Animals share the challenge of maintaining an internal environment that is restricted to fairly low ranges of temperature, pH, and water content within a well-protected envelope while engaged in continuous exchanges with the environment in terms of gases, liquids, energy, even as movement of body parts and the entire organism itself is necessary for survival. This dynamic spectrum of changes is further amplified during developmental events or more acutely during responses to pernicious environmental factors in due to trauma and disease. In addition, persistent incidents associated with...