A Short History of Biology

A Short History of Biology PDF Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"In 400 B.C., when Hippocrates wrote a book claiming that epilepsy, the 'sacred disease, ' was a natural disorder and not a visitation of demons, the science of biology may be said to have begun. Since then, curious naturalists have studied animals and plants, doctors have sought answers to very practical questions. The science of biology has grown -- slowly at first, stopping and starting again, and building in the last century to a crescendo that has not yet reached its peak. This concise, authoritative book traces the exciting development of the science of life, from the ancient Greeks through the monumental achievement of Charles Darwin to the explosive growth of molecular biology that is resulting in today's great breakthroughs in genetics and medicine. Written by Isaac Asimov, Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University and author of numerous books on science, this is a highly readable, vivid introduction to the history and concepts of biology."--Back cover

A Short History of Biology

A Short History of Biology PDF Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 0313225834
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the first full-length study of James Joyce to subject his work to ethical and political analysis. It addresses important issues in contemporary literary and cultural studies surrounding problems of justice, as well as discussions of gender, homosociality, and the colonial condition. Valente's focus alternates between the details of Joyce's language and the biographical and sociohistorical contexts that inform his writing, with particular attention paid to questions of race and gender.

A History of Biology

A History of Biology PDF Author: Michel Morange
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691253927
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
A comprehensive history of the biological sciences from antiquity to the modern era This book presents a global history of the biological sciences from ancient times to today, providing needed perspective on the development of biological thought while shedding light on the field's upheavals and key breakthroughs through the ages. Michel Morange brings to life the dynamic interplay of science, society, and biology’s many subdisciplines, enabling readers to better appreciate the interdisciplinary exchanges that have shaped the field over the centuries. Each chapter of this incisive book focuses on a specific period in the history of biology, describing the major transformations that occurred, the enduring scientific concerns behind these changes, and the implications of yesterday's science for today's. Morange covers everything from the first cell theory to the origins of the concept of ecosystems, and offers perspectives on areas that are often neglected by historians of biology, such as ecology, ethology, and plant biology. Along the way, he highlights the contributions of technology, the important role of hypothesis and experimentation, and the cultural contexts in which some of the most breathtaking discoveries in biology were made. Unrivaled in scope and written by a world-renowned historian of science, A History of Biology is an ideal introduction for students and experts alike, and essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the present state of biological knowledge.

A History of Molecular Biology

A History of Molecular Biology PDF Author: Michel Morange
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674001695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Every day it seems the media focus on yet another new development in biology--gene therapy, the human genome project, the creation of new varieties of animals and plants through genetic engineering. These possibilities have all emanated from molecular biology. A History of Molecular Biology is a complete but compact account for a general readership of the history of this revolution. Michel Morange, himself a molecular biologist, takes us from the turn-of-the-century convergence of molecular biology's two progenitors, genetics and biochemistry, to the perfection of gene splicing and cloning techniques in the 1980s. Drawing on the important work of American, English, and French historians of science, Morange describes the major discoveries--the double helix, messenger RNA, oncogenes, DNA polymerase--but also explains how and why these breakthroughs took place. The book is enlivened by mini-biographies of the founders of molecular biology: Delbrück, Watson and Crick, Monod and Jacob, Nirenberg. This ambitious history covers the story of the transformation of biology over the last one hundred years; the transformation of disciplines: biochemistry, genetics, embryology, and evolutionary biology; and, finally, the emergence of the biotechnology industry. An important contribution to the history of science, A History of Molecular Biology will also be valued by general readers for its clear explanations of the theory and practice of molecular biology today. Molecular biologists themselves will find Morange's historical perspective critical to an understanding of what is at stake in current biological research.

A Guinea Pig's History of Biology

A Guinea Pig's History of Biology PDF Author: Jim Endersby
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674027138
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
"Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved," Darwin famously concluded The Origin of Species, and for confirmation we look to...the guinea pig? How this curious creature and others as humble (and as fast-breeding) have helped unlock the mystery of inheritance is the unlikely story Jim Endersby tells in this book. Biology today promises everything from better foods or cures for common diseases to the alarming prospect of redesigning life itself. Looking at the organisms that have made all this possible gives us a new way of understanding how we got here--and perhaps of thinking about where we're going. Instead of a history of which great scientists had which great ideas, this story of passionflowers and hawkweeds, of zebra fish and viruses, offers a bird's (or rodent's) eye view of the work that makes science possible. Mixing the celebrities of genetics, like the fruit fly, with forgotten players such as the evening primrose, the book follows the unfolding history of biological inheritance from Aristotle's search for the "universal, absolute truth of fishiness" to the apparently absurd speculations of eighteenth-century natural philosophers to the spectacular findings of our day--which may prove to be the absurdities of tomorrow. The result is a quirky, enlightening, and thoroughly engaging perspective on the history of heredity and genetics, tracing the slow, uncertain path--complete with entertaining diversions and dead ends--that led us from the ancient world's understanding of inheritance to modern genetics.

