Author: Paul Engel
Narrator: Julian Elfer
Unabridged: 3 hr 45 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Published: 03/23/2021
Enzymes are the astonishing, tiny molecular machines that make life possible. Each one of these small proteins speeds up a single chemical reaction inside a living organism many millionfold. Working together, teams of enzymes carry out all the processes that collectively we recognize as life, from making DNA to digesting food. This Very Short Introduction explains the why and the how of speeding up these reactions—catalysis—before going on to reveal how we have evolved these catalysts of such extraordinary power and exquisite selectivity. Paul Engel shows how X-ray crystallography has revealed the complex molecular shapes that allow enzymes to function at an extraordinarily sophisticated level. He also examines medical aspects of enzymes, both in the way faulty enzymes cause disease and in the way enzymes can be used for diagnosis and therapy. Finally, he looks at the many varied ways in which individual enzymes, taken out of their biological context, are used nowadays as tools—in washing powders, food production, waste treatment, and chemical synthesis.
The aim of this guide is not to be your teacher. Think of it as a road map. A way to navigate the world of chemistry and enjoy the scenery as you do so. And believe me, there is a lot to see. Atoms, the periodic table, chemical equations, acids, the...
The periodic table of elements, first encountered by many of us at school, provides an arrangement of the chemical elements, ordered by their atomic number, electron configuration, and recurring chemical properties, and divided into periodic trends....
“A MASTERPIECE OF THRILLER AND MYSTERY. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this ...
ONE LAST STEP (A Tara Mills Mystery—Book One) is the debut novel in a new FBI mystery series by debut author Sarah Sutton.Two hikers go missing along the Appalachian Trail, leaving only a bloodstained forest behind them, and when another hiker...
Women are turning up dead in the rural outskirts of Virginia, killed in grotesque ways, and when the FBI is called in, they are stumped. A serial killer is out there, his frequency increasing, and they know there is only one agent good enough to cra...