Oxford University Press

The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs"e;Morphine,"e; writes Richard J. Miller, "e;is the most significant chemical substance mankind has ever encountered."e; So ancient that remains of poppies have been found in Neolithic tombs, it is the most effective drug ever discovered for treating pain. "e;Whatever advances are...

Consciousness is undoubtedly one of the last remaining scientific mysteries and hence one of the greatest contemporary scientific challenges. How does the brain&'s activity result in the rich phenomenology that characterizes our waking life? Are animals conscious? Why did consciousness evolve? How does science proceed to answer such questions? Can...

Evolution and Medicine provides an accessible introduction to the new field of evolutionary medicine. Evolutionary concepts help explain why we remain vulnerable to disease, how pathogens and cancer cells evolve, and how the diseases that affected our evolutionary ancestors have shaped our biology....

During the last three decades, there have been enormous advances in our understanding of the neural mechanisms of selective attention at the network as well as the cellular level. The Oxford Handbook of Attention brings together the different research areas that constitute contemporary attention research into one comprehensive and authoritative...

Virginia Woolf's exuberant `biography' tells the story of the cross-dressing, sex-changing Orlando who begins life as a young noble in the sixteenth century and moves through numerous historical and geographical worlds to finish as a modern woman writer in the 1920s. The book is in part a happy tribute to the `life' that her love for...

Piercing the spheres of the heavens by eye and mindGalileo is known as a pioneer of science - especially of mechanics and astronomy - but far less attention has been paid to his work on the senses generally, and more specifically on vision. In this book, two experts on the history of science look at the novel ways in which Galileo looked at the...