Download or read book Liberation Biology written by Ronald Bailey and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2013-08 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 21st century will undoubtedly witness unprecedented advances in understanding the mechanisms of the human body and in developing biotechnology. With the mapping of the human genome, the pace of discovery is now on the fast track. By the middle of the century we can expect that the rapid progress in biology and biotechnology will utterly transform human life. What was once the stuff of science fiction may now be within reach in the not-too-distant future: 20-to-40-year leaps in average life spans, enhanced human bodies, drugs and therapies to boost memory and speed up mental processing, and a genetic science that allows parents to ensure that their children will have stronger immune systems, more athletic bodies, and cleverer brains. Even the prospect of human immortality beckons. Such scenarios excite many people and frighten or appall many others. Already biotechnology opponents are organizing political movements aimed at restricting scientific research, banning the development and commercialization of various products and technologies, and limiting citizens'' access to the fruits of the biotech revolution. In this forward-looking book Ronald Bailey, science writer for Reason magazine, argues that the coming biotechnology revolution, far from endangering human dignity, will liberate human beings to achieve their full potentials by enabling more of us to live flourishing lives free of disease, disability, and the threat of early death. Bailey covers the full range of the coming biotechnology breakthroughs, from stem-cell research to third-world farming, from brain-enhancing neuropharmaceuticals to designer babies. Against critics of these trends, who forecast the nightmare society of Huxley''s Brave New World, Bailey persuasively shows in lucid and well-argued prose that the health, safety, and ethical concerns raised by worried citizens and policymakers are misplaced. Liberation Biology makes a positive, optimistic, and convincing case that the biotechnology revolution will improve our lives and the future of our children, while preserving and enhancing the natural environment.
Download or read book The Biological Revolution written by Gerald Weissmann and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basic biological research is not in trouble, but support for this cultural product is perhaps more fragile than it should be. We have developed, in this country, in Europe, and in Japan a triumphant record of research accomplishment that has rev olutionized our vision of the cell, the body, and the environ ment. The genetic code has been unraveled, the means of neuromuscular transmission have been elucidated, we know the fine detail of the cell's small geography, and we can de scribe the genes of mouse and man in chemical terms. But it is less clearly perceived by laity and scientist how this new revo lution in biology has been of use in the service of a better medicine or environment. The aim of this series of essays, which grew out of a symposium at the First International Congress of Cell Biology, is to instruct us all in the use that has been made of our new knowledge. In the fields of cancer, behavior, reproduction, genetic engineering, and environmental monitoring, practical results of our new knowledge are already apparent and more are just at hand. But neither the general public nor scientists working in their own narrow disciplines necessarily ap preciate these developments. Perhaps it is all just too new, too "experimental," to permit anyone to gain a proper perspective on what we have done or have the potential of doing.
Download or read book The Fourth Industrial Revolution written by Klaus Schwab and published by Currency. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolution, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wearable sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manufacturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individuals. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frameworks that advance progress.
Download or read book Forgotten Clones written by Nathan Crowe and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996, American embryologist and aspiring cancer researcher Robert Briggs successfully developed the technique of nuclear transplantation using frogs in 1952. Although the history of cloning is often associated with contemporary ethical controversies, Forgotten Clones revisits the influential work of scientists like Briggs, Thomas King, and Marie DiBerardino, before the possibility of human cloning and its ethical implications first registered as a concern in public consciousness, and when many thought the very idea of cloning was experimentally impossible. By focusing instead on new laboratory techniques and practices and their place in Anglo-American science and society in the mid-twentieth century, Nathan Crowe demonstrates how embryos constructed in the lab were only later reconstructed as ethical problems in the 1960s and 1970s with the emergence of what was then referred to as the Biological Revolution. His book illuminates the importance of the early history of cloning for the biosciences and their institutional, disciplinary, and intellectual contexts, as well as providing new insights into the changing cultural perceptions of the biological sciences after Second World War.
Download or read book The Year of the Genome written by Gerald Weissmann and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From stem cells to alternative medicine to the mapping of the genome, a lively and stimulating stroll through today’s great scientific breakthroughs Over the course of one year (2000–01), celebrated essayist and research physician Gerald Weissmann documented the modern age of enlightenment, charting its scientific marvels and new plagues. His diary of “the year of the genome” takes us on a literary exploration of laboratories and beyond to see the impact on human life and culture of Dolly the sheep, mad cow disease, RU 486, the Human Genome Project, AIDS drugs, and a score of other current developments. Whether calling on Ralph Waldo Emerson to explain Craig Venter’s drive to unravel the genome or tracing the effect of Rachel Carson’s legacy on the spread of malaria around the world, Weissmann is an invaluable interpreter of the genetic revolution.
Download or read book The Epigenetics Revolution written by Nessa Carey and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the twenty-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics. Nessa Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field's arguments to such diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology, epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma. Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research and its ability to improve human health and well-being.
Download or read book The Age of Living Machines How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution written by Susan Hockfield and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the former president of MIT, the story of the next technology revolution, and how it will change our lives. A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies: radios, telephones, televisions, aircraft, radar, nuclear power, computers, the Internet, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. These technologies so radically reshaped our world that we can no longer conceive of life without them. Today, the world’s population is projected to rise to well over 9.5 billion by 2050, and we are currently faced with the consequences of producing the energy that fuels, heats, and cools us. With temperatures and sea levels rising, and large portions of the globe plagued with drought, famine, and drug-resistant diseases, we need new technologies to tackle these problems. But we are on the cusp of a new convergence, argues world-renowned neuroscientist Susan Hockfield, with discoveries in biology coming together with engineering to produce another array of almost inconceivable technologies—next-generation products that have the potential to be every bit as paradigm shifting as the twentieth century’s digital wonders. The Age of Living Machines describes some of the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped create them. Virus-built batteries. Protein-based water filters. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Mind-reading bionic limbs. Computer-engineered crops. Together they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the twenty-first century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.
