The perfect balance of science and storyBrief chapters are written like science news articles, combining compelling science with intriguing stories. The Second Edition features NEW stories on exciting topics such as CRISPR and the human microbiome, and expanded coverage of the course's most important content areas. Biology Now is written by an author team made up of a science writer and two experienced teachers. Expanded pedagogy in the book and online encourages students to think critically and engage with biology in the world around them.

"Biology Now is an introductory biology textbook for undergraduate nonmajors students. Brief chapters written like science news stories are paired with a powerful pedagogical structure to emphasize the scientific literacy skills non-majors students need to become informed citizens. Six new stories on exciting topics including vaccines, opioids, exercise, and climate change will spark students' curiosity about biology, motivating them to learn the science"--

Human Paleobiology explores the adaptability and variation in past and present human populations under a range of changing environmental conditions. Using a historical approach emphasising phenotypic features instead of complex taxonomy, it will be a stimulating and challenging read for all those interested in human paleobiology, evolutionary biology and anthropology.

This authoritative, timely, and comprehensively referenced compendium on the bacteriophages explores current views of how viruses infect bacteria. In combination with classical phage molecular genetics, new structural, genomic, and single-molecule technologies have rendered an explosion in our knowledge of phages. Bacteriophages, the most abundant and genetically diverse type of organism in the biosphere, were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century and enjoyed decades of used as anti-bacterial agents before being eclipsed by the antibiotic era. Since 1988, phages have come back into the spotlight as major factors in pathogenesis, bacterial evolution, and ecology. This book reveals their compelling elegence of function and their almost inconceivable diversity.Much of the founding work in molecular biology and structural biology was done on bacteriophages. These are widely used in molecular biology research and in biotechnology, as probes and markers, and in the popular method of assesing gene expression.

Research demonstrates that STEM disciplines perpetuate a history of exclusion, particularly for students with marginalized identities. This poses problems particularly when science permeates every aspect of contemporary American life. Institutions’ repeated failures to disrupt systemic oppression in STEM has led to a mostly white, cisgender, and male scientific workforce replete with implicit and/or explicit biases. Education holds one pathway to disrupt systemic linkages of STEM oppression from society to the classroom. Maintaining views on science as inherently objective isolates it from the world in which it is performed. STEM education must move beyond the transactional approaches to transformative environments manifesting respect for students’ social and educational capital. We must create a STEM environment in which students with marginalized identities feel respected, listened to, and valued. We must assist students in understanding how their positionality, privilege, and power both historically and currently impacts their meaning making and understanding of STEM.

The study of evolution at the molecular level has given the subject of evolutionary biology a new significance. Phylogenetic 'trees' of gene sequences are a powerful tool for recovering evolutionary relationships among species, and can be used to answer a broad range of evolutionary and ecological questions. They are also beginning to permeate the medical sciences. In this book, the authors approach the study of molecular evolution with the phylogenetic tree as a central metaphor. This will equip students and professionals with the ability to see both the evolutionary relevance of molecular data, and the significance evolutionary theory has for molecular studies. The book is accessible yet sufficiently detailed and explicit so that the student can learn the mechanics of the procedures discussed. The book is intended for senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in molecular evolution/phylogenetic reconstruction. It will also be a useful supplement for students taking wider courses in evolution, as well as a valuable resource for professionals. First student textbook of phylogenetic reconstruction which uses the tree as a central metaphor of evolution. Chapter summaries and annotated suggestions for further reading. Worked examples facilitate understanding of some of the more complex issues. Emphasis on clarity and accessibility.

The Horizon Scientific Press titles focus on high-level microbiology and molecular biology topics. Written by internationally renowned and highly respected leaders in the field, titles in this series comprise of review manuals, practical manuals, and reference texts for research scientists, bioscience professionals and graduate students. Engineering living cells continues to pose immense challenges to the researcher. In fact many bioengineers have only just started to appreciate the full extent of the hierarchical control used by living systems: upon attempts to increase the activity of a "rate-limiting" step, the multiple feedbacks at the metabolic, signaling and genetic levels result in the rate limiting step shifting to elsewhere in that pathway or even to elsewhere in the whole organism. The advent of full-force genomics should enable preventing this response, however, it has been difficult for researchers to know where to turn for guidance. This book aims to help the reader understand and deal with the plasticity of living cell factories and to turn the plasticity into the desired rather than the adverse direction. The book brings together all the recent, most important breakthroughs in this exciting field: Internationally renowned key scientists have reviewed each topic in detail. In the Introduction, the editors give an overview of new approaches and spell out what the engineer and the industry may now really begin to aim for; they even adapt the definition of metabolic engineering to befit the post-genomics era. Other topics included are: the experimental approaches necessary to understand cellular regulation at all of its hierarchical levels, including proteomics [Chapter 2], metabolomics [Chapter 3] and fluxomics [Chapter 4]; new tools that help metabolic engineering [Chapters 5-7]; modeling of living cells, e.g. finding metabolic pathways [Chapter 8] and comparing the actual and predicted use of these in living organisms such as E. coli and Corynebacteria [Chapters 9, 10]; the optimization of cell factories as production organisms (e.g., use of whole cell models, silicon cells, and coordinate manipulation of multiple genes [Chapters 12-15]). A chapter on future perspectives directs further developments of the field in the near future. Metabolic Engineering in the Post Genomic Erais an essential reading for everyone with an interest in engineering living cells including: Metabolic egnineers, bioengineers, biotechnologists, molecular biologists, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

From Physiology and Chemistry to Biochemistry features ten prominent scientists offering perspectives and insights from the fields of physiology, plant biology, microbiology, genetics, biophysics, molecular biology, immunology and biotechnology to answer questions with regard to India. They examine major discoveries, developments and research that shaped the direction of the discipline along with the research groups and institutions involved. Issues such as ethical implications of new developments in biotechnology, and practical applications of research in agriculture, medicine, forensics, industry are discussed.

The resurgence of interest in high-resolution evaluation of single-cell properties has led to examining where current technology stands at the beginning of a new millennium. Engineers and scientists have produced significant advances in cytometric technologies in just the past few years. Emerging Tools for Single-Cell Analysis: Advances in Optical Measurement Technologies stresses the applications and theories behind some of these advances in cell measurement and cell- sorting technologies. Rapid assessment of the proper function of cells and molecular processes within cells is essential. To that end, new and varying technologies present important diagnostic and prognostic tools relevant to a variety of diseases. Future developments in miniaturization of electronics, micro- and nanomachines, and biomedical engineering are certain to impact cell biology. New analytical technologies are revolutionizing our ability to functionally characterize, isolate, and manipulate single cells. This timely book offers researchers and design engineers much-needed information as they further develop technologies for cell analysis. By comparing and contrasting various approaches, the authors explain how those technologies converge toward similar goals: evaluating the properties of cells and sorting cells on those properties using optically-based measurement systems. Emerging Tools for Single-Cell Analysis offers scientists and engineers a vision of the exciting possibilities that exist as new technologies are applied to single-cell analysis,