Seeking Symmetry : Finding Patterns in Human Health.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Galloway, Niall.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Health.

Symmetry (Biology).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (200 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London : Handspring Publishing Limited, 2018.

Summary:

Seeking Symmetry: Finding patterns in human health offers a guide through the overwhelming mass of data generated by contemporary science. Starved for the knowledge that would best help us stay healthy, we are simultaneously glutted with an overload of information about the human body. Amidst ubiquitous talk that patient-centered care and lifestyle changes are the keys to personal health, self-neglect and medical overtreatment nevertheless prevail.The body is rich with symmetries, many of them unknown to us who live in these bodies. Symmetry-seeking reveals certain patterns for understanding the information we have about the body, patterns whose roots lie in embryonic development and in evolution.The book's exploration will guide readers through the parts of their own bodies and introduce tangible, visible examples of symmetry, not only right and left but up and down, male and female, inside and out, as well as symmetries between humans and other species.It presents the symmetries of the body's internal structures that, despite their complexity, are nevertheless simple to understand when viewed with an eye for pattern.Through both words and images, this book will illustrate the most foundational of the principles, structures, and processes that decide how bodies function.A core purpose of the book is to present this knowledge through a lens that makes the information meaningful, by modeling the habit of symmetry-seeking.

Contents:

Cover

Title

Copyright

Contents

Dedication

Foreword by Stephen Levin

Foreword by John Sharkey

Introduction

Chapter 1: Human architecture

Chapter 2: Heads over tails: looking for patterns

Chapter 3: Not just parts: look at the whole body

Chapter 4: Hormones: the common currency across species

Chapter 5: Symmetry reveals shared targets and drug actions

Chapter 6: Fueling the fire: downstream drift

Chapter 7: Animal farming and disease

Chapter 8: Diseases of food: looking beyond medicine, to causes

Chapter 9: Using our brains

Chapter 10: Confluence over conflict

Chapter 11: Conclusion: using the symmetry-seeking toolkit

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781912085125

1912085127

OCLC:

1154005724