About this item
Where would we be without the knee? This down-to-earth joint connecting the thigh and the lower leg doesn't receive the attention it deserves. Yet, as The Curious Human Knee reveals, it is crucial to countless facets of science, medicine, culture, and history -- and even what makes us human.The science writer Han Yu provides an informative, surprising, and entertaining exploration of the human knee across time and place. She begins with our earliest ancestors, emphasizing that walking upright separates us from the apes and bipedal knees appeared long before big brains and sophisticated tools. Yu considers the intricate anatomy of the knee, its evolutionary history, and the complexity of treating knee pain, including her own. She examines why women's knees might be more prone to damage than men's and addresses the roles of race and class in ailments such as osteoarthritis.
About the Author
Han Yu is professor of scientific and technical communication at Kansas State University. Her research focuses on communicating science and technology to general readers. Han's latest popular science book Mind Thief: The Story of Alzheimer's is a comprehensive and engaging history of Alzheimer's that demystifies efforts to understand the disease.Han's earlier works include The Other Kind of Funnies: Comics in Technical Communication; Communicating Genetics: Visualizations and Representations; Negotiating Cultural Encounters: Narrating Intercultural Engineering and Technical Communication; and Scientific Communication: Practices, Theories, and Pedagogies.
