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  • Life Unfolding: How the human body creates itself

    Life Unfolding by Davies, Jamie A.;

    How the human body creates itself

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      • Publisher's listprice GBP 24.99
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        11 282 Ft (10 745 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 10% (cc. 1 128 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 10 154 Ft (9 671 Ft + 5% VAT)

    11 282 Ft

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    Product details:

    • Publisher OUP Oxford
    • Date of Publication 27 February 2014

    • ISBN 9780199673537
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages312 pages
    • Size 240x168x30 mm
    • Weight 634 g
    • Language English
    • Illustrations Approximately 86 black and white line illustrations
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    Short description:

    How can something as complex as a human body create itself from a single fertilized egg? Drawing on ideas from physics and network theory as well as genetics and embryology, Jamie Davies describes the fascinating picture emerging from the latest research, in which complexity builds up through 'adaptive self-organization'.

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    Long description:

    Where did I come from? Why do I have two arms but just one head? How is my left leg the same size as my right one? Why are the fingerprints of identical twins not identical? How did my brain learn to learn? Why must I die?

    Questions like these remain biology's deepest and most ancient challenges. They force us to confront a fundamental biological problem: how can something as large and complex as a human body organize itself from the simplicity of a fertilized egg? A convergence of ideas from embryology, genetics, physics, networks, and control theory has begun to provide real answers. Based on the central principle of 'adaptive self-organization', it explains how the interactions of many cells, and of the tiny molecular machines that run them, can organize tissue structures vastly larger than themselves, correcting errors as they go along and creating new layers of complexity where there were none before.

    Life Unfolding tells the story of human development from egg to adult, from this perspective, showing how our whole understanding of how we come to be has been transformed in recent years. Highlighting how embryological knowledge is being used to understand why bodies age and fail, Jamie A. Davies explores the profound and fascinating impacts of our newfound knowledge.

    an astonishingly lucid and captivating account of the strange construction processes that lead from a single cell to a fully formed body

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    Table of Contents:

    Acknowledgements
    Ethical Statement
    Introduction
    Confronting an alien technology
    From one cell to many
    Making a difference
    Laying down a body plan
    Beginning a brain
    Long division
    Fateful conversations
    Great migrations
    Plumbing
    Organizing organs
    Taking up arms
    The Y and how
    Wired
    Dying to be human
    Making your mind up
    A sense of proportion
    Making friends and facing enemies
    Maintenance mode
    Perspectives
    Glossary
    Further reading
    References

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