About Life Concepts in Modern Biology /
This book uses modern biological knowledge to tackle the question: "What distinguishes living organisms from the non-living world?" In the first few chapters, the authors draw on recent advances in cell and molecular biology to develop an account of the "living state" that applie...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Language: | English |
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Dordrecht :
Springer Netherlands : Imprint: Springer,
2007.
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| Edition: | 1st ed. 2007. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5418-1 |
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- Ingredients of the Simplest Cells (Prokaryotes and the Sizes of their Contents)
- Bigger Cells (Eukaryotic Cells and their Contents)
- Hives of Industry (A Survey of Intermediary Metabolism)
- Delights of Transport (Mechanisms by which Cellular Contents are Moved around)
- As if Standing Still (Cellular Homeostasis and Regulatory Processes)
- Internal State and Gene Expression (Transcription and its Control)
- Sustaining and Changing the Internal State (The Interrelationship between Gene Expression and the Cell’s Current Composition and Functional State)
- Responding to the Environment (Signal Processing and its Relationship to Cell Structure, Metabolism and Gene Expression)
- The Living State (A general characterization of 'life')
- Stability and Change in DNA (Why DNA is highly stable and a Survey of the Mechanisms by which it can Change)
- The Spice of Life (Variety, Habitats, Natural Selection, Symbiosis, Ecosystems)
- Curriculum Vitae (An Outline History of Life on Earth)
- The Origin of Life (Major Ideas and Unanswered Questions)
- Other Worlds (Ideas about Extraterrestrial Life, including a Critique of the Assumptions behind the 'Drake Equation' and the SETI Project)
- Intelligent Behaviour and Brains (The Meaning of 'Intelligence')
- Human Intelligence (Human Evolution and the Question of Human Uniqueness)
- Cells, Brains and Computers: towards a Characterisation of Mind
- Glossary
- Bibliography.