Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5th Edition

This is going to be a review of the Kindle version, and specifically the Kindle version on an (original) iPad.As to the book itself, this is the best textbook I've ever seen and is just a must-possess item for anyone with the slightest interest in biology.And, wonder of wonders, the Kindle version turns out to be a MUST HAVE even at the price.The print version of MBotC comes in two editions, the regular version and the Reference Edition which includes an extra five printed chapters (they're available as free PDF downloads if you only have the regular edition). The description of the Kindle version suggests that it only contains the 1392 pages of the regular edition, which would be incredibly annoying because why should you have to separately download five PDFs as a supplement to an already electronic book?But it turns out that the Kindle version DOES include the full 1600 pages of the Reference Edition with all 25 chapters! The cover graphic lacks the "Reference Edition" text, but all the pages are there, and the page numbers match up exactly with the printed Reference Edition. So immediately the price starts to look a lot better when you compare it to the Reference Edition.But it gets better.The book looks gorgeous! It looks *exactly* like the printed book, and a full screen page on an iPad is very readable even though it's a couple inches (diagonally) smaller than the actual book. One of my worries was whether it could look anything like as sharp and readable as the real book. Well, it looks *perfect*! In fact, most of the illustrations are actually vector-based, and remain perfectly sharp as you zoom in. This also means that the book will probably look INCREDIBLE on a retina-display iPad as the text and most graphics will be able to render at the higher resolution I would expect. Even the raster-based illustrations are included at a very high DPI such that they too look as sharp as in the printed edition.What more could you want? Well, the book is fully searchable which adds tremendous value over the dead-tree version. Also of course it weighs nothing compared to something like nine pounds for the printed Reference Edition.This is a book that justifies buying an iPad or Kindle Fire just on its own.One of the best (not to mention heaviest) books ever becomes the best Kindle book ever.NOTE! that you MUST have an iPad, Kindle Fire, or PC/Mac to view this book, you cannot even install it on a regular (eInk) Kindle because you need a big color screen to view it on.G.

I am currently studying bioinformatics at Stanford University, and I purchased this book to be my reference guide on all matters regarding cellular biology.I originally purchased the kindle edition, but returned it in favor of a printed copy. The kindle edition, while complete in content, was difficult to read on my ipad mini. Other kindle books I’ve read allowed me to adjust the font size, which changed the pagination of the book. Unfortunately with this title, the pages are fixed and font size can’t be changed. If I had a full size ipad I might have chosen differently.The book is a hefty beast, with over 1200 pages of detailed descriptions with full color diagrams on every single page. The material is complete and very well explained. I certainly do not consider myself an expert in molecular biology, and found the text easy to read and understand.The book includes a DVD which has an extensive library of animations and short videos. Complicated processes such as transcription and translation are clearly explained in these videos, and watching them helped me fill in a number of concepts I did not get from the text.I have not read the book cover to cover, nor do I plan to. I’ve chosen the topics I want to read and I am skipping around in the book. I’m finding that the topics are so well covered, that one can do this without being too confused.With most text books, I cringe as I plop down my money on a title I will only use for a few months. In this case, I expect to be getting value out of this book for years to come as I continue my studies.

[Reviewing 5th Edition, Chapters 1-7] I'm a Ph.D. computer scientist working on an NIH grant in text mining biomedical literature, so I thought I should bone up on the underlying science. The first seven chapters of this book are just what I needed. The first overview chapter is an excellent standalone introduction to the cell and genomics/proteomics and their ilk. After a two-chapter very comprehensible introduction to biochemistry (strong emphasis on thermodynamics/energy and bonding/structure) and protein structures, the next chapters lay out the entire process from DNA to protein, including expression control.It's slow reading (it takes me an hour or more to read 10 pages), but very clearly written, and very thorough. The diagrams and accompanying text are amazingly clear and helpful. (There are also animations, but I've never looked at the DVD.) The diagrams and their long captions are often supplementary in that they add details that are not in the body of the text.I had read the same sections of the 4th Edition a few years ago. The 5th edition adds substantial new material starting with the chapter on proteins. Ironically, the 5th edition is more speculative, because the more we find out about gene expression, the further away full understanding seems to be. The book does a nice job of balancing what's known fairly certainly with speculative guesses about things like chromatin structure.This time, I think I'll keep going. The sections of the rest of the book I've browsed when they've been cross-referenced are also excellent.