(Part 2) Top products from r/biology

You can always check out textbooks, my vertebrate zoology textbook was fun

Veterinary textbooks are a good way to learn about anatomy

If you haven't already done so Darwin's Origin is a must read. While not directly zoology, its helpful in understanding the theory of evolution, a cornerstone of biology and a HUGE component of zoology (90% of my zoology class was evolution based). The prose can be dense so I'd recommend an annotated version (my old professor wrote a good one https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Origin-Facsimile-First-Species/dp/0674032810)

As a heads up, zoology is an incredibly vast field, that's like saying I'm a doctor, what kind of doctor? GP? Cardiologist? ENT? You know what field you want which is great! But you may want to look into what you want to do from the field.

Best of luck!

Take lots of classes and keep learning. When I was in high school, things like ecology and wildlife biology were appealing to me because I understood what plants, animals, and ecosystems were, but I had no idea what a ribosome or a micro-RNA really were. I found that the more I learned about molecular and cell biology, the more fascinated I became by these tiny little machines that power every living thing. I started taking neuroscience classes because brains are cool; I ended up getting a PhD in neuroscience with a very cellular/molecular focus to my research (my whole dissertation was on one gene/protein that can cause a rare human genetic disorder).

Get some experience working in a lab. Until you've spent time in that environment it's hard to know whether you'll like it. And as others have mentioned, population biology and evolutionary genetics can combine some aspects of field work and molecular lab work, so those might be areas to investigate.

Want some books? Try The Beak of the Finch and Time, Love, Memory. The first is focused on experimental validation of evolutionary theory (involving lots of field work), the second is about the history of behavioral genetics in fruit flies. Both were assigned or suggested reading in my college biology classes.

Good luck, and stay curious!

This isn't exactly what you're looking for (it has much more to do with pollination and fertilization than it does germination), but the hammer orchid has a structure that looks like a certain insect. The orchid has evolved a part (the labellum) to look uncannily similar to the female Thynnid wasp (at least to the males). When the male Thynnid wasp tries to copulate with the labellum, the orchid swings the two backward, smashing the wasp against pollen packets, which stick to it. The wasp then flies away and is tricked again by a second orchid. This time, however, the pollen from the first flower enters the stigma of the second and fertilizes it.

I'm just a high school student, so professionals out there please correct me if I'm wrong. I apologize profusely for any errors or misconceptions.

1. Here is the Wikipedia page where I got most of my information.
   
   
2. Here is a Youtube video demonstrating the orchid/wasp interaction and offering some more details.
   
   
3. And here is a link to Richard Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth which devotes a good amount of time to discussing how the hammer orchid evolved and is also a very good book about evolution itself.
   
   Hope this helps!
   
   

I'll stick to recommending science communication books (those that don't require a deep background on biological concepts):

• On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection - Charles Darwin, bonus points if you can get a 1st edition reprint (before his colleagues made him change a lot of important things); it is a must-read but it might need quite some time to truly understand it, it is a heavy read.
  
  
• A lot of people recommend the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins but that one is one of his most controversial books and if you decide to read it, you should take everything with a pinch of salt; for Dawkins I prefer to recommend the Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution and the Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. Just beware of Dawkins, he's a little dogmatic in his approach.
  
  
• The Dialectical Biologist - Richard Levins & Richard Lewontin.
  
  
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn, this one will change forever your conception of science as a whole.
  
  
• The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley.
  
  
• Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, and the Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History - Stephen J. Gould.
  
  
• The Ghosts of Evolution: Non-sensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms - Connie Barlow.
  
  
• Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? - Frans de Waal, this one is about animal cognition but has an incredible underline of all the deficiencies and prejudges on science.
  
  
• Microbe Hunters - Paul de Kruif.
  
  
• Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution, and What is Life? - Lynn Margulis.
  
  
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan.
  
  
• A Short Story of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson.
  
  ---
  
  For books that everyone studying biology ends up reading, my candidate would be Lehninger's Principles of Biochemistry, by Nelson & Cox but that's a textbook.

Hey H0RSED1K it's good to hear that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I just want to graduate as soon as possible - I'd rather spend 40 hours a week working and getting paid, then 80 hours a week studying and paying for it.

One text we used in one of my classes was great, it is Molecular Biology of the Cell
I would love to read this entire text over an 8 month period or so, and complete the problems book

I feel that this would solidify my basic knowledge in biology.
Following this I would be able to target specific areas of interest.

I'm having errors accessing my Amazon wish list, but some of the books I can remember are as follows:

• Introduction to Biological Physics for the Health and Life Sciences
  
  
• Lab Ref, Volume 1: A Handbook of Recipes, Reagents, and Other Reference Tools for Use at the Bench
  
  
• Power, Sex, Suicide
  
  
• Short Protocols in Molecular Biology
  
  Also, you can consult some of the free courses online (MIT's OCW, Coursera.org, iTunes U, Open.edu) and once you obtain the syllabus you can review the material at your leisure. There are also sites like BenchFly.com, Jove.com that have videos of lab techniques and experiments. I presently don't have the time to review these in detail, so they are on my post-graduation queue.
  
  If you want to do this right, you'll probably have to hire a tutor to answer questions you might have.

You should certainly start at Foundations of Ecology to figure out what direction you want to go. From there, just start reading journal articles in the area, starting with the earliest. This probably means digging around in the compressed stacks of your university's library, but as a PhD, you should be doing this anyway. For non-article based literature, yeah Silent Spring and A Sand County Almanac are good. I have heard A Primer of Ecology is good but I have not read it. If you are interested in plants, I would look up David Tilman and read any of his books.

Schrödinger's book has been reccomended to me as has [On Growth and Form by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson] (http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Form-Complete-Revised-Biology/dp/0486671356).

