Biology is being reborn as an information science, a progeny of the Information Age. As information scientists, biologists concern themselves with the messages that sustain life, such as the intricate series of signals that tell a fertilized egg to develop into a full-grown organism, or the orchestrated response the immune system makes to an invading pathogen. Molecules convey information, and it is their messages that are of paramount importance. Each molecule interacts with a set of other molecules and each set communicates with another set, such that all are interconnected. Networks of molecules give rise to cells; networks of cells produce multicellular organisms; net-works of people bring about cultures and societies; and networks of species encompass ecosystems. Life is a web and the web is life. In fact, it was the euphoria for molecules that touched off this scientific revolution. In the 1980s only a tiny percentage of the millions of different molecular components of living beings was known. In order to gain access to these molecules, a new science and even a new industry had to be created. Genomics is the development and application of research tools that uncover and analyze thousands of different molecules at a time. This new approach to biology has been so successful that universities have created entire departments devoted to it, and all major pharmaceutical companies now have large genomics divisions. Genomics has granted biologists unprecedented access to the molecules of life, but this is more than just a technological revolution. Through genomics massive amounts of biological information can be converted into an electronic format. This directly links the life sciences to the information sciences, thereby facilitating a dramatically new frame-work for understanding life. Information is a message, a bit of news. It may be encoded or decoded. It may be conveyed by smoke signals, pictures, sound waves, electromagnetic waves, or innumerous other media, but the information itself is not made of anything. It has no mass. Furthermore, information always has a sender and an intended receiver. This implies an underlying intent, meaning, or purpose. Information theory thus may seem unfit for the cold objectivism of science. The focus of the information sciences, however, is not so much on information content, but rather on how messages are conveyed, processed, and stored. Advances in this area have been great and have helped to propel the remarkable development of the computer and telecommunication industries. Could these forces be harnessed to better understand the human body and to improve human health? progeny　のところで説明飛ばしましたが、情報時代の子孫、子供として、今生まれ変わりつつある（現在進行形）ということです。「情報時代の申し子」と訳すとかっこいいかもしれません。