Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 745 pages
- Published by: Sinauer Associates, Inc.
- Edition: 4th Edition June 1, 2006
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0878932194
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0878932191
-
Book Dimensions:
11.2 x 8.8 x 1.7 inches
- Weighs: 5.6 pounds
Product Description
(ASM Press) Boston Univ., MA. Textbook provides an introduction to experimental nature of contemporary research. This edition features a free companion website. Topics include the flow of genetic information, cell structure and function, cell regulation, cell metabolism, basics of molecular biology, and more. For students. Previous edition: c2003. DNLM: Cells.
Reader Reviews
This is a textbook for undergraduates, but I'm not a student. I've been studying evolution from a variety of books and I finally decided I needed a systematic look at the biology of the cell. I shopped Amazon and decided on this book and I am well satisfied with it. There is too much information for me to summarize, but the book's Table of Contents does an excellent job of that. (Click on "Search inside this book".) The book also has an abbreviated Table of Contents, not shown in this product page, which will help the reader locate a particular topic within the longer ToC. The book starts with "Introduction", which provides background material and gives a glimpse of the book ahead. I think that a student using this as the text for a course for a one-semester course will probably need to know most of this beforehand. A person with more time will still need some background. You should already know what carbohydrates, amino acids, lipids, and nucleic acids are; the basics of the DNA-to-RNA-to-protein pathway; the fact that a membrane consists of a double layer of phospholipids, with other molecules embedded in it; and other basics of the cell. You will need at least a modest familiarity with diagrams of molecules and molecular processes. If the Table of Contents doesn't look like nonsense to you, you're probably prepared. The exercises are important because they contain material that is not in the main text. For example, there are exercises that ask you to apply what you learned in the text to a problem similar to the ones scientists try to solve. It is doubly important for non-students because they let you verify your learning. The Book Description says this book has "the most current information". This isn't possible in a book; in a field as active as cellular and molecular biology a lot happens between the time the manuscript is completed and the time the book is released for sale. What this book can do is to give you the background you need to read the science news articles. And that's doing quite a bit. I mentioned that I had been reading other material wanted to fill in my background. The other material included such topics as molecular biology of the gene, signal transduction, mitochondria, and cancer. Since the cell is the basic unit of biology, The Cell is a gateway to many other topics as well. It would have been easier if I had read The Cell first, but I didn't know that. If you might be interested in some of the earlier books, they are listed in my Listmania "Natural Processes That Promote Evolution". There is a link to it in my Amazon Profile. (Click on my name at the top of this review.) But, of course, I recommend reading The Cell first. If you're a student wondering what kind of nut reads books like this for fun, the Profile also has a bit about me under the title "In My Own Words". I finished The Cell a few weeks ago and since then I have referred to it a few times for help in understanding science news. Given that I found it useful, there must be plenty of other people who would, and so I wrote this review.
Comment (1) | |
(Report this)
Search for books at
