Although the chapters by Hofman, Jerison and Roth are worth reading as well a few others the book reads like too many standard biology treatise in evolution. That is, it is a forum for those who have a very good memory and would like to share taxa with you. Unfortunately they are devoid of any original thoughts or perhaps they were afraid to share them. This kind of book does indeed give biology a bad name. It is a 2001 copywright and already reads like it has years of dust on it. Save for a few exceptions you are better off watching grass grow if you want to learn something original. Save your $125 and photocopy the last 3 articles and buy Allmans Evolving Brains for a light read light years ahead of this pile of insipid drival.

This book is the first study on spectra of rare earth ions. it has teorical and experimantal calculations on emissions of divalent and trivalent rare earth ions in crystals. i think this book is usefull for luminescence study on rare earth ions doped crystals.
such as Zircon, LaF...

Barry Sessle is notorious here in Toronto for doing painful research on cats for almost 30 years! He also does pain research on "awake" monkeys. You might want to consider the reliability and ethicality of someone who does this kind of work before buying this book.