Biology Is Technology

Biology Is Technology PDF Author: Robert H. Carlson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674053621
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the current state of biotechnology and the opportunities and dangers it may create.” —American Scientist Technology is a process and a body of knowledge as much as a collection of artifacts. Biology is no different—and we are just beginning to comprehend the challenges inherent in the next stage of biology as a human technology. It is this critical moment, with its wide-ranging implications, that Robert Carlson considers in Biology Is Technology. He offers a uniquely informed perspective on the endeavors that contribute to current progress in this area—the science of biological systems and the technology used to manipulate them. In a number of case studies, Carlson demonstrates that the development of new mathematical, computational, and laboratory tools will facilitate the engineering of biological artifacts—up to and including organisms and ecosystems. Exploring how this will happen, with reference to past technological advances, he explains how objects are constructed virtually, tested using sophisticated mathematical models, and finally constructed in the real world. Such rapid increases in the power, availability, and application of biotechnology raise obvious questions about who gets to use it, and to what end. Carlson’s thoughtful analysis offers rare insight into our choices about how to develop biological technologies and how these choices will determine the pace and effectiveness of innovation as a public good.

Biology Is Technology

Biology Is Technology PDF Author: Robert H. Carlson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674053621
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the current state of biotechnology and the opportunities and dangers it may create.” —American Scientist Technology is a process and a body of knowledge as much as a collection of artifacts. Biology is no different—and we are just beginning to comprehend the challenges inherent in the next stage of biology as a human technology. It is this critical moment, with its wide-ranging implications, that Robert Carlson considers in Biology Is Technology. He offers a uniquely informed perspective on the endeavors that contribute to current progress in this area—the science of biological systems and the technology used to manipulate them. In a number of case studies, Carlson demonstrates that the development of new mathematical, computational, and laboratory tools will facilitate the engineering of biological artifacts—up to and including organisms and ecosystems. Exploring how this will happen, with reference to past technological advances, he explains how objects are constructed virtually, tested using sophisticated mathematical models, and finally constructed in the real world. Such rapid increases in the power, availability, and application of biotechnology raise obvious questions about who gets to use it, and to what end. Carlson’s thoughtful analysis offers rare insight into our choices about how to develop biological technologies and how these choices will determine the pace and effectiveness of innovation as a public good.

A New Biology for the 21st Century

A New Biology for the 21st Century PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309147867
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 113

Get Book Here

Book Description
Now more than ever, biology has the potential to contribute practical solutions to many of the major challenges confronting the United States and the world. A New Biology for the 21st Century recommends that a "New Biology" approach-one that depends on greater integration within biology, and closer collaboration with physical, computational, and earth scientists, mathematicians and engineers-be used to find solutions to four key societal needs: sustainable food production, ecosystem restoration, optimized biofuel production, and improvement in human health. The approach calls for a coordinated effort to leverage resources across the federal, private, and academic sectors to help meet challenges and improve the return on life science research in general.

The Internet and the New Biology

The Internet and the New Biology PDF Author: Leonard F. Peruski
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Internet and the New Biology: Tools for Genomic and Molecular Research explores and explains some of the computational biology tools found on the Internet and how they can be applied to problems in genomic and molecular biology. This useful guide provides essential information and practical instruction on how to use the Internet to answer these four questions: -- How do I submit sequence data to the public sequence data base?-- How do I search a sequence against the public databases?-- How do I look for sequence motifs, such as promotors or splice-sites?-- How do I retrieve sequences from the public databases?To answer these questions, this unique book concentrates on the simplest component of the Internet -- e-mail servers -- but also highlights and demonstrates the use of two other practical and important aspects of the Internet: Gopher and the World Wide Web.Ten chapters organize and define a set of electronic tools that are the most broadly useful resources to molecular and genomic scientists. Beginning with an introduction to the Internet, this book explains the importance of electronic information to the biological community. It then provides an overview of e-mail, e-mail servers, Gopher, and the Web; and, by explaining how to use the Internet through a sampling of different resources, sets a foundation for using the Internet for sequence analysis. The major public primary and specialized sequence databases and the servers are described in great detail. Finally, a series of useful appendixes provide information on nucleic acids and proteins, suggested computer hardware and software needs, and a glossary of terms common to this field.A unique and special feature of this guide is its interactive Web site that describes and bookmarks all the servers summarized in Appendix A in the book. This appendix and Web site are designed to give a good cross-section of addresses for se

