The Biology Book 9780241536537, 9780241437469
You don’t have to be a scientist to find this beginner’s biology book fascinating! What is life? Why do bees dance? Ho
467 153 221MB
English Year 2021
Table of contents :
HOW TO USE THIS EBOOK
INTRODUCTION
LIFE
A window into the body • Experimental physiology
How feebly men have laboured 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 • Haemoglobin
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 BEHAVIOUR
The muscles contracted into tonic convulsions • Excitable tissues
The faculty of sensation, perception, and volition • The brain controls behaviour
Three principal colours, red, yellow, and blue • Colour 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 behaviour
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 response
GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION
The little animals of the sperm • The discovery of gametes
Some organisms have dispensed with sexual reproduction • Asexual reproduction
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 favourable 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 a 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
DIRECTORY
GLOSSARY
QUOTE ATTRIBUTIONS
CONTRIBUTORS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT
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