Essential Cell Biology Third Edition

[Kenneth Larson]

Weuse cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements.

If you agree, we'll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie notice. Your choice applies to using first-party and third-party advertising cookies on this service. Cookies store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Click "Decline" to reject, or "Customise" to make more detailed advertising choices, or learn more. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy notice.

Essential Cell Biology provides an accessible introduction to the fundamental concepts of cell biology. Its lively writing and exceptional illustrations make it the ideal textbook for a first course in cell and molecular biology. The text and figures are easy-to-follow, accurate, clear, and engaging for the introductory student. Molecular detail has been kept to a minimum in order to provide the reader with a cohesive, conceptual framework of the basic science that underlies our current understanding of biology.

The Third Edition is thoroughly updated scientifically, yet maintains the academic level and size of the previous edition. The book is accompanied by a Media DVD-ROM with over 130 animations and videos, all the figures from the book, and a new self-test quizzing feature for students.

The Abbey Road author photo on the third edition of MBOC started a twenty-year tradition of Beatles album cover parodies on cell biology textbooks by Bruce Alberts and his co-authors. I found most (perhaps even all) of them and put them side by side with the corresponding Beatles album below.

When you move the sliders to compare the author photos to the Beatles albums, you can see that what started as a casual funny photo, simply referencing the location where they wrote the book, eventually turned into elaborate photo shoots to get as close as possible to the album covers.

Finally, the latest edition of Molecular Biology of the Cell was released in November 2014. Having exhausted the elaborate collages, they went for simplicity, and posed leaning over a balcony, just like the Beatles did on the cover of Please Please Me.

Eva Amsen is a writer, science communicator and blogger. She has been writing about science and scientists in art/culture/life since 2005, both on this blog and for other sites and publications.Portfolio Twitter Contact

Essential Cell Biology provides a readily accessible introduction to the central concepts of cell biology, and its lively, clear writing and exceptional illustrations make it the ideal textbook for a first course in both cell and molecular biology. The text and figures are easy-to-follow, accurate, clear, and engaging for the introductory student. Molecular detail has been kept to a minimum in order to provide the reader with a cohesive conceptual framework for the basic science that underlies our current understanding of all of biology, including the biomedical sciences.

The Fourth Edition has been thoroughly revised, and covers the latest developments in this fast-moving field, yet retains the academic level and length of the previous edition. The book is accompanied by a rich package of online student and instructor resources, including over 130 narrated movies, an expanded and updated Question Bank.

With the invention of the microscope, it became clear that plants and animals are assemblies of cells, that cells can also exist as independent organisms, and that cells individually are living in the sense that they can grow, reproduce, convert energy from one form into another, respond to their environment, and so on. Although cells are varied when viewed from the outside, all living things are fundamentally similar inside. And in all living things, genetic instructions, called genes, are stored in DNA molecules. In every cell, the instructions in the DNA are read out, or transcribed, into a chemically related set of molecules made of RNA. The messages carried by the RNA molecules are in turn translated into yet another chemical form: they are used to direct the synthesis of a huge variety of large protein molecules that dominate the behaviour of the cell. In sum, the reproduction process exists of replication (DNA synthesis), transcription (RNA synthesis) and translation (protein synthesis). Unfortunately, the copying of DNA is not always perfect, and the instructions are occasionally corrupted. Later is this summary we will discuss this further.

Cells are enclosed by a plasma membrane that separates the inside of the cell from the environment. And all cells contain DNA as a store of genetic information and use it to guide the synthesis of proteins. Cells in a multicellular organism, though the all contain the same DNA, can be very different. They use their genetic information to direct their biochemical activities according to cues they receive from their environment.

Cells of animal and plant tissues are typically 5-20 micrometer in diameter and can be seen with a light microscope, which also reveals some of their internal components (organelles). The electron microscope permits the smaller organelles and even individual molecules to be seen, but specimens require elaborate preparation and cannot be viewed alive. So, the invention of the light microscope led to the discovery of cells

The presence or absence of a nucleus is used as the basis for a simple but fundamental classification of all living things. Organisms whose cells have a nucleus are called eukaryotes. Organisms whose cells do not have a nucleus are called prokaryotes. Bacteria, the simplest of present-day living cells, are prokaryotes. Different species of prokaryotes are diverse in their chemical capabilities and inhabit an amazingly wide range of habitats. Prokaryotes are divided into two groups: eubacteria and archaea. As mentioned above eukaryotic cells possess a nucleus. They probably evolved in a series of stages from cells more similar to bacteria. An important step appears to have been the acquisition of mitochondria, origination as engulfed bacteria living in symbiosis with larger anaerobic cells.

Free-living single-celled eucaryotic micro organisms include some of the most complex eucaryotic cells known, and they are able to swim, mate, hunt and devour food. Other types of eukaryotic cells, derived from a fertilized egg, cooperate to form large, complex multicellular organisms composed of thousands of billions of cells.

The cell is the structural and functional unit of all known living organisms, but the smallest particle of an element that still retains its distinctive chemical properties is an atom. Each atom has as center a positively charged nucleus, which is surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The nucleus consists of two kinds of particles:

The number of protons present in an atomic nucleus determines its atomic number. Because the whole atom is electrically neutral, the number of negatively charged electron surrounding the nucleus is equal to the number of positively charged protons that the nucleus contains. Isotopes of an element have nuclei with the same number of protons (the same atomic number) but different numbers of neutrons.

The atomic weight of an atom, or the molecular weight of a molecule, is its mass relative to that of a hydrogen atom. The mass of an atom or a molecule is often specified in daltons. If a substance has a molecular weight of M, a mass of M grams of the substance will contain 6 x 10^23 molecules. This quantity is called one mole of the substance. The concept of mole is used widely in chemistry as a way to represent the number of molecules that are available to participate in chemical reactions. There are 92 naturally occurring elements, each differing from the others in the number of protons and electrons in its atoms. Living organisms are made of only a small selection of these elements.

The outermost electrons determine how atoms interact. The number and arrangement of its electrons determine the chemical properties of an atom. An atom is most stable when all of its electrons are at their lowest possible energy level and when each electron shell is completely filled. The number of electrons an atom must acquire of lose to attain a filled outer shell is known as its valence. Chemical bonds form between atoms as electrons move to reach a more stable arrangement. Clusters of two or more atoms held together by covalent bonds are known as molecules. There are two ways to create chemical bonds:

Substances that release protons when they dissolve in water and thus forming H3O+, are termed acids. The higher the concentration of H3O+, the more acidic the solution. The opposite of an acid is a base; any molecule capable of accepting a proton is called a base or alkaline. The concentration of H3O+ is expressed using the pH scale.

Fatty acids: also important for energy storage, but their most essential functions is in the formation of cell membranes. There are two kinds of fatty acids saturated and non-saturated. The first has no double bounds between its carbon atoms and contains the maximum possible numbers of hydrogens. The non-saturated fatty acids have tails with one or more double bounds. These double bounds create kinks in the molecules, interfering with their ability to pack together in a solid mass. How tightly the fatty acids, found in cell membranes, pack affects the fluidity of the membrane.

3a8082e126