Science

In his investigation of the nature of madness and civilization, the French social theorist Michel Foucault expressed the difficulty most scholars have in addressing episodes of confusion that lead a society into acts of self-destruction and chaos. He maintained that one problem is “a realm, no doubt, where what is in question is the limits rather than the identity of a culture.” The decision to continue as before, as if no changes have occurred, is a kind of madness, but the identity of normal people is associated with ideas of actions defined by the culture and performed as a means of demonstrating identity. Since today we have an evolving global culture that is an amalgam of European colonial history, the defeated servants of that history, and some of those who resisted, the nature of limited action is embedded  in the values that led to the conquest of the world. This process remains a central motive factor in resistance to modifications of world economic institutions that might deflect the worst consequences of climate change for, at least, the next few generations to come.

Nuclear energy is the most controversial energy source in the 21st century. Both nuclear energy advocates and nuclear energy opponents try to manipulate society by providing incomplete or incorrect information about nuclear energy. Nuclear Energy: Perception or Reality? provides readers with objective information about both the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy and explains many common myths about it.

Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam discusses theoretical ideas, interpretations, and paleontological evidence to narrate the origin and evolutionary story of Sapiens through the transitional stages of archaic human species involved in the evolutionary pilgrimage, from the great apes and to modern humans. Author Subir Ranjan Kundu investigates the DNA footprints of primates – great apes, archaic humans, and anatomically modern human beings – to stretch out the missing links between evolutionary milestones to define and redefine the progress of life.

The origin and evolution of Humans have always remained a source of debate between the creationists and evolutionists, in terms of recognizing the results of such researches on biological evolution and its credible interpretation of the evolutionists who upheld the origin and evolution of “Sapiens” resulting from great apes in course of the gradual evolutionary progress of life. Kundu analyzes interpretations of molecular and evolutionary geneticists over the last four decades and presents detailed illustrations on the matrilineal inheritance of mitochondrial DNA (represented by mitochondrial Eve as primordial mother), patrilineal inheritance of Y-chromosomal DNA (represented by Y-chromosomal Adam as primordial father). He also presents elaborate structural aspects of the human genome and molecular aspects of the DNA footprint of Sapiens. This book is addressed to heterogeneous readers, graduate, and post-graduate students, research scientists and the general public interested in the origins and biological evolution of humans in view of molecular phylogenetics.