Biophysics (redirected from dental biophysics)

biophysics, application of various methods and principles of physical science to the study of biological problems. In physiological biophysics physical mechanisms have been used to explain such biological processes as the transmission of nerve impulses, the muscle contraction mechanism, and the visual mechanism. Theoretical biophysics tries to use mathematical and physical models to explain life processes. Radiation biophysics studies the response of organisms to various kinds of radiations. Biophysics has contributed important tools for the study of organic molecules, and especially of large molecules, which play an important part in biological processes. Paper chromatography, a direct development of adsorption techniques, is widely used to analyze tissues for chemical components. X-ray crystallography is used to determine molecular structures and has been useful with such problems as the complex structure of proteins. Among the optical methods used in the study of biological problems are photochemistry, light scattering, absorption spectroscopy (including the use of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation), laser beams, and double refraction birefringence. These techniques and others permit the biophysicist to determine the structure of molecules in plants and animals to a degree not readily possible with ordinary chemical methods.

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biophysics

Discipline concerned with applications of the principles and methods of the physical sciences to biological problems. Biophysics deals with biological functions that depend on physical agents such as electricity or mechanical force, with the interaction of living organisms with physical agents such as light, sound, or ionizing radiation, and with interactions between living things and their environment as in locomotion, navigation, and communication. Its subjects include bone, nerve impulses, muscle, and vision as well as organic molecules, using such tools as paper chromatography and X-ray crystallography.

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Biophysics

A hybrid science involving the overlap of physics, chemistry, and biology. A dominant aspect is the use of the ideas and methods of physics and chemistry to study and explain the structures of living organisms and the mechanisms of life processes. The recognition of biophysics as a separate field is relatively recent, having been brought about, in part, by the invention of physical tools such as the electron microscope, the ultracentrifuge, and the electronic amplifier, which greatly facilitate biophysical research. These tools are peculiarly adapted to the study of problems of great current importance to medicine, problems related to virus diseases, cancer, heart disease, and the like.

The major areas of biophysics are the following:

Molecular biophysics has to do with the study of large molecules and particles of comparable size which play important roles in biology. The most important physical tools for such research are the electron microscope, the ultracentrifuge, and the x-ray diffraction camera. See Molecular biology

Radiation biophysics consists of the study of the response of organisms to ionizing radiations, such as alpha, beta, gamma, and x-rays, and to ultraviolet light. The biological responses are death of cells and tissues, if not of whole organisms, and mutation, either somatic or genetic.

Physiological biophysics, called by some classical biophysics, is concerned with the use of physical mechanisms to explain the behavior and the functioning of living organisms or parts of living organisms and with the response of living organisms to physical forces.

Mathematical and theoretical biophysics deals primarily with the attempt to explain the behavior of living organisms on the basis of mathematics and physical theory. Biological processes are being examined in terms of thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, and statistical mechanics. Mathematical models are being investigated to see how closely they simulate biological processes. See Biomechanics, Biopotentials and ionic currents, Mathematical biology, Muscle proteins, Muscular system, Thermoregulation