The original was in like the early 1900s but updated versions should be fine. On Growth and Form is more for those wondering about mathematics in biology though.

I'm not too clear on what angle you want, but often you'll find that Bio texts are woefully out of date in many areas if you are looking at something in particular.

The Cell is also a good book (and free as an electronic resource at many universities).

I personally find Brock Biology of Microorganisms to be quite useful. It not only functions as a microbiology text book, but has a very in depth section to the identification of microorganisms.

http://www.amazon.com/Brock-Biology-Microorganisms-Michael-Madigan/dp/0130819220

I'm sure a free pdf copy of it exists somewhere.

Hello there!

You can pick up an older copy of the Raven/Johnson Biology book used from Amazon pretty cheaply: http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Peter-Raven/dp/0077350022/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404482342&sr=8-2&keywords=raven+johnson+biology

Same goes for the Campbell/Reece: http://www.amazon.com/Biology-8th-Edition-Neil-Campbell/dp/0805368442/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404482401&sr=8-2&keywords=campbell+reece+biology

Hope this helps!

Does she like to read? There's lots of really good everyday reading genetics books, like this or this for example.

The Song of the Dodo

Great book. Easy read.

I enjoyed One River [amazon] quite a bit. I would give it a shot if you're in any way interested in plants. Plus a little anthropology never hurt anyone.

Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer. E. coli has played a huge role in how we understand life at the molecular level. This book is written for beginners and non-scientists so its pretty palatable for people not in the field.
http://www.amazon.com/Microcosm-Coli-New-Science-Life/dp/0307276864

What, no Origin? I'd recommend this one complete with lots of additional information in the margins.
Good collection, though. Looks like you're another used-bookstore-scourer. :D

For the basics, I still think this is one of the best.

https://www.amazon.com/Biological-Sequence-Analysis-Probabilistic-Proteins/dp/0521629713

"Time, Love, Memory" by Jonathan Weiner

I love this book.

If you prefer something in print, I highly recommend Campbell's Biology. You can get a used copy for less than $10.

It's readable, engaging, and accurate. It was my AP Bio textbook in high school, and then I bought myself a copy after graduating from college with a biology degree.

Microcosm is an awesome book:
http://www.amazon.com/Microcosm-Coli-Science-Vintage/dp/0307276864

If you are determined to read it, I suggest reading the original and not any of the "abridged" editions. Also, the first edition should be your go-to, as latter editions have a lot of rebuttals to various criticism of the work.

Having read it myself, I can recommend that you read this annotated version "The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species" (https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Origin-Facsimile-First-Species/dp/0674032810)

For anybody who (like me) would like to see more of this... Many of these illustrations are part of a book, The Machinery of Life, by Goodsell. The price seems unbelievable -- I'll be ordering one myself ASAP.

The book mentioned in the video clip: Ghost of Evolution is well worth reading even if you don't choose this for your assignment.

A much better version is The Annotated Origin by Jim Costa

I used this in undergrad. It is written with good analogies to understand. really helped me get the basics understood before we hit the hard stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Immune-System-Works/dp/1118997778/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Z9VDHP039MNBTYW09AAR

I liked Brock Biology of Microorganisms a lot.

The biggest problem I had with raw memorization was not understanding what the words meant. This book helped me a lot. Helps build a nice basic understanding of everything you'll ever have to learn. There are, cough, plenty of PDF's available online, cough cough.

Biological Statistics

Helps for understanding stats in relation to predation, competition, etc.

Courses:

Take population genetics and computational biology. Population genetics focuses on dynamics of allele frequencies in different populations. Computational biology is anything from simulating networks of biochemical reactions to identifying patterns in DNA using hidden markov models.


Books:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Systems-Biology-Mathematical-Computational/dp/1584886420/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299531700&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Biological-Sequence-Analysis-Probabilistic-Proteins/dp/0521629713/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299531747&sr=1-1

How the Immune System Works (The How it Works Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118997778/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_onAaCb87NG48E

I purchased this multiple times, it is very concise and readable. It's also up to date in a field that is constantly changing.

Here is your chance: http://www.amazon.com/The-Machinery-Life-David-Goodsell/dp/0387849246

The actual title is a little longer, here it is on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Dynamics-Exploring-Equations-Life/dp/0674023382

Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms https://www.amazon.com/dp/0874840538/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_NI79Bb2P63MWW

https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Form-Complete-Revised/dp/0486671356 Maybe?

Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers?

Geometry of Art and Life

The Curves of Life

(ps "throes" unless the crockery is suffering...)

Song of the Dodo a book about island biogeography. Once you can understand that... you know whats up.

You might check these out (my university library had them):

http://www.amazon.com/Lab-Ref-Volume-Reference-Handbooks/dp/0879696303/ref=pd_sim_b_4

http://www.amazon.com/Lab-Ref-Volume-Handbook-Reference/dp/0879698152/ref=pd_cp_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/At-Bench-Laboratory-Navigator-Updated/dp/0879697083/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Bench-Step-Step-Biologists/dp/0879698578/ref=pd_sim_b_3

Botany of Desire
One River
Silent Spring
Basin and Range or most anything by John McPhee
Cadillac Desert

There's a book you should read called "The Epigenetics Revolution" that answers all those questions and many others.
http://amzn.com/0231161174

http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Dynamics-Exploring-Equations-Life/dp/0674023382

That'll answer all your questions about predictive models. All systems can be described by math, though chaotic systems--like, you know, life--are a lot harder to do that with. We can barely predict the weather.

For more math in biology, look at most papers by the theorists like Hamilton. Or maybe anything that has to do with bioinformatics.

Now that I think of it, the simplest and most concrete examples of prediction come from genetics. Make a quick Punnett square and you'll see.