestial navigation. Albatrosses expend little energy while traveling across vast southern oceans, by exploiting a technique known to glider pilots as dynamic soaring. Among insects, one species of fly can locate the source of a sound precisely, even though the fly itself is much smaller than the wavelength of the sound it hears. And that big-brained, upright Great Ape? Evolution has equipped us to figure out an important fact about the natural world: that there is more to life than engineering, but no life at all without it.

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Ethnic Origins
The Adaptation of Cambodian and Hmong Refugees in Four American Cities
Jeremy Hein
Russell Sage Foundation, 2006
Immigration studies have increasingly focused on how immigrant adaptation to their new homelands is influenced by the social structures in the sending society, particularly its economy. Less scholarly research has focused on the ways that the cultural make-up of immigrant homelands influences their adaptation to life in a new country. In Ethnic Origins, Jeremy Hein investigates the role of religion, family, and other cultural factors on immigrant incorporation into American society by comparing the experiences of two little-known immigrant groups living in four different American cities not commonly regarded as immigrant gateways. Ethnic Origins provides an in-depth look at Hmong and Khmer refugees—people who left Asia as a result of failed U.S. foreign policy in their countries. These groups share low socio-economic status, but are vastly different in their norms, values, and histories. Hein compares their experience in two small towns—Rochester, Minnesota and Eau Claire, Wisconsin—and in two big cities—Chicago and Milwaukee—and examines how each group adjusted to these different settings. The two groups encountered both community hospitality and narrow-minded hatred in the small towns, contrasting sharply with the cold anonymity of the urban pecking order in the larger cities. Hein finds that for each group, their ethnic background was more important in shaping adaptation patterns than the place in which they settled. Hein shows how, in both the cities and towns, the Hmong's sharply drawn ethnic boundaries and minority status in their native land left them with less affinity for U.S. citizenship or "Asian American" panethnicity than the Khmer, whose ethnic boundary is more porous. Their differing ethnic backgrounds also influenced their reactions to prejudice and discrimination. The Hmong, with a strong group identity, perceived greater social inequality and supported collective political action to redress wrongs more than the individualistic Khmer, who tended to view personal hardship as a solitary misfortune, rather than part of a larger-scale injustice. Examining two unique immigrant groups in communities where immigrants have not traditionally settled, Ethnic Origins vividly illustrates the factors that shape immigrants' response to American society and suggests a need to refine prevailing theories of immigration. Hein's book is at once a novel look at a little-known segment of America's melting pot and a significant contribution to research on Asian immigration to the United States. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology
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Fiction, Film, And Faulkner
The Art Of Adaptation
Gene D. Phillips
University of Tennessee Press, 1988

Fiction, Film and Faulkner: The Art of Adaptation 

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Film Phenomenology and Adaptation
Sensuous Elaboration
David Evan Richard
Amsterdam University Press, 2021
Film Phenomenology and Adaptation: Sensuous Elaboration argues that in order to make sense of film adaptation, we must first apprehend their sensual form. Across its chapters, this book brings the philosophy and research methodology of phenomenology into contact with adaptation studies, examining how vision, hearing, touch, and the structures of the embodied imagination and memory thicken and make tangible an adaptation's source. In doing so, this book not only conceives adaptation as an intertextual layering of source material and adaptation, but also an intersubjective and textural experience that includes the materiality of the body.
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HOLLOWS, PEEPERS, AND HIGHLANDERS
AN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN ECOLOGY
George Constantz
West Virginia University Press, 2004

In this revised and expanded edition of Hollows, Peepers, and Highlanders, author George Constantz, a biologist and naturalist, writes about the beauty and nature of the Appalachian landscape. While the information is scientific in nature, Constantz's accessible descriptions of the adaptation of various organisms to their environment enable the reader to enjoy learning about the Appalachian ecosystem. The book is divided into three sections: "Stage and Theater," "The Players," and "Seasonal Act." Each section sets the scene and describes the events occurring in nature. "Stage and Theatre" is comprised of chapters that describe the origins of the Appalachia region. "The Players" is an interesting and in-depth look into the ecology of animals, such as the mating rituals of different species, and the evolutionary explanation for the adaptation of Appalachian wildlife. The last section, "Seasonal Act," makes note of the changes in Appalachian weather each season and its effect on the inhabitants.

