The Tangled Tree

Nonpareil science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and lifes history, with powerful implications for human health and even our own human nature.

Zusatztext "One of the central insights in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was that life branched like a tree. And one of the revolutionary discoveries of molecular biology over a century later was that the tree of life was! in fact! a far more complex maze of branches. In The Tangled Tree! David Quammen offers the definitive chronicle of this profound development in our understanding of the history of life." Informationen zum Autor David Quammen's fifteen books include The Tangled Tree! The Song of the Dodo ! The Reluctant Mr. Darwin ! and Spillover! a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. He has written for Harper's! The Atlantic! Rolling Stone! The New York Times Book Review! Outside! and Powder ! among other magazines! and is a contributing writer for National Geographic . He wrote the entire text of the May 2016 issue of National Geographic on the Greater Yellowstone ecosystemthe first time in the history of the magazine that an issue was single-authored. Quammen shares a home in Bozeman! Montana! with his wife! Betsy Gaines Quammen! an environmental historian! along with two Russian wolfhounds and a cross-eyed cat. Visit him at DavidQuammen.com. Zusammenfassung Nonpareil science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and life's history! with powerful implications for human health and even our own human nature. In the mid-1970s! scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new fieldthe study of life's diversity and relatedness at the molecular levelis horizontal gene transfer (HGT)! or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance! we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms! but sideways by viral infectiona type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen! one of that rare breed of science journalists who blends exploration with a talent for synthesis and storytelling ( Nature )! chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made themsuch as Carl Woese! the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis! the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about mosaic creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe! who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer! bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health. Quammen is no ordinary writer. He is simply astonishing! one of that rare class of writer gifted with verve! ingenuity! humor! guts! and great heart ( Elle ). Now! in The Tangled Tree ! he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of lifeincluding where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies such as CRISPR! we now have the ability to alter even our genetic compositionthrough sideways insertions! as nature has long been doing. The Tangled Tree is a brilliant guide to our transformed understanding of evolution! of life's history! and of our own human nature. ...

Auteur
David Quammen’s fifteen books include The Tangled Tree, The Song of the Dodo, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, and Spillover, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. He has written for Harper’s, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Book Review, Outside, *and *Powder, among other magazines, and is a contributing writer for National Geographic. He wrote the entire text of the May 2016 issue of National Geographic on the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem—the first time in the history of the magazine that an issue was single-authored. Quammen shares a home in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife, Betsy Gaines Quammen, an environmental historian, along with two Russian wolfhounds and a cross-eyed cat. Visit him at DavidQuammen.com.

Résumé
"There's no one who writes about complex science better than David Quammen. The Tangled Tree is at once fascinating, illuminating, and totally absorbing."

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction