杏吧原创

鈥淭o truly understand life, we must understand spatial and temporal relationships between molecules that make up the cell, and how these molecules are coordinated. [Antoine] Danchin persuades us that if we can reach this level of understanding of genomes, we will be able to resolve the major biological puzzle of the 21st century: the enigma of the living machine that creates the living machine,鈥� promises Harvard University Press. Danchin is at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and his The Delphic Boat (Harvard, February) tackles the big question: 鈥淲hat is life?鈥� Biologist Marcello Barbieri looks at a multiplicity of organic codes in his 鈥渟emantic biology鈥� 鈥� the grammar of life 鈥� in The Organic Codes (Cambridge University Press, January). And Jo茫o Magueijo of Imperial College, London, challenges the givens of theoretical physics in Faster Than The Speed of Light (Perseus/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, January).