Book: Life at the Extremes by Frances Ashcroft
By Taivo Lints on Sunday 2 December 2007, 00:39 - Permalink
A book originally from 2000.
Gives a good overview about what happens to physiological processes of humans in high altitudes, deep oceans (or other pressurized locations), hot and cold climates, outer space, and during physical exercise. Occasionally there are also a few notes about other animals, plus a whole chapter about extremophile lifeforms (mostly microorganisms), but all in all it's still a book about humans.
The book is very readable and aimed for the general public, but fortunately it still retains enough scientific information to be interesting for more serious readers as well (though unfortunately there seem to be a few factual mistakes, too; see the PubMed review). In general I liked it.
More information at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520234200/
and at PubMed Central: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119655