About this item
Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen.Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over 500 million years of evolutionary history. It gives our bodies their shapes and the ability to move. It grows and changes with us, an undeniable document of who we are and how we lived. Arguably, no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, both brimming with life and a potent symbol of death. Brian Switek is a charming and enthusiastic osteological raconteur. In this natural and cultural history of bone, he explains where our skeletons came from, what they do inside us, and what others can learn about us when these wondrous assemblies of mineral and protein are all we've left behind. Bone is as embedded in our culture as it is in our bodies. Our species has made instruments and jewelry from bone, treated the dead like collectors' items, put our faith in skull bumps as guides to human behavior, and arranged skeletons into macabre tributes to the afterlife. Switek makes a compelling case for getting better acquainted with our skeletons, in all their surprising roles. Bridging the worlds of paleontology, anthropology, medicine, and forensics, Skeleton Keys illuminates the complex life of bones inside our bodies and out.
About the Author
Brian Switek has been a fossil fan since he was knee-high to a Stegosaurus. This natural history passion has led him to a career writing about lost worlds, from the critically-acclaimed books Written in Stone and My Beloved Brontosaurus to his National Geographic blog Laelaps. When not writing about fossils, Brian also joins museum and university field crews on paleontological expeditions around the American West. His next book, with artist Julius Csotonyi, is Prehistoric Predators, a children's book due in May of 2015.Brian's website: http://www.brianswitek.netLaelaps, at National Geographic: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/blog/laelaps/Follow Brian on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/paleoswitekFollow Brian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LaelapsFollow Brian on GoodReads: http://www..com/author/show/3958757.Brian_Switek
