Around 71% of the Earth's surface is covered in water. In this Very Short Introduction John Finney explores the science of water, its structure and remarkable properties, and its vital role for life on Earth.

A unified overview of the dynamical properties of water and its unique and diverse role in biological and chemical processes.

Life is produced by the interplay of water and biomolecules. This book deals with the physicochemical aspects of such life phenomena produced by water and biomolecules, and addresses topics including "Protein Dynamics and Functions", "Protein and DNA Folding", and "Protein Amyloidosis". All sections have been written by internationally recognized front-line researchers. The idea for this book was born at the 5th International Symposium "Water and Biomolecules", held in Nara city, Japan, in 2008.

The central theme, which threads through the entire book, concerns computational modeling methods for water. Modeling results for pure liquid water, water near ions, water at interfaces, water in biological microsystems, and water under other types of perturbations such as laser fields are described. Connections are made throughout the book with statistical mechanical theoretical methods on the one hand and with experimental data on the other. The book is expected to be useful not only for theorists and computer analysts interested in the physical, chemical, biological and geophysical aspects of water, but also for experimentalists in these fields.

This book embraces all physiochemical aspects of the structure and molecular dynamics of water, focusing on its role in biological objects, e.g. living cells and tissue, and in the formation of functionally active structures of biological molecules and their ensembles. Water is the single most abundant chemical found in all living things. It offers a detailed look into the latest modern physical methods for studying the molecular structure and dynamics of the water and provides a critical analysis of the existing literature data on the properties of water in biological objects. Water as a chemical reagent and as a medium for the formation of conditions for enzymatic catalysis is a core focus of this book. Although well suited for active researchers, the book as a whole, as well as each chapter on its own, can be used as fundamental reference material for graduate and undergraduate students throughout chemistry, physics, biophysics and biomedicine.

Life as we know it takes place in liquid water. This water is not merely a passive solvent, but plays an active role in many biological processes. Understanding the subtle interplay between water and biomolecules is therefore crucial for understanding the mechanics and chemistry of life. In this thesis, we present a series of spectroscopic experiments that elucidate the hydrogen-bond structure and dynamics of water molecules in solutions of different biologically relevant molecules. In particular, we studied solutions of sugars, globular proteins, and antifreeze glycoproteins, and water molecules confined in triglyceride oils. As a tool, we used vibrational pump-probe spectroscopy. This technique uses a short, intense infrared pump pulse to excite molecular vibrations that we can follow over time by monitoring the infrared absorption of a second, weaker probe pulse. The thus obtained time-resolved spectra provide information on for example the hydrogen-bond dynamics and the reorientation dynamics of water, which in turn allows insight in the molecular mechanism of different biological processes.

Water and Biological Macromolecules presents an excellent description of the structural aspects of water molecules around biological macromolecules. Topics discussed include the properties of water in solid and liquid states; proteins, nucleic acids, polysaccharides, and lipids; and theoretical approaches for understanding the macroscopic observations and integrating microscopic descriptions. The nature and roles of hydration forces in macromolecular complexation and cell-cell interactions are explained, in addition to phenomena such as entropy-enthalpy compensation and the thermodynamic treatment of water bridging. Water and Biological Macromolecules will be a valuable reference for biophysicists, biochemists, and macromolecular biologists.