Oxidation of organic compounds by dioxygen is a phenomenon of exceptional importance in nature, technology, and life. The liquid-phase oxidation of hydrocarbons forms the basis of several efficient technological synthetic processes such as the production of phenol via cumene oxidation, cyclohexanone from cyclohexane, styrene oxide from ethylbenzene, etc.

Philosophy of Biology has taken flight in the last quarter of the twentieth century. In very large part, of course, this is because biology itself has made huge strides in this period of time. Not only has it taken large strides, but it has done so in a way that it has made it a player in many of the largest public issues of the day DNA, cloning, evolution, evolutionary psychology It is not an exaggeration either to say that Darwin, cloning, and DNA now occupy as much space in academic and intellectual conversations as Shakespeare or the Bible.

Plant science has always been a fundamental area of biology, but the emphasis in the subject has changed radically in the last two decades with a plethora of new information, much of it deriving from techniques in molecular biology.