Evolutionary Bioinformatics [Paperback]

Books on bioinformatics which began appearing in the mid 80s primarily served gene-hunters, and biologists who wished to construct family trees showing tidy lines of descent. Given the great pharmaceutical industry interest in genes, this trend has continued in most subsequent texts. These deal extensively with the exciting topic of gene discovery and searching databases, but hardly consider genomes as information channels through which multiple forms and levels of information, including genic information, have passed through the generations.

Where most books on bioinformatics still serve gene-hunting biologists, this revised second edition takes a different approach that eschews tidy family trees in favor of non-genic areas of bioinformatics, such as exploring genomes as information channels.

Prologue.- Part 1: Information and DNA.- Memory - A Phenomenon of Arrangement.- Chargaffs First Parity Rule.- Information Levels and Barriers.- Part 2: Parity and Non-parity.- Chargaffs Second Parity Rule.- Stems and Loops.- Chargaffs Cluster Rule.- Part 3: Variation and Speciation.- Mutation.- Species Survival and Arrival.- The Weak Point.- Chargaffs GC Rule.- Homostability.- Part 4: Conflict within Genomes.- Conflict Resolution.- Exons and Introns.- Complexity.- Part 5: Conflict between Genomes.- Self/Not-self?.- The Crowded Cytosol.- Part 6: Sex and Error-correction.- Rebooting the Genome.- The Fifth Letter.- Part 7.- Information and Mind.- Memory - What to Arrange and Where?.- Appendix 1.- Appendix 2.- Appendix 3.- Index.Evolutionary Bioinformatics aims to make the new information-based (rather than gene-based) bioinformatics intelligible both to the bio people and the info people. Books on bioinformatics have traditionally served gene-hunters, and biologists who wish to construct family trees showing tidy lines of descent. While dealing extensively with the exciting topics of gene discovery and database-searching, such books have hardly consl#O