Books
- Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell (2009) ISBN 0-300-14173-4, ISBN 978-0-300-14173-3
In this book Bray offers imaginative, wide-ranging and perceptive critiques of robotics and complexity theory, as well as many amusing and telling anecdotes. The book taps into the findings of the new discipline of systems biology to show that the internal chemistry of living cells is a form of computation, although that sounds consuming it is written very clearly and understandably. How does a single-cell creature, such as an amoeba, lead such a sophisticated life? How does it hunt living prey, respond to lights, sounds, and smells, and display complex sequences of movements without the benefit of a nervous system? Bray proposes a startling and original answer. Cells are built out of molecular circuits that perform logical operations, as electronic devices do, but with unique properties. Bray argues that the computational juice of cells provides the basis of all the distinctive properties of living systems: it allows organisms to embody in their internal structure an image of the world, and this accounts for their adaptability, responsiveness, and intelligence.
- Essential Cell Biology (2003) (with Bruce Alberts, Karen Hopkin, Alexander Jonhson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, Peter Walter) ISBN 0-8153-3480-X, ISBN 978-0-8153-3480-4
- Cell Movements: From Molecules to Motility (2000) ISBN 0-8153-3282-3, ISBN 978-0-8153-3282-4
- Essential Cell Biology: An Introduction to the Molecular Biology of the Cell (1997) (with Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, Peter Walter) ISBN 0-8153-2971-7, ISBN 978-0-8153-2971-8
- Molecular Biology of the Cell (1994) (with Bruce Alberts, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, James D. Watson) ISBN 0-8153-1927-4, ISBN 978-0-8153-1927-6
- Cell Movements (1992) ISBN 0-8153-0717-9, ISBN 978-0-8153-0717-4
- Molecular Biology of the Cell (1989) (with Bruce Alberts, Keith Roberts, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff) ISBN 0-8240-3695-6, ISBN 978-0-8240-3695-9
Read more about this topic: Dennis Bray
Famous quotes containing the word books:
“I alternate between reading cook books and reading diet books.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface, not concluded in the appendix. Even Virgil’s poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries. It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, proving that man is still man in the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)