The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

In this New York Times bestseller and longlist nominee for the National Book Award, â€œour greatest living chronicler of the natural worldâ€ (The New York Times), David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology affect our understanding of evolution and lifeâ€™s history.

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; we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived sideways by viral infectionâ€”a type of HGT.

In The Tangled Tree, â€œthe grandest tale in biologyâ€¦.David Quammen presents the scienceâ€”and the scientists involvedâ€”with patience, candor, and flairâ€ (Nature). We learn about the major players, 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€œDavid Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex storyâ€ (The Wall Street Journal). 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, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic compositionâ€”through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. â€œThe Tangled Tree is a source of wonderâ€¦.Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventureâ€ (The Boston Globe).
Country USA
Manufacturer Simon & Schuster
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2018-08-14
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2018-08-14
Format	Kindle eBook

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

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