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Hollywood Outsiders
The Adaptation of the Film Industry, 1913-1934
Anne Morey
University of Minnesota Press, 2003
An innovative approach to the relationship between filmmaking and society during Hollywood's golden age. The 1910s and 1920s witnessed the inception of a particular brand of negotiation between filmdom and its public in the United States. Hollywood, its proponents, and its critics sought to establish new connections between audience and industry, suggesting means by which Hollywood outsiders could become insiders. Hollywood Outsiders looks at how four disparate entities--the Palmer Photoplay correspondence school of screenwriting, juvenile series fiction about youngsters involved in the film industry, film appreciation and character education programs for high school students, and Catholic and Protestant efforts to use and influence filmmaking--conceived of these connections, and thus of the relationship of Hollywood to the individual and society. Anne Morey's exploration of the diverse discourses generated by these different conjunctions leads to a fresh and compelling interpretation of Hollywood's place in American cultural history. In its analysis of how four distinct groups, each addressing constituencies of various ages and degrees of social authority, defined their interest in the film industry, Hollywood Outsiders combines concrete discussions of cultural politics with a broader argument about how outsiders viewed the film industry as a vehicle of self-validation and of democratic ideals. Anne Morey is assistant professor of English and performance studies at Texas A&M University.
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Ice, Fire, and Nutcrackers
A Rocky Mountain Ecology
George Constantz
University of Utah Press, 2014
Why do quaking aspens grow in prominent clumps rather than randomly scattered across the landscape? Why and how does a rufous hummingbird drop its metabolism to one-hundredth of its normal rate? Why do bull elk grow those enormous antlers? Using his experience as a biologist and ecologist, George Constantz illuminates these remarkable slices of mountain life in plain but engaging language. Whether it sketches conflict or cooperation, surprise or familiarity, each story resolves when interpreted through the theory of evolution by natural selection.
 
These provocative accounts of birds, insects, rodents, predators, trees, and flowers are sure to stir the reader’s curiosity. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a rattlesnake’s ability to hunt in total darkness by detecting the infrared radiation emitted by a mouse? Or how white-tailed ptarmigan thrive in their high, treeless alpine environments -- even through the winter? The narratives, often brought home with a counterintuitive twist, invite readers to make new connections and broaden perspectives of a favorite outdoor place. 
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Life Out of Balance
Homeostasis and Adaptation in a Darwinian World
Joel B. Hagen
University of Alabama Press, 2021
Traces historical developments in scientific conceptions of physiology, ecology, behavior, and evolutionary biology during the mid-twentieth century

Life Out of Balance focuses on a period in history when new ideas of self-regulation, adaptation, and fitness became central to a variety of biological disciplines. During the decades surrounding World War II, these ideas developed in several quite different contexts and led to greater debates about the merits of such models as applied to larger systems, including society at large. Particularly in its later cybernetic form, homeostasis seemed to provide new ways of discussing balance and regulation that avoided discredited approaches of earlier champions of vitalism and mechanism. It provided a common perspective and terminology for discussing self-regulating “systems,” whether biological, mechanical, or social. Although enormously fruitful and influential, homeostatic perspectives also generated numerous controversies when critics questioned the degree to which biological systems are characterized by balance and self-regulation. Resolving these controversies continues to be a challenge in modern biology.

If natural selection constitutes the first law of biology, scientists who champion homeostasis as a theoretical model claim that it is a second law, equally important and closely related to the first. Such claims notwithstanding, homeostasis has generated a series of controversies since it was formalized by Walter Cannon in the late 1920s. Critics contended that Cannon took a too-optimistic view of life, not only ignoring pathological deviations from normality but also failing to adequately explain the ability of living things to respond adaptively to environmental challenges.

Underlying these controversies was the unresolved problem of integrating physiology and other areas of functional biology with the emerging evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian natural selection. The physiological idea of homeostasis as the adaptive “fit” between the organism and its environment and the Darwinian idea of adaptation and fitness in terms of reproductive success might seem to be complementary in an unproblematic way, but historically they have had an uneasy relationship.
 
