So Simple a Beginning: How Four Physical Principles Shape Our Living World - Hardcover

Marshall, Zach

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691200408 ISBN 13: 9780691200408

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2022

Synopsis

A biophysicist reveals the hidden unity behind nature’s breathtaking complexity The form and function of a sprinting cheetah are quite unlike those of a rooted tree. A human being is very different from a bacterium or a zebra. The living world is a realm of dazzling variety, yet a shared set of physical principles shapes the forms and behaviors of every creature in it. So Simple a Beginning shows how the emerging new science of biophysics is transforming our understanding of life on Earth and enabling potentially lifesaving but controversial technologies such as gene editing, artificial organ growth, and ecosystem engineering. Raghuveer Parthasarathy explains how four basic principles—self-assembly, regulatory circuits, predictable randomness, and scaling—shape the machinery of life on scales ranging from microscopic molecules to gigantic elephants. He describes how biophysics is helping to unlock the secrets of a host of natural phenomena, such as how your limbs know to form at the proper places, and why humans need lungs but ants do not. Parthasarathy explores how the cutting-edge biotechnologies of tomorrow could enable us to alter living things in ways both subtle and profound. Featuring dozens of original watercolors and drawings by the author, this sweeping tour of biophysics offers astonishing new perspectives on how the wonders of life can arise from so simple a beginning.

About this title

About the Author

Raghuveer Parthasarathy is an Alec and Kay Keith Professor of Physics at the University of Oregon, where he is a member of the Institute of Molecular Biology and the Materials Science Institute. He lives in Eugene, Oregon. Website eighteenthelephant.com Twitter @RParthasarathy7

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691200408
• ISBN 13: 9780691200408
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336