Download or read book Revolutionary Biology written by David Barash and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a revolution underway in biology. It is based on a new perception of bodies and genes, in which the former are the end product of the latter within the continuum of evolution. Twenty fi ve years after Richard Dawkins helped revolutionize our thinking about "selfi sh genes," it is time to reevaluate. Revolutionary Biology explains in simple, vivid terms what this exciting approach has to off er, and then applies its stunning insights to human beings. Th is novel perspective, galvanizes our understanding of how evolution works, what living things are all about and, not least, what it means to be human. Th e controversial disciplines of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have generated startling insights into longstanding questions concerning the nature and purpose of families, altruism vs. selfi shness, and free will vs. biological determinism. Written by one of its foremost fi gures, Revolutionary Biology is a manifesto and educated layman's guide to this ongoing revolution.
Download or read book Biology and Revolution in Twentieth Century China written by Laurence A. Schneider and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the field of genetics as a case study, this book follows the troubled development of modern natural science in China from the 1920s, through Mao's China, to the present post-socialist era. Through detailed portraits of key scientists and institutions, basic dilemmas are explored: how to control nature with science, how to gain independence from foreign-controlled science, how to get scientists out from under control of ideology and the state. Using the field of genetics as a case study, this book follows the troubled development of modern natural science in China from the 1920s, through Mao's China, to the present post-socialist era. Through detailed portraits of key scientists and institutions, basic dilemmas are explored: how to control nature with science, how to gain independence from foreign-controlled science, how to get scientists out from under control of ideology and the state.
Download or read book The Paleobiological Revolution written by David Sepkoski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Paleobiological Revolution chronicles the incredible ascendance of the once-maligned science of paleontology to the vanguard of a field. With the establishment of the modern synthesis in the 1940s and the pioneering work of George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the subsequent efforts of Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and James Valentine, paleontology became embedded in biology and emerged as paleobiology, a first-rate discipline central to evolutionary studies. Pairing contributions from some of the leading actors of the transformation with overviews from historians and philosophers of science, the essays here capture the excitement of the seismic changes in the discipline. In so doing, David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse harness the energy of the past to call for further study of the conceptual development of modern paleobiology.
Download or read book Biological Revolution written by Beverly D. Conley and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2002-04-08 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological Revolution reviews biotech and other scientific developments, highlights moral, ethical and legal questions relating to both human and nonhuman rights issues, and suggests avenues for a practical response. Besides analysis and historical perspective, this documented work contains spiritual insight, i.e, the latter part of Chapter 2 through Chapter 5 includes Bible prophecy or scripture relevant to world events. There are 14 Chapters to this work, titled: Cutting the Cord to Earth and Heredity, The Heavens Bear Witness, Re-Creation, Roots and Rock, Following the Precedents, Value, Legacy of Violence, In This Day, Decisions, Life Patents, Reverence for Life, Born Free/Born Property, Exploitation, and Coming Together. Biological Revolution is written to a general national/international audience, including near-future human-tailored beings.
Download or read book Man and the Biological Revolution written by Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky and published by . This book was released on 1976-01-01 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Black Box of Biology written by Michel Morange and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterful account, a historian of science surveys the molecular biology revolution, its origin and continuing impact. Since the 1930s, a molecular vision has been transforming biology. Michel Morange provides an incisive and overarching history of this transformation, from the early attempts to explain organisms by the structure of their chemical components, to the birth and consolidation of genetics, to the latest technologies and discoveries enabled by the new science of life. Morange revisits A History of Molecular Biology and offers new insights from the past twenty years into his analysis. The Black Box of Biology shows that what led to the incredible transformation of biology was not a simple accumulation of new results, but the molecularization of a large part of biology. In fact, Morange argues, the greatest biological achievements of the past few decades should still be understood within the molecular paradigm. What has happened is not the displacement of molecular biology by other techniques and avenues of research, but rather the fusion of molecular principles and concepts with those of other disciplines, including genetics, physics, structural chemistry, and computational biology. This has produced decisive changes, including the discoveries of regulatory RNAs, the development of massive scientific programs such as human genome sequencing, and the emergence of synthetic biology, systems biology, and epigenetics. Original, persuasive, and breathtaking in its scope, The Black Box of Biology sets a new standard for the history of the ongoing molecular revolution.
Download or read book The Eighth Day of Creation written by Horace Freeland Judson and published by . This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 714 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A New Biology for the 21st Century written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-11-20 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now more than ever, biology has the potential to contribute practical solutions to many of the major challenges confronting the United States and the world. A New Biology for the 21st Century recommends that a "New Biology" approach-one that depends on greater integration within biology, and closer collaboration with physical, computational, and earth scientists, mathematicians and engineers-be used to find solutions to four key societal needs: sustainable food production, ecosystem restoration, optimized biofuel production, and improvement in human health. The approach calls for a coordinated effort to leverage resources across the federal, private, and academic sectors to help meet challenges and improve the return on life science research in general.
Download or read book The Biological Revolution Social Good Or Social Evil written by Watson Fuller and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Epigenetics Revolution written by Nessa Carey and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism’s genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the twenty-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics. Nessa Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field’s arguments to such diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology, epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma. Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research and its ability to improve human health and well-being.
