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So Simple a Beginning

Science and Nature

Audio only

So Simple a Beginning

How Four Physical Principles Shape Our Living WorldBy Raghuveer ParthasarathyNarrated by Anand Jagatia

So Simple a Beginning

Length9h 25m

About this audiobook

This audiobook narrated by Anand Jagatia 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. This sweeping tour of biophysics offers astonishing new perspectives on how the wonders of life can arise from so simple a beginning.

Audiobook details

GenreScience and Nature

Length9 hrs 25 mins

Narrated byAnand Jagatia

FormatAudiobook

Publish dateFeb 8, 2022

LanguageEnglish

Table of contents

1Opening Anno, Introduction

10Chapter 9 - The Ecosystem Inside You

2Part 1, The Ingredients of Life, Chapter 1 - DNA: A Code and a Cord

11Chapter 10 - A Sense of Scale

3Chapter 2 - Proteins: Molecular Origami

12Chapter 11 - Life at the Surface

4Chapter 3 - Genes and the Mechanics of DNA

13Chapter 12 - Mysteries of Size and Shape

5Chapter 4 - The Choreography of Genes

14Part 3, Organisms by Design, Chapter 13 - How We Read DNA

Show all chaptersShow less

6Chapter 5 - Membranes: A Liquid Skin

15Chapter 14 - Genetic Combinations

7Chapter 6 - Predictable Randomness

16Chapter 15 - How We Write DNA

8Part 2, Living Large, Chapter 7 - Assembling Embryos

17Chapter 16 - Designing the Future, Closing Anno

9Chapter 8 - Organs by Design

About the author

Raghuveer Parthasarathy

View all by Raghuveer Parthasarathy

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