The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution

The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution PDF Author: Susan Hockfield
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393634752
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165

Get Book Here

Book Description
"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.

Digital Biology

Digital Biology PDF Author: Peter J. Bentley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743238168
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Get Book Here

Book Description
Imagine a future world where computers can create universes -- digital environments made from binary ones and zeros. Imagine that within these universes there exist biological forms that reproduce, grow, and think. Imagine plantlike forms, ant colonies, immune systems, and brains, all adapting, evolving, and getting better at solving problems. Imagine if our computers became greenhouses for a new kind of nature. Just think what digital biology could do for us. Perhaps it could evolve new designs for us, think up ways to detect fraud using digital neurons, or solve scheduling problems with ants. Perhaps it could detect hackers with immune systems or create music from the patterns of growth of digital seashells. Perhaps it would allow our computers to become creative and inventive. Now stop imagining. digital biology is an intriguing glimpse into the future of technology by one of the most creative thinkers working in computer science today. As Peter J. Bentley explains, the next giant step in computing technology is already under way as computer scientists attempt to create digital universes that replicate the natural world. Within these digital universes, we will evolve solutions to problems, construct digital brains that can learn and think, and use immune systems to trap and destroy computer viruses. The biological world is the model for the next generation of computer software. By adapting the principles of biology, computer scientists will make it possible for computers to function as the natural world does. In practical terms, this will mean that we will soon have "smart" devices, such as houses that will keep the temperature as we like it and automobiles that will start only for drivers they recognize (through voice recognition or other systems) and that will navigate highways safely and with maximum fuel efficiency. Computers will soon be powerful enough and small enough that they can become part of clothing. "Digital agents" will be able to help us find a bank or restaurant in a city that we have never visited before, even as we walk through the airport. Miniature robots may even be incorporated into our bodies to monitor our health. Digital Biology is also an exploration of biology itself from a new perspective. We must understand how nature works in its most intimate detail before we can use these same biological processes inside our computers. Already scientists engaged in this work have gained new insights into the elegant simplicity of the natural universe. This is a visionary book, written in accessible, nontechnical language, that explains how cutting-edge computer science will shape our world in the coming decades.

The Vital Question

The Vital Question PDF Author: Nick Lane
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781781250372
Category : Cells
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
A game-changing book on the origins of life, called the most important scientific discovery 'since the Copernican revolution' in The Observer.

Out Of Control

Out Of Control PDF Author: Kevin Kelly
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 078674703X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666

Get Book Here

Book Description
Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

Molecular Biology of the Cell

Molecular Biology of the Cell PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780815332183
Category : Cells
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


Design in Nature

Design in Nature PDF Author: Adrian Bejan
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307744345
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the constructal law, accounts for the evolution of these and many other designs in our world. Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical “flowcharts” or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies. All are governed by the same principle, known as the constructal law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

Out of Control

Out of Control PDF Author: Kevin Kelly
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781857023084
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666

Get Book Here

Book Description
A synthesis of research and theory, this work chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the adaptability and autonomy of living organisms becomes the model for human made systems and machines. The author combines ideas from the Choas Theory, cybernetics, current thinking on evolution and research into computerized artificial life with his own experience of on-line culture to show that industrial culture is now obsolete. This book presents the prospects of imminent revolution as Kelly identifies new frontiers of thinking about biological systems that will change the way the natural world is percieved.