Developmental Biology (Book and CD-ROM), Sixth Edition

Animal Physiology by Knut SchmidtNielsen has been a classic in its field since its first publication in 1975. During my undergraduate years, I remember using an older edition as a supplement to an introductory biology course. I look back on the Schmidt-Nielsen text as a source of clear exposition for principles that govern life. Like the past edition, the fifth edition, is also an excellent textbook to learn basic concepts, yet if you could find an older edition it may suffice. The textbook claims to have been extensively updated "in taking into account recent developments in the field." However, most of the references cited at the end of each chapter tend to be older, and there are no annotations that discern between the seminal or less important papers. True, numerous new references and figures were added. However, the use of color to highlight illustrations and text is not as effective as it could be since the book only relies on different shades of blue, which is not much of an improvement over the older editions. Perhaps a CD-ROM supplement animated in Flash could help in presenting some of the discussion on oxygen dissociation curves or how glycoprotein acts as antifreeze for the Antarctic fish Trematomus borchgrevinki. Despite these minor points, all editions have their key strengths in their conciseness and lucidity. With interesting and appropriate amount of detail, Knut Schmidt-Nielsen's textbook from chapter to chapter maintains a focus on the fundamental principles of animal physiology. As in the previous editions, these principles