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Page to Stage
The Craft of Adaptation
Vincent Murphy
University of Michigan Press, 2013

At last, for those who adapt literature into scripts, a how-to book that illuminates the process of creating a stageworthy play. Page to Stage describes the essential steps for constructing adaptations for any theatrical venue, from the college classroom to a professionally produced production. Acclaimed director Vincent Murphy offers students in theater, literary studies, and creative writing a clear and easy-to-use guidebook on adaptation. Its step-by-step process will be valuable to professional theater artists as well, and for script writers in any medium. Murphy defines six essential building blocks and strategies for a successful adaptation, including theme, dialogue, character, imagery, storyline, and action. Exercises at the end of each chapter lead readers through the transformation process, from choosing their material to creating their own adaptations. The book provides case studies of successful adaptations, including The Grapes of Wrath (adaptation by Frank Galati) and the author's own adaptations of stories by Samuel Beckett and John Barth. Also included is practical information on building collaborative relationships, acquiring rights, and getting your adaptation produced.

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Religion and Adaptation
William Adams
CSLI, 2004
Throughout history, religion has been the primary tool used by human societies to understand the inexplicable and the powerful. Religion and Adaptation examines how this role of religion affects the development of human society and individual identity.

The volume uses a wide variety of ethnographic and historical sources to support its analysis, beginning with two detailed case studies of the religions practiced by Navajo Indians and Arab villagers. An intriguing comparison of these two systems of faith reveals the difficulty of finding one definition of religion. William Adams explores this problem of definition, suggesting that religion and science actually share the role of providing logical explanations in human society. In subsequent chapters, he considers the development of religious systems, the growth of religious consciousness in the individual, and the dynamics of religious change. The book ultimately aims to be a purely empirical study that probes the reasons for the existence of religion and its role as a moral and stabilizing force in human societies.
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Risk and Adaptation in a Cancer Cluster Town
Laura Hart
Rutgers University Press, 2023
In disease cluster communities across the country, environmental contamination from local industries is often suspected as a source of disease. But civic action is notoriously hampered by the slow response from government agencies to investigate the cause of disease and the complexities of risk assessment. 

In Risk and Adaptation in a Cancer Cluster Town, Laura Hart examines another understudied dimension of community inaction: the role of emotion and its relationship to community experiences of social belonging and inequality. Using a cancer cluster community in Northwest Ohio as a case study, Hart advances an approach to risk that grapples with the complexities of community belonging, disconnect, and disruption in the wake of suspected industrial pollution. Her research points to a fear driven not only by economic anxiety, but also by a fear of losing security within the community—a sort of pride that is not only about status, but connectedness. Hart reveals the importance of this social form of risk—the desire for belonging and the risk of not belonging—ultimately arguing that this is consequential to how people make judgements and respond to issues. Within this context where the imperative for self-protection is elusive, affected families experience psychosocial and practical conflicts as they adapt to cancer as a way of life. Considering a future where debates about risk and science will inevitably increase, Hart considers possibilities for the democratization of risk management and the need for transformative approaches to environmental justice.
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Screening Stephen King
Adaptation and the Horror Genre in Film and Television
By Simon Brown
University of Texas Press, 2018

Since the 1970s, the name Stephen King has been synonymous with horror. His vast number of books has spawned a similar number of feature films and TV shows, and together they offer a rich opportunity to consider how one writer’s work has been adapted over a long period within a single genre and across a variety of media—and what that can tell us about King, about adaptation, and about film and TV horror. Starting from the premise that King has transcended ideas of authorship to become his own literary, cinematic, and televisual brand, Screening Stephen King explores the impact and legacy of over forty years of King film and television adaptations.

Simon Brown first examines the reasons for King’s literary success and then, starting with Brian De Palma’s Carrie, explores how King’s themes and style have been adapted for the big and small screens. He looks at mainstream multiplex horror adaptations from Cujo to Cell, low-budget DVD horror films such as The Mangler and Children of the Corn franchises, non-horror films, including Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, and TV works from Salem’s Lot to Under the Dome. Through this discussion, Brown identifies what a Stephen King film or series is or has been, how these works have influenced film and TV horror, and what these influences reveal about the shifting preoccupations and industrial contexts of the post-1960s horror genre in film and TV.

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Volker Schlondorff's Cinema
Adaptation, Politics, and the "Movie-Appropriate"
Hans-Bernhard Moeller and George Lellis
Southern Illinois University Press, 2002

Volker Schlöndorff’s Cinema: Adaptation, Politics and the “Movie-Appropriate”examines the work of major postwar Germandirector Volker Schlöndorff in historical, economic, and artistic contexts. . In spite of Schlöndorff’s successes with films like The Lost Honor ofKatharina Blum and The Tin Drum, as well as his acclaimed work in the U.S. with Death of a Salesman, Gathering of Old Men and The Handmaid’s Tale, this is the first in-depthcritical study of the filmmaker’s career.

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