Customer Reviews

Essential Developmental Biology

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Are you studying and working in the area of developmental biology of animals? Then maybe this book is ok for you. Are you an undergraduate student in a Biology department that just wants to be introduced to the essentials of Developmental Biology? Then this book maybe is not for you!

I've got this book in order to be introduced in what we describe as developmental biology. My previous knowledge was mostly (but not least) on the areas of Cellular Biology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Genetics, Microbiology, Chemistry, Botany, Human Physiology and other scientific areas that an undergraduate student is being exposed to. There was a subject about Essentials of Developmental Biology in my Biology Department. BUT: This book was so hard to give me an introductive knowledge on the subject.
1.There's not a reasonable flux in what you read. (You start reading the first chapters, don't understand many things and you finally find out something about them in the final chapters.)
2.The pictures are very few. (You read the text, wondering how all these things that are described on the text would look like but there not a pic for lots of them! The only help is your imagination.)
3.TOTAL lack of 3d-pictures. (I think it's impossible to discuss about cells that start from a zygote and finishing into an organism without having 3d-pictures! All the pictures are totally flat.)

In an nutshell. Maybe this book is not intented to be an introduction to Developmental Biology. Maybe it's a good book for somebody that has already knoweledge on this particular subject. But I think that it's not suited for an undergraduate Biology student that wants to be introduced to the subject.

excellent quality, however shipping was kind of a bummer since there was no tracking information and i couldn't speed up the process. it gave me a three week period of when it should arrive, and it arrived in the last week.

Are you studying and working in the area of developmental biology of animals? If you are, this book is for you! Author J. M. W. Slack, has written an outstanding 2nd edition of a book about basic ideas and facts of modern developmental biology of animals.

Slack, begins with an overview of modern biological research and how the mechanisms of development are very simple for animals, including humans. Then, he explains how the structure of organisms changes over time. The author continues by discussing how all of the genes in the genome have functions that are specifically concerned with development. In addition, he also discusses why it was the experimental embryologists who gave most thought to mechanism. The author also considers a further set of techniques that are derived from cell and molecular biology, but that have particular relevance to the study of development. Then, the author focuses on a very small number of animal species which are often described as model organisms. Next, he explores the experimental production of Xenopus. Then, the author focuses on the zebrafish-specific features rather than repeating the description of the common features. Next, he reviews the visible course development of the chick, and how it is superficially very different from the lower vertebrates and is much closer to the mammalian type. The author continues by describing how the developmental biology of the mouse has depended to a much greater extent on genetic manipulation. He also discusses why the first organism whose development was understood in molecular detail was the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In addition, he also discusses Caenorhabditis elegans, which is a small, free-living soil nematode and has been used for developmental biology research since the 1960s. Next, he deals with the chief tissue types found in the vertebrate body with special attention to their cellular renewal. Then, the author explores the enormous overall complexity of the vertebrate nervous system. Next, he discusses why the invertebrate mesoderm does not show the same regional subdivision as vertebrate mesoderm. The author continues by describing how the endoderm is the innermost of the three germ layers formed during gastrulation. He also discusses the metamorphosis of Drosophila imaginal discs. In addition, he explores the overall growth, aging and the development of cancer in cells. Next, the author discusses the ability to regrow missing body parts. Finally, the author discusses the interface between developmental biology and evolutionary biology.

Special attention has been given to keeping this most excellent book compact and concise. New findings in the evolving fields of stem cells, regeneration, and aging should make this book attractive to a wide range of readership.