Biomedical Electron Microscopy: Illustrated Methods and Interpretations; by D. Maunsbach, B. Afzelius (Eds.). San Diego: Academic Press, ISBN 0-12-480610-4
✍ Scribed by A.D Ansselin
- Book ID
- 104369192
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 21 KB
- Volume
- 30
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0968-4328
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
to show that reconstructions made on a reasonable basis from adult anatomical data do provide an anatomical substratum for physiological events". Well, that is nice to know. Another chapter on "Dynamical analysis of heartbeat interval time series after cardiac transplanatation" reports results in keeping with the idea that chaotic behaviour is evidence of a healthy physiological system-and provides just about the only biological enlightenment of the section.
The second section-Chromatin structure, DNA organisation and nuclear membranes (pp. 189-266)-promises more of biological interest, but also (sorry to be a killjoy) turns out to be mainly maths. In some contributions, biological interest is largely removed by simplifications necessary for the maths. In others the maths works, but turns out to be a rather complicated way to do something that eyes and brains do just as well for practical purposes.
So on to the last section-Fractal structures in tumours and diseases (pp. 267-364). There are interesting contributions on complexity in tumour growth patterns and the geometry of the renal arterial tree. There is a maths paper and there are several papers on biological topics which again emphasise that using maths indiscriminately in biology can simply be a tricky way to imperfectly duplicate what eyes and brains do well on their own. Do not get me wrong, I like maths and I enjoyed reading some of the mathematical contributions. But it is a common mistake to assume that mathematics is necessarily enlightening wherever it is applied. The implication of this book's title is that fractal analysis will lead to new understanding in biology. But the simple fact that fractals turn up everywhere in nature turns out not to be enough to guarantee that applying fractal maths to biological problems will lead to new insights. In fact, an awful lot of work over the last 15 years has given rise to precious few interesting leads from a biological point of view. Whatever the future may bring, this book could be regarded as a sort of tombstone inscribed to the effect that biology is more complicated than maths.