Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution

Voorkant
W. W. Norton & Company, 2009 - 344 pagina's
How did life invent itself? Where did DNA come from? How did consciousness develop? Powerful new research methods are providing vivid insights into the makeup of life. Comparing gene sequences, examining atomic structures of proteins, and looking into the geochemistry of rocks have helped explain evolution in more detail than ever before. Nick Lane expertly reconstructs the history of life by describing the ten greatest inventions of evolution (including DNA, photosynthesis, sex, and sight), based on their historical impact, role in organisms today, and relevance to current controversies. Who would have guessed that eyes started off as light-sensitive spots used to calibrate photosynthesis in algae? Or that DNA's building blocks form spontaneously in hydrothermal vents? Lane gives a gripping, lucid account of nature's ingenuity, and the result is a work of essential reading for anyone who has ever pondered or questioned the science underlying evolution's greatest gifts to man.
 

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Inhoudsopgave

INTRODUCTION
1
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
8
DNA
34
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
60
THE COMPLEX CELL
88
SEX
118
MOVEMENT
144
SIGHT
172
CONSCIOUSNESS
232
DEATH
260
EPILOGUE
286
NOTES
288
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
307
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
310
BIBLIOGRAPHY
313
INDEX
327

HOT BLOOD
205

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Over de auteur (2009)

Nick Lane is a biochemist in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London, and leads the UCL Origins of Life Program. He was awarded the 2015 Biochemical Society Award for his outstanding contribution to the molecular life sciences. He is the author of Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, which won the 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books, as well as Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life and Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World.

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