You don’t have to be a scientist to find this beginner’s biology book fascinating!
What is life? Why do bees dance? How do animals know their mothers?
Who discovered germs? Discover the living world, how it interacts with the environment, and stand in awe of the most interesting biology facts, theories, and discoveries.
The Biology Book is written in simple English making complex biological ideas accessible to everyone! Whether you’re a student or lay-scientist, you’ll find these pages exciting and educational because it:
• Combines creative typography, graphics, and accessible text to explore the most famous and important ideas in biology and the people behind them
• Includes a directory section for easy localization
• Profiles more than 95 ideas and events key to the development of biology and the life sciences, with thought-provoking graphics throughout that demystify the central concepts behind each idea
• Features insightful and inspiring quotes from leading biologists and scientists, such as 2020 Nobel Laureates, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, as well as thinkers in other fields
Learn everything you wanted to know about Biology
Over the last few centuries, humans have been enamored by the world around us. Trace the history of scientific thought and meet the scientists who shaped the natural sciences, such as Carl Linnaeus, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Charles Darwin, and Gregor Mendel. From the mechanics of plants, animals, and the human body; to DNA and genetic inheritance; and the development of vaccines, explore the crucial discoveries to understand how our world works.
The Biology Book uncovers over 95 key ideas in the field of biology. Step by step flowcharts, diagrams, and accessible text will help demystify complex biological processes and help you enhance your understanding. This biology book also discusses current trends such as cloning, neuroscience, human evolution, and gene editing. Whether you’re new to the subject, a budding scientist, or keen to keep up with and understand current ethical and scientific debates, The Biology Book is for you.
Other educational knowledge titles
Love what you see here? Look out for other titles in the series such as The History Book, The Astronomy Book, and The Science Book. Specially written to help make tricky concepts simple, they’re perfect for helping to mould and educate young minds.
Author(s): DK
Series: Big Ideas Simply Explained
Edition: 1
Publisher: DK
Year: 2021
Language: English
Commentary: Vector PDF
Pages: 336
City: New York, NY
Tags: Popular Science; Children; Biology
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
LIFE
A window into the body
How feebly men have labored in the field of Anatomy from the times of Galen
Animals are machines
I can make urea without kidneys
The true biological atom
All cells come from cells
Life is not a miracle
Smaller cells reside inside the larger cells
A flexible mosaic of gatekeepers
FOOD AND ENERGY
Life is a chemical process
Plants have a faculty to correct bad air
The virtues of oranges and lemons
The conversion of victuals into virtues
The saccharine, the oily, and the albuminous
A better element does not exist on which to base life
Life without free oxygen
Cells are chemical factories
They must fit together like lock and key
The metabolic pathway that releases energy from food
Photosynthesis is the absolute prerequisite for all life
TRANSPORT AND REGULATION
It had a movement, as it were, in a circle
Blood passes through many windings
The heart is simply a muscle
Plants imbibe and perspire
Chemical messengers carried by the bloodstream
The constant conditions might be termed equilibria
Air combining with the blood
Oils upon the creaky machinery of life
The master chemists of our internal environment
No auxin—no growth
The plant puts its fluids in motion
BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR
The muscles contracted into tonic convulsions
The faculty of sensation, perception, and volition
Three principal colors, red, yellow, and blue
We speak with the left hemisphere
The spark excites the action of the nerveomuscular force
Instinct and learning go hand in hand
Cells with delicate and elegant shapes
Brain maps of man
The impulse within the nerve liberates chemical substances
A complete theory of how a muscle contracts
Memory makes us who we are
The object is held with two paws
HEALTH AND DISEASE
Sickness is not sent by the gods
The dose makes the poison
The microbes will have the last word
The first object must be the destruction of any septic germs
Remove it, but it will spring up again
There are four different types of human blood
A microbe to destroy other microbes
A piece of bad news wrapped in protein
There will be no more smallpox
Antibodies are the touchstone of immunological theory
GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION
The little animals of the sperm
Some organisms have dispensed with sexual reproduction
A plant, like an animal hath organical parts
From the most general forms the less general are developed
The union of egg-cell and spermatic cell
The mother-cell divides equally between the daughter nuclei
On this, the resemblance of a child to its parent depends
First proof of the autonomy of life
Master control genes
The creation of the greatest happiness
Dolly, the first clone of an adult animal
INHERITANCE
Ideas of species, inheritance, variation
The physical basis of heredity
The X element
DNA is the transforming principle
One gene—one enzyme
I could turn a developing snail’s egg into an elephant
Two interwoven spiral staircases
DNA embodies the genetic code of all living organisms
A cut, paste, and copy operation
The sequence of the beast
The first draft of the human book of life
Genetic scissors: a tool for rewriting the code of life
DIVERSITY OF LIFE AND EVOLUTION
The first step is to know the things themselves
Relics of a primeval world
Animals have in course of time been profoundly altered
The strongest live and the weakest die
Mutations yield new and constant forms
Natural selection spreads favorable mutations
Drastic change occurs in an isolated population
All true classification is genealogical
The clock-like property of evolution
We are survival machines
The extinction coincides with the impact
ECOLOGY
All Bodies have some Dependance upon one another
Animals of one continent are not found in another
The interaction of habitat, life forms, and species
A competition between prey and a predatory species
Living matter is incessantly moving, decomposing, and reforming
One will crowd out the other
The basic units of nature on Earth
Networks through which energy is flowing
An organism’s niche is its profession
Man’s war against nature is inevitably war against himself
Division of area by ten divides the fauna by two
Gaia is the superorganism composed of all life
DIRECTORY
GLOSSARY
INDEX
QUOTE ATTRIBUTIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
