What IS LIFE? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell

What IS LIFE? - The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell (生命とは何か？)
Erwin Schroedinger
ISBN 978-4004160809

I majored in elementary particle physics theory when I was a graduate student, and so in those days I worked on various kinds of Shroedinger's equations. Needless to say, Shroedinger is one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century as Landau awarded him as rank 1.

But, I didn't know that he left a monument in also biology especially in study on the definition of life and on the origin of life.

First of all, he defined a life as an entity which eats Negative Entropy.
This was a revolutionary new idea with deep insight and influenced bio science world greatly.
Second, he discussed the nature of genetic material and expressed that as "acyclic crystal" more than 10 years before Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA.

Really, amazing...

Survival of the Sickest

Survival of the Sickest
Dr. Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince
ISBN 978-4-14-0812256-3 (Japanese Translation)

There is not a small number of genetic diseases.
Here, if Darwin's evolutionary theory is correct, why they have survived the natural selection?
I think it would be a popular question for medical and biological scientists.

Moalem's book answers the question clearly, and he tells us various aspects of human history from a view point of evolution. Especially, the primary keywords are "an effect and a side effect."
In other word, evolution gives us new features successively, but as it's based on mutations, usually they are not designed with long term perspectives. That's the point.

So, IMHO, this book is interesting and worth reading.

BTW, the Japanese title "迷惑な進化" literally means "annoying evolution" or "troublesome evolution."
I love it. :)

Day 460 : Where is Mom?

Hahaha, her grandma seems to love the picture above. :)

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COLLAPSE -- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed --
Jared Diamond
ISBN 4-7492-1464-2 (Japanese translation, book1)
ISBN 4-7492-1465-0(Japanese translation, book2)

Jared Diamond, author of this book has various titles, evolutionary biologist, biogiographer, nonfiction author and so on. In this book, he describes the reasons why various societies failed or succeeded to survive.

I didn't know that now history of Easter Island is well understood, and also secret of its famous giant statues, moai, was revealed. When I was a child, I read that moais were built by ancient Atlantis people. Yes, it was a dreaming story, but actually it was a problem of economy between humans and nature after all.

BTW, Japanese title and subtitle of this book is "文明崩壊 --滅亡と存続の命運を分けるもの--."