This book demonstrates the usefulness of tools from statistical mechanics for biology. It includes the new tendencies in topics like membranes, vesicles, microtubules, molecular motors, DNA, protein folding, phase transitions in biological systems, evolution, population dynamics, neural systems and biological oscillators, with special emphasis on the importance of statistical mechanics in their development. The book addresses researchers and graduate students.

From membranes to membrane machines

'Sausage string' patterns in blood vessels at high blood pressures
Phase transitions in mesoscopic spherical membranes
Modeling microtubule oscillations[1]
Designing RNA folding cooperativity
Scaling laws for protein folding
Self-organizing networks of molecular machines in allosterically regulated enzymic reactions
Coupled Brownian motors
On the role of molecular machines in the origin of the genetic code
Population dynamics and non-Hermitian localization
Collective motion
A population dynamics approach to biological aging
Small-world networks
Extended mean-field theory for networks of spiking neurons
Pattern formation in the developing visual cortex: Topological defects, their generation, motion, and annihilation
Complex spiking behavior from noise-driven neuron interaction
A new nonlinear model for pitch perception
Statistical mechanics of network models of macroevolution and extinction
Exact analytical results in a simple model of self-organized biological evolution
Transition to chaos in models of genetic networks.