Table of contents : FOREWORD......Page 6 PREFACE......Page 10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......Page 12 COPYRIGHT PERMISSION FOR FIGURES......Page 13 Contents......Page 14 1. INTRODUCTION......Page 18 2. WHAT IS LIFE?......Page 24 3. THE NUCLEIC ACIDS DNA AND RNA......Page 28 4. PROTEINS -THE MOLECULES OF LIFE......Page 42 5. PINNING DOWN THE CODE......Page 48 6. DESCRIPTION OF THE GENETIC TRIPLET CODE......Page 56 7. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENETIC CODE......Page 62 8. A PHYSICAL APPROACH TO GENETIC ORIGINS......Page 68 8.1 Codon Bias in Viral Genes - A Thermodynamic Theory......Page 69 8.2 Cluster Analysis in Codon Space......Page 73 8.3 The Tetrahedral Representation of Codon Space......Page 79 9. REDUCTIONISM VERSUS HOLISM......Page 88 10. CULTURAL AND MATERIAL IMPACTS OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY......Page 94 GLOSSARY......Page 104 APPENDIX A. PEPTIDE BONDS AND PROTEIN STRUCTURE......Page 118 APPENDIX B. PROCEDURE FOR INTRODUCING A METRIC FREE DISTRIBUTION OF POINTS IN CODON SPACE......Page 122 APPENDIX C. FUN WITH TETRAHEDRA......Page 124 APPENDIX D. GENETIC ENGINEERING......Page 126 REFERENCES......Page 130 INDEX......Page 136