This brief and specialized book is designed for general non-major biology courses and includes, Unit 1 (Principles of Cellular Life), and Unit II (Principles of Inheritance) from BIOLOGY: THE UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF LIFE, Tenth Edition. The authors include characteristics of life, scientific methods, basic chemistry, cell biology, metabolism, mitosis and meiosis, classical genetics, human genetics, molecular genetics, recombinant DNA, and genetic engineering. Research has given us a better understanding of the interconnectedness of molecular biology, structure, function, and evolution. In this Tenth Edition, Starr and Taggart take that important connection out of the research realm and actually interweave these insights into the text. These unifying biological concepts encourage student understanding instead of memorization. For example, Chapter 1 includes a preview of life's unity and diversity with an evolutionary perspective. Similar sections in Chapters 3, 5, and 6, on the structure and function of enzymes and other molecules prepare students for chapters on cell structure and metabolism, genetics, evolution, anatomy, and physiology. The accompanying improvements in the media package meet the high standards instructors and students have come to expect from the Starr and Taggart media package. Students automatically receive a new version of the complimentary Interactive Concepts in Biology CD-ROM (featuring nearly 800 interactions to clarify and reinforce text concepts), and four months free access to InfoTrac College Edition (featuring full text articles from 4,000 periodicals). Also available is Engage Online, which provides a rich online version of the text, plus animations and learning resources for every chapter. The instructor package includes a Multimedia Manager presentation tool with art and graphics from the text, as well as CNN ® Today video clips (294 in all)-now available digitally as well as on Video.