Best Selling Books by Ian Jackson

Hegel''s 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit is renowned for being one of the most challenging and important books in Western philosophy. Above all, it is famous for laying out a new approach to reasoning and philosophical argument, an approach that has been credited with influencing Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, and many other key modern philosophers. That approach is the so-called "Hegelian dialectic" - an open-ended sequence of reasoning and argument in which contradictory concepts generate and are incorporated into a third, more sophisticated concept. While the Phenomenology does not always clearly use this dialectical method - and it is famously one of the most difficult works of philosophy ever written - the Hegelian dialectic provides a perfect template for critical thinking reasoning skills. A hallmark of good reasoning in the construction of an argument, and the searching out of answers must necessarily consider contradictory viewpoints or evidence. For Hegel, contradiction is key: it is precisely what allows reasoning to progress. Only by incorporating and overcoming contradictions, according to his method, is it possible for thought to progress at all. While writing like Hegel might not be advisable, thinking like him can help take your reasoning to the next level.

The North Kent Marshes can be a cold, damp, lonely place or a bright, warm refuge from the urban hurly-burly. When war threatened the army and navy mounted guard on their rivers, creeks and foreshores. In times past few would venture into their disease ridden swamps. Haunted by smugglers the saltings and seaways played host to preventive men and coastguards. Their savage beauty inspired many writers and artists including Dickens and Turner. They have grown the crops and raised the cattle and sheep to feed the London market. The marshland nature reserves are internationally important for the future well-being and survival of breeding and migratory birds. In these days of industrial and environmental peril the wilderness on London''s doorstep is threatened as never before. The history of the marshes and their people has rarely been told.

A celebration of animal life as seen through the work of one of the best natural history artists in the business. Observations from writers as diverse as Herman Melville, Robert Frost, Gerald Durrell and Sir David Attenborough are brought into dramatic focus by Jackson''s artworks.

Describes the history of Ancient Egypt, from its origins as a group of settlements along the banks of the Nile, to its transformation into one of the world''s earliest and greatest civilizations.

Struan Reid explains how rocks, minerals and fossils are actually formed, what they can tell us about the past history of the Earth and its future, and where you can see and find them.

This book tells the story of the great cricketer Shane Warne. It has photographs of Shane bowling and taking part in other activities off the pitch. The Real Lives books are about famous people from the worlds of Sport, Film and Music, Politics and History.

See if you can locate undersea creatures and life forms.

A self-chiding glimpse into the innerworkings of Peter Howard''s booktrade, including preposterous price setting and other practices.

Humorous watercolor drawing and vignette by Ian Jackson concerning the deletion of the word "scylline" from a quotation of Eric Korn in the second edition of Chamberpot & Motherfuck: the price-codes of the book trade, as proposed by publisher Bruce McKittrick.

Pat Rafter by Ian Jackson. The Real Lives books are about famous people from the worlds of: Sport; Film and Music; Politics and History. This book tells the story of the great tennis champion Pat Rafter. It has many photographs of Pat winning the US Open and other tournaments.

Silverchair by Ian Jackson. The Real Lives books are about famous people from the worlds of: Sport; Film and Music; Politics and History. This book tells the story of the rock band, Silverchair. It has many photographs of silverchair in concert.

The combination of severe ocular and distal limb malformations is rare. Ophthalmo-acromelic syndrome (OAS; MIM 206920) is characterised by anophthalmia with lower limb oligodactyly. To date 40 cases of this autosomal recessive disorder have been reported. Genome-wide analysis of ~10,000 SNPs typed on two apparently unrelated families - comprising a total of three affected individuals, four unaffected siblings and their consanguineous parents - identified a large region of overlapping autozygosity on chromosome 14q. Adding data from a third consanguineous family gave a combined LOD score of 5 with no evidence of locus heterogeneity. Collaborative data from a further 6 individuals refined the critical interval to a 3.4 Mb region on chromosome14:69,652,605-73,059,612 Mb. To sequence all 19 known protein-coding genes in the region, the 238 exons were ranked by evolutionary sequence conservation and divided equally between the Edinburgh and Nijmegen groups. Complete sequence coverage has been obtained for 61% of the "Edinburgh" exons but no potentially causative mutations have been identified. Further mutation analysis of the OAS locus is on-going. Mice homozygous for the X-ray induced Mp mutation were reportedly anophthalmic with hind limb oligodactyly and thus represented a potential model for human OAS. This line was rederived in Edinburgh and phenotypic analysis of Mp/Mp homozygotes showed runting, malformed pinnae with microphthalmia but not anophthalmia. The apparent hind-limb oligodactyly was due to osseous syndactyly. Mp heterozygotes had milder microphthalmia and pinnae deformities, but lacked the syndactyly. In both heterozygotes and homozygotes the eye malformations were fully penetrant, pan-ocular and characterised by failure of both the ciliary apparatus and vitreous body to form and abnormal retinal lamination. Genome-wide microsatellite marker analysis showed linkage of the Mp phenotype to chromosome 18. Fbn2 mapped within the linkage interval and was a good candidate for Mp based on the finding of hind limb osseous syndactyly in Fbn2-null mice. However, Fbn2-null mice have no eye phenotype. 3''-RACE identified that Mp was as a 660 kb inversion affecting the 3''-regions of Fbn2 and the adjacent gene Isoc1. This created two aberrant reciprocal fusion transcripts: Fbn2 exons 1-63 are fused to Isoc1 exon 5; and Isoc1 exons 1-4 are fused to Fbn2 exons 64-65. This predicts nonsense-mediated decay of the Isoc1 Mp transcript and production of a truncated Fbn2 Mp protein. Ocular development was analysed in homozygote and wild type embryos to define the basis of the "worse than null phenotype" seen in Mp mice. RNA in situ hybridisations (ISH) failed to detect expression of Isoc1 in the embryonic eye. In contrast, normal expression of Fbn2 in the ciliary body and retina was consistent with the Mp phenotype. A combination of EM and immunocytochemistry showed that truncated Fbn2 (Fbn2Mp) was retained within the ER. Fbn2Mp co-localised with markers of ER stress: Grp78 expression and UPR-specific Xbp1 splicing. Signalling by Wnt2b is thought to be critical for ciliary development and Lef1, a Wnt-responsive transcription factor, showed increased and ectopic ocular expression in the region affected by ER stress. Sox2 is a direct transcriptional target of Lef1 and we observed apparent ectopic expression of Sox2 in the ciliary body. Throughout the developing retina in mutant embryos we also observed individual cells that were ectopically expressing the transcription factor Chx10 and other cells expressing the apoptotic marker Activated- Caspase-3. The apoptotic marker did not specifically co-localise with Fbn2Mp. Taken together, these findings suggest that the ocular malformations in Mp are a direct result of the ER stress induced by Fbn2Mp in a specific group of cells in the early ciliary body. The ER stress presumably halts post-translational modification of a developmentally critical signaling molecule, possibly Wnt2b, which happens to be expressed in the same cells. We have termed the resulting pathological mechanism a synodiporic effect (synodiporia = the ones walking the street together or fellow travellers). Such effects may have significant implications for human genetic disease analysis, and may provide an explanation for other "worse than null" mutations.