The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and A New York Times Notable Book of 2018

Nonpareil science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and lifeâ€™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 fieldâ€”the study of lifeâ€™s diversity and relatedness at the molecular levelâ€”is 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 infectionâ€”a type of HGT.

In The Tangled Tree David Quammen, â€œone of that rare breed of science journalists who blends exploration with a talent for synthesis and storytellingâ€ (Nature), chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made themâ€”such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about â€œmosaicâ€ 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.

â€œQuammen is no ordinary writer. He is simply astonishing, one of that rare class of writer gifted with verve, ingenuity, humor, guts, and great heartâ€ (Elle). Now, in The Tangled Tree, he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of lifeâ€”including where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies such as CRISPR, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic compositionâ€”through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. The Tangled Tree is a brilliant guide to our transformed understanding of evolution, of lifeâ€™s history, and of our own human nature.
Country USA
Brand Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer Simon & Schuster
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber YES55242499
ReleaseDate 2018-08-14
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781476776620

Country	USA
Brand	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	YES55242499
ReleaseDate	2018-08-14
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781476776620

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

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