50 Biology Ideas You Really Need to Know is your guide to the most fascinating and significant questions of biology - Are all evolutionary changes due to natural selection? Do we inherit behaviour? How can we regrow damaged body parts? Are all living things part of a super-organism? This book provides succinct answers to these questions - and many more - in 50 lucid and engaging essays.

From mass extinction to immunity, and from sociobiology to swarm behaviour, 50 Biology Ideas You Really Need to Know will open you eyes to the fundamental biological processes that are essential to all life on earth, beginning with innovations unique to animals - such as the development of muscles and importance of circulation - and moving through to genetics, cells, tissues and, finally, the nature of groups of organisms. Featuring short biographies of iconic biologists, explanatory diagrams and timelines showing discoveries within their historical context, this book will give you a complete overview of this fascinating subject.

Contents include: Evolution, Genes, Homeostasis, Endosymbiosis, Sex, Multicellularity, Nerves, Genetic Drift, Speciation, Convergent Evolution, Pollination, Mimicry, Laws of Inheritance, DNA, Alternative Splicing, Viruses, Epigenetics, Photosynthesis, Cancer, Differentiation, Regeneration, Morphogenesis, Memory, Sleep, Ageing, Consciousness and the Gaia Hypothesis.


About the Author:

Dr J.V. Chamary is a biologist and award-winning science journalist. He studied biology at Imperial College London and has a PhD in evolutionary genetics from the University of Bath. Keen to tell engaging stories about science, he switched from academia to journalism and spent five years at Focus, the BBC's popular science magazine, where he wrote articles on everything from gay genes and internet memes to the science of death and the origin of life.