Trying Biology

Trying Biology PDF Author: Adam R. Shapiro
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602959X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
In Trying Biology, Adam R. Shapiro convincingly dispels many conventional assumptions about the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial. Most view it as an event driven primarily by a conflict between science and religion. Countering this, Shapiro shows the importance of timing: the Scopes trial occurred at a crucial moment in the history of biology textbook publishing, education reform in Tennessee, and progressive school reform across the country. He places the trial in this broad context—alongside American Protestant antievolution sentiment—and in doing so sheds new light on the trial and the historical relationship of science and religion in America. For the first time we see how religious objections to evolution became a prevailing concern to the American textbook industry even before the Scopes trial began. Shapiro explores both the development of biology textbooks leading up to the trial and the ways in which the textbook industry created new books and presented them as “responses” to the trial. Today, the controversy continues over textbook warning labels, making Shapiro’s study—particularly as it plays out in one of America’s most famous trials—an original contribution to a timely discussion.

The Road to Discovery

The Road to Discovery PDF Author: Jan Anthony Witkowski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621821083
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Road to Discovery: A Short History of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory was published in 2015 to mark the 125th anniversary of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. At Cold Spring Harbor, in a bucolic setting on the north shore of New York's Long Island, two interdependent research centers in biology were founded as Charles Darwin's insights into heredity and evolution shook the world of science. Fifty years later, those centers would emerge as a single institution that would cradle another revolution, the new science of molecular biology, and advance to world renown in research and professional education. It is a remarkable story, with a path of progress that was neither simple nor assured. The Road to Discovery traces half a century of changes in name, leadership, governance, and financial fortune. And scientific missteps, most notoriously in eugenics, were triumphed by innovative work in genetics, human metabolism, and cancer. From the 1940s through the 1960s, the Laboratory was home to fundamental discoveries about the nature of genetic material and a cauldron of critical assessment of ideas about genes by sharp-tongued summer visitors. James D. Watson, a junior member of that group, would go on to deduce the structure of DNA with Francis Crick in 1953 and help create the new field of molecular genetics before returning to Cold Spring Harbor as Director 15 years later. As the book shows, his "Bold Plan" would inspire, cajole, and goad into existence an era of expansion, new research directions, and initiatives in conferences, courses, publishing, and education that redefined the scope of the Laboratory. Under Bruce Stillman's leadership, that scope has grown still more, making the Laboratory unique among research institutions worldwide--envied, imitated, but not reproduced. The book's author is the science historian Jan Witkowski. His knowledge of the subject is wide and his affection for it deep. He brings to his task insights that only a decades-long career as a staff member can provide. For over a century, the Laboratory has been influenced by exceptional personalities, outstanding achievements, and dramatic events. The Road to Discovery captures that history in a lively narrative illuminated by vignettes on the importance of individual scientists and their discoveries. Abundantly documented with material from the Laboratory's archives, it is an accessible book that will appeal to anyone interested in the development of biomedical science and biotechnology through the 20th century to the present day.

A Short History of Biology

A Short History of Biology PDF Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"In 400 B.C., when Hippocrates wrote a book claiming that epilepsy, the 'sacred disease, ' was a natural disorder and not a visitation of demons, the science of biology may be said to have begun. Since then, curious naturalists have studied animals and plants, doctors have sought answers to very practical questions. The science of biology has grown -- slowly at first, stopping and starting again, and building in the last century to a crescendo that has not yet reached its peak. This concise, authoritative book traces the exciting development of the science of life, from the ancient Greeks through the monumental achievement of Charles Darwin to the explosive growth of molecular biology that is resulting in today's great breakthroughs in genetics and medicine. Written by Isaac Asimov, Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University and author of numerous books on science, this is a highly readable, vivid introduction to the history and concepts of biology."--Back cover

A Short History of Science

A Short History of Science PDF Author: William Thompson Sedgwick
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 764

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Book Description


A Short History of Biology

A Short History of Biology PDF Author: Charles Singer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description


A Shorter History of Science

A Shorter History of Science PDF Author: Sir William Cecil Dampier Dampier
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description