Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life

Sample

Robert Verpoorte, A. W. Alfermann

Plant secondary metabolism is an economically important source of fine chemicals, such as drugs, insecticides, dyes, flavours, and fragrances. Moreover, important traits of plants such as taste, flavour, smell, colour, or resistance against pests and diseases are also related to secondary metabolites. The genetic modification of plants is feasible nowadays. What does the possibility of engineering plant secondary metabolite pathways mean? In this book, firstly a general introduction is given on plant secondary metabolism, followed by an overview of the possible approaches that could be used to alter secondary metabolite pathways. In a series of chapters from various authorities in the field, an overview is given of the state of the art for important groups of secondary metabolites. No books have been published on this topic so far. This book will thus be a unique source of information for all those involved with plants as chemical factories of fine chemicals and those involved with the quality of food and ornamental plants. It will be useful in teaching graduate courses in the field of metabolic engineering in plants.

Sample

Hermann J. Heege

High yields and environmental control in crop farming call for precise adaptations to local growing conditions. Treating large fields in a uniform way by high capacity machinery cannot be regarded as a sustainable method for many situations. Because differences existing within single fields must be considered. The transition from former field work carried out manually or by small implements to present day high capacity machinery caused that the farmers lost the immediate and close contact with soils and crops. However, modern sensing and controlling technology can make up for this deficit. High tech methods that include proximal sensing and signals from satellites can provide for controls that allow adjusting farming operations to small fractions of one ha and sometimes even down to some m2, hence in a site-specific mode. This applies to operations for soil cultivation, sowing, fertilizing and plant protection. This book deals with concepts, applications and results, and has an interdisciplinary approach that pervades all chapters.

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Reinhard Schweitzer-Stenner

"This book provides an overview on what researchers have learned about unfolded peptides and how this knowledge facilitates the understanding of (a) the folding process, (b) the binding of ligands to receptor molecules, and (c) peptide self-aggregation. In this context, different experimental, theoretical, and computational concepts and approaches are introduced. This book can become a very useful addition for graduate-level courses on protein folding for the education of undergraduate and graduate students in research groups, which are exploring peptide self-aggregation for biomedical and biotechnological purposes"--

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John Ross

This work deals with the formulation of the thermodynamics of chemical and other systems far from equilibrium, including connections to fluctuations. It contains applications to non-equilibrium stationary states and approaches to such states, systems with multiple stationary states, reaction diffusion systems, and more.--