The new edition of this authoritative text provides an interdisciplinary treatise of all aspects of the interactions between light and the living world. It starts with a description of the physics of light, and how to deal with it in experiments and observations. The phenomena described in the rest of the book covers all organisms: how light is used by organisms for obtaining energy for life processes, for gathering information about the environment, and for communicating with others of the same or other species. The book also describes "bad" effects of light in causing disease or contributing to formation of environmental toxins. New techniques used by scientists to investigate life processes using light are also explored in the volume.

The Nature of Light and Its Interaction with Matter.- Principles and Nomenclature for the Quantification of Light.- Generation and Control of Light.- The Measurement of Light.- Light as a Tool for Biologists: Recent Developments.- Terrestrial Daylight.- Underwater Light.- Action Spectroscopy in Biology.- Spectral Tuning in Biology I: Pigments.- Spectral Tuning in Biology II: Structural Color.- Photoactive Proteins.- Molecules and Photochemical Reactions in Biological Light Perception and Regulation.- Photoreceptive Proteins and Their Evolution.- Signaling Crosstalk under the Control of Plant Photoreceptors.- The Diversity of Eye Optics.- The Evolution of Photosynthesis and Its Environmental Impact.- Photosynthetic Light Harvesting.- How Light Resets Circadian Clocks.- Photomorphogenesis and Photoperiodism in Plants.- The Light-Dependent Magnetic Compass.- Phototoxicity.- Ozone Depletion and the Effects of Ultraviolet Radiation.- Vitamin D: Photobiological and Ecological Aspects.- The Photobiology of Human Skin.- Light-Promoted Infection.- Bioluminescence.- Role of Ultraviolet Radiation in the Origin of Life.- Hints for Teaching Experiments and Demonstrations.- The Amateur Scientist's Spectrophotometer.