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One of the earliest New World naturalists, José Celestino Mutis began his professional life as a physician in Spain and ended it as a scientist and natural philosopher in modern-day Colombia. Drawing on new translations of Mutis's nearly forgotten writings, this fascinating story of scientific adventure in eighteenth-century South America retrieves Mutis's contributions from obscurity. In 1760, the 28-year-old Mutis—newly appointed as the personal physician of the Viceroy of the New Kingdom of Granada—embarked on a 48-year exploration of the natural world of northern South America. His thirst for knowledge led Mutis to study the region's flora, become a professor of mathematics, construct the first astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere, and amass one of the largest scientific libraries in the world. He translated Newton's writings and penned essays about Copernicus; lectured extensively on astronomy, geography, and meteorology; and eventually became a priest. But, as two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Edward O. Wilson and Spanish natural history scholar José M. Gómez Durán reveal in this enjoyable and illustrative account, one of Mutis's most magnificent accomplishments involved ants. Acting at the urging of Carl Linnaeus—the father of taxonomy—shortly after he arrived in the New Kingdom of Granada, Mutis began studying the ants that swarmed everywhere. Though he lacked any entomological training, Mutis built his own classification for the species he found and named at a time when New World entomology was largely nonexistent. His unorthodox catalog of army ants, leafcutters, and other six-legged creatures found along the banks of the Magdalena provided a starting point for future study. Wilson and Durán weave a compelling, fast-paced story of ants on the march and the eighteenth-century scientist who followed them. A unique glance into the early world of science exploration, Kingdom of Ants is a delight to read and filled with intriguing information.

El problema de las drogodependencias y las adicciones sigue presente en la sociedad española, a pesar de que se están poniendo medios preventivos para intentar amortiguarlo. En las últimas tres décadas venimos asistiendo a una serie de cambios de gran envergadura en este fenómeno. Frente a los anteriores estilos de consumo asociados a conductas de marginalidad, han surgido nuevos patrones de consumo y nuevos perfiles de consumidores. Hoy en día, nos encontramos con pautas de comportamiento totalmente integradas en colectivos de personas cada vez más jóvenes y de todos los sectores sociales. Este libro aborda los contenidos teóricos que se han considerado más relevantes para conceptualizar la prevención escolar de las adicciones, apoyado en la segunda parte por un trabajo de investigación aplicada a este contexto. Puede ser un instrumento muy valioso para poner en marcha programas de prevención por parte de los profesionales y al mismo tiempo servir de referencia, soporte y apoyo a la población en general, sobre las posibilidades de la prevención en el complejo campo de las adicciones.

Diccionario Bilingüe de Metáforas y Metonimias Científico-Técnicas presents the extensive range of metaphoric and metonymic terms and expressions that are commonly used within the fields of science, engineering, architecture and sports science. Compiled by a team of linguists working across a range of technical schools within the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, this practical dictionary fills a gap in the field of technical language and will be an indispensable reference for students within the fields of science, engineering or sports science seeking to work internationally and for translators and interpreters working in these specialist fields.

A groundbreaking historical narrative of corruption and economic success in Mexico Ethnic Entrepreneurs, Crony Capitalism, and the Making of the Franco-Mexican Elite provides a new way to understand the scope and impact of crony capitalism on institutional development in Mexico. Beginning with the Porfiriato, the period between 1876 and 1911 named for the rule of President Porfirio Díaz, José Galindo identifies how certain behavioral patterns of the Mexican political and economic elite have repeated over the years, and analyzes aspects of the political economy that have persisted, shaping and at times curtailing Mexico’s economic development. Strong links between entrepreneurs and politicians have allowed elite businessmen to receive privileged support, such as cheap credit, tax breaks, and tariff protection, from different governments and to run their companies as monopolies. In turn, successive governments have obtained support from businesses to implement public policies, and, on occasion, public officials have received monetary restitution. Galindo notes that Mexico’s early twentieth-century institutional framework was weak and unequal to the task of reining in these systematic abuses. The cost to society was high and resulted in a lack of fair market competition, unequal income distribution, and stunted social mobility. The most important investors in the banking, commerce, and manufacturing sectors at the beginning of the twentieth century in Mexico were of French origin, and Galindo explains the formation of the Franco-Mexican elite. This Franco-Mexican narrative unfolds largely through the story of one of the richest families in Mexico, the Jeans, and their cotton textile empire. This family has maintained power and wealth through the current day as Emilio Azcárraga Jean, a great-grandson of one of the members of the first generation of the Jean family to arrive in Mexico, owns Televisa, a major mass media company with one of the largest audiences for Spanish-language content in the world.