From the Cataloger’s Desk: Prints, Parasites and Primordial Soup

by Iris Lee on

Gottesman Research Library News

Image of old Reading Room, Museum Library taken April 11, 2017 Reading Room, Museum Library, April 11, 2017
M. Shanley /© AMNH
From art auctions to the origins of life on Earth, our January current literature covers a wide range of topics, despite it being a short list.

American prints, drawings and watercolors : the property of American Museum of Natural History ... : which will be sold on Wednesday, September 23, 1981 ...
by Christie, Manson & Woods International Inc.
1981
In this Christie’s auction catalog from 1981, the American Museum of Natural History offered a sale ‘lot’ that included ten uncolored plates by Robert Havell from Audubon's Birds of America.

Pollinators predators & parasites : the ecological roles of insects in Southern Africa
by Clarke Scholtz, Jenny Scholtz, Hennie de Klerk
2021
Pollinators, parasites, predators, decomposers – insects arguably play the most important roles in the functioning of the Earth’s ecosystems. This lavishly illustrated and highly authoritative book is structured around southern Africa’s 13 distinct biomes. --From the publisher

Preceramic Mesoamerica
edited by Jon C. Lohse, Aleksander Borejsza, and Arthur A. Joyce
2021
Preceramic Mesoamerica delivers cutting-edge research on the Mesoamerican Paleoindian and Archaic periods. Chapters address a series of fundamental questions in American archaeology including the peopling of the Americas, human adaptations to late glacial landscapes, the Neolithic transition, and the origins of sedentism and early village life.

The evolution and fossil record of parasitism : coevolution and paleoparasitological techniques
Kenneth De Baets, John Warren Huntley, editors
2021
This two-volume edited book highlights and reviews the potential of the fossil record to calibrate the origin and evolution of parasitism, and the techniques to understand the development of parasite-host associations and their relationships with environmental and ecological changes.

The genesis quest : the geniuses and eccentrics on a journey to uncover the origin of life on Earth
by Michael Marshall
2020
Some have argued that life began in the chemical-rich seas of the early Earth, the famous primordial soup, while others are convinced that life began in strange vents pumping hot water out of the sea floor, where the chemical reactions that sustain living cells could get started. Or perhaps life began in volcanic ponds on land, or in meteorite impact zones, or even in beds of clay. Each idea has attracted staunch believers who promote it with an almost religious fervor. But the story of life's origins is more than this: it is a story that takes in some of the greatest discoveries in modern biology, from cells to DNA, and evolution to life's family tree. This book is the first full history of the scientists who struggled to explain one of the greatest mysteries of all: how and why life began.

For additional new books see our New Books page!

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This entry was written by Iris Lee, Cataloging and Metadata Librarian.