He captures the human as well as the scientific elements in a drama played out for more than two decades in laboratories in Cambridge, England, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in London and Paris, at Caltech and Cold Spring Harbor. Few books have had such a compelling tale to tell, and its influence on science writing and science history has been profound.

Cohen's exploration seeks to uncover nothing less than the nature of all scientific revolutions, the stages by which they occur, their time scale, specific criteria for determining whether or not there has been a revolution, and the creative factors in producing a revolutionary new idea.

This book is designed specifically as a guide for Computer Scientists needing an introduction to Cell Biology. The text explores three different facets of biology: biological systems, experimental methods, and language and nomenclature. The author discusses what biologists are trying to determine from their experiments, how various experimental procedures are used and how they relate to accepted concepts in computer science, and the vocabulary necessary to read and understand current literature in biology. The book is an invaluable reference tool and an excellent starting point for a more comprehensive examination of cell biology.

Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the twenty-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics. Nessa Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field's arguments to such diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology, epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma. Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research and its ability to improve human health and well-being.

"Entertaining and prescient…Hockfield demonstrates how nature’s molecular riches may be leveraged to provide potential solutions to some of humanity’s existential challenges." —Adrian Woolfson, Science A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies that radically reshaped the world: radios, televisions, aircraft, computers, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. Today, a new technological convergence—of biology and engineering—promises to create the tools necessary to tackle the threats we now face, including climate change, drought, famine, and disease World-renowned neuroscientist and academic leader Susan Hockfield describes the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped to create them. Virus-built batteries. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Computer-engineered crops. Together, they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the twenty-first century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.

Using the field of genetics as a case study, this book follows the troubled development of modern natural science in China from the 1920s, through Mao's China, to the present post-socialist era. Through detailed portraits of key scientists and institutions, basic dilemmas are explored: how to control nature with science, how to gain independence from foreign-controlled science, how to get scientists out from under control of ideology and the state. Using the field of genetics as a case study, this book follows the troubled development of modern natural science in China from the 1920s, through Mao's China, to the present post-socialist era. Through detailed portraits of key scientists and institutions, basic dilemmas are explored: how to control nature with science, how to gain independence from foreign-controlled science, how to get scientists out from under control of ideology and the state.