Introducing Biological Energetics How Energy and Information Control the Living World

About this book

This novel, interdisciplinary text presents biological understanding in terms of general underlying principles, treating energy as the overarching theme and emphasizing the all-pervading influence of energy transformation in every process, both living and non-living. Key processes and concepts are explained in turn, culminating in a description of the overall functioning and regulation of a living cell. The book rounds off the story of life with a brief account of the endosymbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells, the development of multicellularity, and the emergence of modern plants and animals.

Multidisciplinary research in science is becoming commonplace. However, as traditional boundaries start to break down, researchers are increasingly aware of the deficiencies in their knowledge of related disciplines. Introducing Biological Energetics redresses the reciprocal imbalance in the knowledge levels of physical and biological scientists in particular. Its style of presentation and depth of treatment has been carefully designed to unite these two readerships.

Contents

Preface
Introduction

1: The flow of energy in living systems
2: Origins - the early Earth
3: Energy and force explored
4: Which way? An introduction to thermodynamics
5: The building blocks
6: How fast, how far? Chemical thermodynamics and equilibrium
7: The strange story of water and oil
8: Size matters - proteins and enzymes
9: Molecular genetics - the chemical basis of heredity
10: Electron gymnastics - energy revisited
11: Cells and metabolism - putting it all together
12: From prokaryotes to eukaryotes - getting ready for multicellular life
13: Multicellular life - the last hurdle?

Appendix A - Electromagnetic radiation
Appendix B - Glycolysis
Appendix C - The TCA Cycle
Appendix D - The Calvin Cycle
Appendix E - Amino acid structures
Index

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