Main description:

This volume presents provocative research in four broad areas: Evolution of Life and Evolutionary Theory, including papers on the origin of life, stress and evolution; Genome Evolution, including papers on adaptive genome regulation, and comparative mammalian genomes; Phylogeography and Phylogeny, including papers on mushroom phylogeny, macroevolution, and the origin of higher taxa; Human Evolution and Ecology, including papers on man's place in nature, and the origin of human hairlessness.

Contents:

Preface. Foreword.
Eviatar Nevo (in Honour of His 75th Birthday). List of Selected Publications of Eviatar Nevo.
List of contributors. Acknowledgements.
Part One: Evolution of Life and Evolutionary Theory. Evolution and Life's Emergence under Prebiotic Conditions and in a Test-Tube; N. Lahav. Aging and the Environment: The Stress Theories; P.A. Parsons. Assessing Population Subdivisdion; J.F. Crow. Convergent Evolution in Extremely Halophilic Prokaryotes: A Comparison between Salinibacter ruber (Bacteria) and the Halobacteriaceae (Archaea); A. Oren. Complex Dynamics of Multilocus Genetic Systems Caused by Cyclical Selection; V.M. Kirzhner, V.M. Frenkel, A.B. Korol. Evolutionary Epistemology and Invalidation; Y. Ne'eman.
Part Two: Genome Evolution. Tuning Function of Tandemly Repeating Sequences: A Molecular Device for Fast Adaptation; E.N. Trifonov. Comparative Mammalian Genomics and Adaptive Evolution: Divergent Homologs and Novel Genes in the Cattle Genome; H.A. Lewin, J.H. Larson, C.G. Kumar. Selection Induced Genetic Variation: A New Model to Explain Direct and Indirect Effects of Sixty Years of Commercial Selection for Juvenile Growth Rate in Broiler Chickens, with Implications for Episodes of Rapid Evolutionary Change; Y. Eitan, M. Soller. Pseudogenes are Not Junk DNA; E.S. Balakirev, F.J. Ayala. Genome Signature Comparisons of the Proteobacteria; A.J. Gentles, S. Karlin.
Part Three: Phylogeography and Phylogeny. A Maximum Likelihood Framework for Cross Validation of Phylogeographic Hypotheses; A.R. Templeton. Modern View on the Origin and Phylogenic Reconstruction of Homobasidiomycetes Fungi; I.V. Zmitrovich, S.P. Wasser. Macroevolutionary Events and the Origin of Higher Taxa; V.A. Krassilov.
Part Four: Human Evolution and Ecology. Humankind's Place in a Phylogenic Classification of Living Primates; D.E. Wildman, M. Goodman. Evolution and Aging: Relation to Cellular Senescence and Telomere Biology; K. Skorecki, M. Tzukerman. The Evolution of Human Hairlessness: Cultural Adaptations and the Ectoparasite Hypothesis; M. Pagel, W. Bodmer. The Evolution of the Cultural Mediterranean Landscape in Israel as Affected by Fire, Grazing, and Human Activities; Z. Naveh, Y. Carmel.
Index.