Product Description

Proteins are amazingly versatile molecules. They make the chemical reactions happen that form the basis for life, they transmit signals in the body, they identify and kill foreign invaders, they form the engines that make us move, and they record visual images. All of this is now common knowledge, but it was not so a hundred years ago. Nature's Robots is an authoritative history of protein science, from the origins of protein research in the nineteenth century, when the chemical constitution of 'protein' was first studied and heatedly debated and when there was as yet no glimmer of the functional potential of substances in the 'protein' category, to the determination of the first structures of individual proteins at atomic resolution - when positions of individual atoms were first specified exactly and bonding between neighbouring atoms precisely defined. Tanford and Reynolds, who themselves made major contributions to the golden age of protein science, have written a remarkably vivid account of this history. It is a fascinating story, involving heroes from the past, working mostly alone or in small groups, usually with little support from formal research groups. It is also a story that embraces a number of historically important scientific controversies. Written in clear and accessible prose, Nature's Robots will appeal to general readers with an interest in popular science, in addition to professional scientists and historians of science.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #713178 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-12
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .49 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Amazon.com
Proteins make it possible for us to digest food, to battle disease, to breathe, to move; they underlie life itself. Only in the last 200 years have scientists come to understand how these proteins, or "foremost things," work. How they did so is the subject of this welcome history of protein science.

It doesn't diminish our pleasure in such things to know that the aroma coming from a cooked ham is generated by the reaction of maltose and glutamic acid, while the heavenly scent of chocolate comes from the interaction of phenylalaine and sucrose. Tanford and Reynolds aren't exactly given to rhapsodizing, but they write appreciatively nonetheless of advances such as Franz Hofmeister's identification of the "peptide bond" that joins amino acids in proteins, John Kendrew's work in understanding the three-dimensional structure of myoglobin, and the efforts of modern researchers who, joining protein science to cell biology and genetics, are now working to solve the structures of more than 10,000 protein families.

General readers and students with an interest in the life sciences will find this well-written history to be of much use--and the best of its kind. --Gregory McNamee

Review
`Review from previous edition anyone interested in proteins will find Nature's Robots an absorbing and often exciting story, as well as a major contribution to scholarship.' Nature 17/01/02

From the Publisher
numerous halftones and line drawings