Designed to address a lack of computer skills training in biological science education, this volume presents problem-centered instruction for using basic computer programming in biological research and data manipulation and presentation. Based on the Mac OsX operating system, and heavily centered on its Unix components, this guide presents an overview of the Unix command line, regular expressions, scripting and Python programming all aimed at speeding up or improving the quality of biological research. Additional chapters deal with graphical presentation of data and advanced topics such as network communications and interfacing with electronic devices. The work includes color illustrations and code examples and access to a companion website is provided. Haddock is a research biologist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Dunn is professor of evolutionary biology at Brown University. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)