Portland Public Library

The biology book, [contributors: Mary Argent-Katwala, consultant, Michael Bright, Robert Dinwiddie, John Farndon, Tim Harris, [and 5 others]]

eng

illustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

The biology book

1256670188

[contributors: Mary Argent-Katwala, consultant, Michael Bright, Robert Dinwiddie, John Farndon, Tim Harris, [and 5 others]]

Big ideas simply explained

"Written in plain English, The biology book is packed with short, pithy explanations of some of the most momentous ideas in science, from cell theory to evolution by natural selection and the discovery of DNA. Simple graphics, such as timelines and mind maps, support the text and make the explanation easy to follow"--, Provided by publisher

Life. A window into the body: Experimental physiology ; How feebly en have labored in the field of anatomy from the times of Galen: Anatomy ; Animals are machines: Animals are not like humans ; I can make urea without kidneys: Biochemicals can be made ; The true biological atom: the cellular nature of life ; All cells come from cells: How cells are produced ; Life is not a miracle: Making life ; Smaller cells reside inside the larger cells: Complex cells ; A flexible mosaic of gatekeepers: Cell membranes -- Food and energy. Life is a chemical process: Metabolism ; Plants have a faculty to correct bad air: Photosynthesis ; The virtues of oranges and lemons: Essential nutrients ; The conversion of victuals into virtues: Digestion ; The saccharine, the oily, and the albuminous: Food groups ; A better element does not exist on which to base life: The beginnings of organic chemistry ; Life without free oxygen: Fermentation ; Cells are chemical factories: Enzymes as biological catalysts ; They must fit together like lock and key: How enzymes work ; The metabolic pathway that releases energy from food: Respiration ; Photosynthesis is the absolute prerequisite for all life: Reactions of photosynthesis -- Transport and regulation. It had a movement, as it were, in a circle: Circulation of the blood ; Blood passes through many windings: Capillaries ; The heart is simply a muscle: The heart muscle ; Plants imbibe and perspire: Plant transpiration ; Chemical messengers carried by the bloodstream: Hormones trigger responses ; The constant conditions might be termed equilibria: Homeostasis ; Air combining with the blood: Hemoglobin ; Oils upon the creaky machinery of life: Hormones help regulate the body ; The master chemists of our internal environment: Kidneys and excretion ; No auxin, no growth: Plant growth regulators ; The plant puts its fluids in motion: Plant translocation -- Brain and behavior. The muscles contracted into tonic convulsions: Excitable tissues ; The faculty of sensation, perception, and volition: The brain controls behavior ; Three principles colors, red, yellow, and blue: Color vision ; We speak with the left hemisphere: Speech and the brain ; The spark excites the action of the nerveo-muscular force: Electrical nerve impulses ; Instinct and learning go hand in hand: Innate and learned behavior ; Cells with delicate and elegant shapes: Nerve cells ; Brain maps of man: Organization of the brain cortex ; The impulse within the nerve liberates chemical substances: Synapses ; A complete theory of how a muscle contracts: Muscle contraction ; Memory makes us who we are: Memory storage ; The object is held with two paws: Animals and tools -- Health and disease. Sickness is not sent by the gods: The natural basis of disease ; The dose makes the poison: Drugs and disease ; The microbes will have the last word: Germ theory ; The first object must be the destruction of any septic germs: Antisepsis ; Remove it, but it will spring up again: Cancer metastasis ; There are four different types of human blood: Blood groups ; A microbe to destroy other microbes: Antibiotics ; A piece of bad news wrapped in protein: Viruses ; There will be no more smallpox: Vaccination for preventing disease ; Antibodies are the touchstone of immunological theory: Immune responseGrowth and reproduction. The little animals of the sperm: The discovery of gametes ; Some organisms have dispensed with sexual reproduction: Asexual reproducion ; A plant, like an animal hath organical parts: Pollination ; From the most general forms the less general are developed: Epigenesis ; The union of egg-cell and spermatic cell: Fertilization ; The mother-cell divides equally between the daughter nuclei: Mitosis ; On this, the resemblance of a child to its parent depends: Meiosis ; First proof of the autonomy of life: Stem cells ; Master control genes: Embryological development ; The creation of the greatest happiness: In vitro fertilization ; Dolly, the first clone of an adult animal: Cloning -- Inheritance. Ideas of species, inheritance, variation: The laws of inheritance ; The physical basis of heredity: Chromosomes ; The X element: Sex determination ; DNA is the transforming principle: The chemicals of inheritance ; One gene, one enzyme: What are genes? ; I could turn a developing snail's egg into an elephant: Jumping genes ; Two interwoven spiral staircases: The double helix ; DNA embodies the genetic code of all living organisms: The genetic code ; A cut, paste, and copy operation: Genetic engineering ; The sequence of the beast: Sequencing DNA ; The first draft of the human book of life: The Human Genome Project ; Genetic scissors: a tool for rewriting the code of life: Gene editing -- Diversity of life and evolution. The first step is to know the things themselves: Naming and classifying life ; Relics of a primeval world: Extinct species ; Animals have in course of time been profoundly altered: Life evolves ; The strongest live and the weakest die: Natural selection ; Mutations yield new and constant forms: Mutation ; Natural selection spreads favorable mutations: Modern synthesis ; Drastic change occurs in an isolated population: Speciation ; All true classification is genealogical: Cladistics ; The clock-like property of evolution: The molecular clock ; We are survival machines: Selfish genes ; The extinction coincides with the impact: Mass extinctions -- Ecology. All bodies have some dependance upon one another: Food chains ; Animals of one continent are not found in another: Plant and animal biogeography ; The interaction of habitat, life forms, and species: Community succession ; A competition between prey and predatory species: Predator-prey relationships ; Living matter is incessantly moving, decomposing, and reforming: Recycling and natural cycles ; One will crowd out the other: Competitive exclusion principle ; The basic units of nature on earth: Ecosystems ; Networks through which energy is flowing: Trophic levels ; An organism's niche is its profession: Niches ; Man's war against nature is inevitably war against himself: Human impact on ecosystems ; Division of area by ten divides the fauna by two: Island biogeography ; Gaia is the superorganism composed of all life: The Gaia hypothesis