Photobiology: The Science of Life and Light

About this book

Since publication of the first edition in 2002, there has been an explosion of new knowledge in the field of photobiology.

Photobiology: The Science of Life and Light, Second edition, is fully updated and offers eight new chapters for a comprehensive look at photobiology. The chapters cover all areas of photobiology, photochemistry, and relationship between light and biology, each with up-to-date references. The chapter authors (of which seven are new) have very different backgrounds, and have produced a truly cross-disciplinary treatise.

Photobiology: The Science of Life and Light starts with the physics and chemistry of light, and how to handle light in the laboratory and measure it in the field, the properties of daylight, and new uses of light in research. It deals with the evolution of photosynthesis and with the mechanisms of its primary steps. Four chapters deal with how organisms use light for their orientation in space and time: the biological clock and its resetting by light, the light-dependent magnetic compass, and photoperiodism in animals and plants. There are also several medically oriented chapters and two chapters specifically aimed at the photobiology educator.

Contents

- Preface
- The Nature of Light and its Interaction with Matter
- Principles and Nomenclature for the Quantification of Light
- Generation and Control of Light
- Measurement of Light
- Light as a Tool for Biologists: Recent Developments
- Terrestrial Daylight
- Underwater Light
- Action Spectroscopy in Biology
- Spectral Tuning in Biology
- The Photochemical Reactions in Biological Light Perception and Regulation
- The Diversity of Eye Optics
- The Evolution of Photosynthesis and its Environmental Impact
- Photosynthetic Light-Harvesting, Charge Separation and Photoprotection - The Primary Steps
- The Biological Clock and its Resetting by Light
- Photoperiodism of Insects and Other Animals
- Photomorphogenesis and Photoperiodism in Plants
- The Light-Dependent Magnetic Compass
- Phototoxicity
- Ozone Depletion and Effects of Ultraviolet-B (UV-B) Radiation
- Vitamin D: Photobiological and Ecological Aspects
- The Photobiology of Skin
- Light Treatment in Medicine
- Bioluminescence
- Some Hints for Class Experiments and Demonstrations in Photobiology
- The Amateur Scientist's Spectrophotometer
- Index

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Biography

Lars Olof Björn is professor emeritus at Lund University and has earned several prizes for popularizing science, as well as a Linnaeus prize for botany and a Rimington prize for photobiology. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and was on the board of the International Photobiology Association for twelve years.