This exciting first-edition text is appropriate for the one- or two-semester non-majors or mixed majors/non-majors course. Tobin and Dusheck's Asking About Life has a unique approach to biology that emphasizes questions, experimentation, and principles of biology. Features: * Each chapter starts with an engaging story about science, the questions that motivate the research, and how each scientist overcame obstacles in making a discovery. Stories that feature Rosalind Franklin and Kary Mullis, among others, humanise biologists and biology. * Asking About Life encourages students to be curious and critical about science and life. Using an inquiry approach, Tobin and Dusheck present headings and subheadings as questions in the belief that the core of good science is found not in the answers , but in the questions. * The pedagogy emphasises experimentation. Students who grasp the experimental underpinning of current concepts are in a better position to assimilate new information as it emerges, whether in other classes or in the news. * Asking about Life emphasises the interrelations of ideas and discoveries, as well as the social context which makes the material more understandable to the student. * The use of metaphors, especially the striking visual metaphors in the illustrated program, will increase the comprehension of abstract ideas and allow the student to put a concept in a context that they can understand.