Cell Biology by the Numbers / Edition 1

by Ron Milo, Rob Phillips

Overview

A Top 25 CHOICE 2016 Title, and recipient of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (OAT) Award.

How much energy is released in ATP hydrolysis? How many mRNAs are in a cell? How genetically similar are two random people? What is faster, transcription or translation?

Cell Biology by the Numbers explores these questions—and dozens of others—providing a richly illustrated and handy reference for students and researchers in molecular and cell biology, chemistry, and biophysics.

The book features question-driven vignettes and "back of the envelope" calculations that investigate some of the key numbers in cell biology. Readers will learn about the sizes, concentrations, rates, energies, and other numbers that describe and drive the living world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815345374
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/07/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	711,589
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Ron Milo, Rob Phillips

Table of Contents

The Path to Biological Numeracy

1. Size and Geometry

2. Concentrations and Absolute Numbers

3. Energies and Forces

4. Rates and Duration

5. Information & Errors

6. A Quantitative Miscellany

Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

"This unique book is all about numerical thinking in (cell) biology. In about 100 vignettes, each a few pages long, the authors address all kinds of questions from a quantitative perspective.Overall, this is an interesting and highly useful volume, which should sit on the shelf of anyone working in cell biology and related fields, as well as anyone who is just curious about (cell) biology from a quantitative perspective."
Andreas Handel, Epidemiology & Biostatistics,University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, Volume 92, Number 4 (December 2017) of The Quarterly Review of Biology

From the Publisher

Reviewer: Balbina Plotkin, Ph.D., M.Ed.(Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine)
Description: This innovative book on cell biology is unique in the way it collects in one place facts typically scattered throughout multiple books. It is referenced throughout to a website, developed by one of the coauthors, which provides additional information and importantly is annotated with both the date the information was added and last updated. This information gives readers a starting date for additional research. That said, the likelihood that additional research will be required is low since the "numbers" in this book represent the fundamental facts that, at least in theory, are carved in stone.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide a "one stop shop" for those factoids that we all need at some point. There is nothing so frustrating or time consuming as looking for basic information, such as cell volume or cell surface size, for receptor calculations. The advantage of this book is that the descriptive chapter titles provide good direction and the web links lead to the reference typically required.
Audience: This is user friendly enough for beginning students, from high school to graduate school, and would be an important addition to the bookshelves of faculty. The inclusion of some formulas indicating how the information was acquired could also be useful for even younger readers, because who doesn't want to know how many cells are in the body?
Features: This book is the soup to nuts of basic information needed to be a functional biologist. Information about cell composition coupled with the practicalities makes it particularly complete. Not only does it provide basic information about the requirements for cell nutrition and medium, it also frankly states the amount of air volume needed for liquid culture of aerobic microorganisms, which is particularly helpful. The book will be useful as assigned reading for beginning student researchers, providing as it does the practical information required to be successful at the bench, as well as helping them understand how things work. For example, the explanation of how many virions it takes to burst a cell is informative and presented in a manner that makes it easy to understand. The beautiful and directly accessible illustrations support the text and are an important adjunct, particularly in areas where a simple equation may be difficult to understand. These illustrations are of particular importance for novices in the field of cell biology.
Assessment: This is a high quality book that will have broad appeal. Students will use it to learn the facts and the physics behind the paradigms, while seasoned scientists will use it as a quick reference to the facts needed for their calculations. An additional audience could be casual readers who wish to know how the biological world works. The direct, no-nonsense writing makes it an enjoyable, quick read.

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