This is the story of a profound revolution in the way biologists explore life's history, understand its evolutionary processes, and reveal its diversity. It is about life's smallest entities, deepest diversity, and greatest cellular biomass: the microbiosphere. Jan Sapp introduces us to a new field of evolutionary biology and a new brand of molecular evolutionists who descend to the foundations of evolution on Earth to explore the origins of the genetic system and the primary life forms fr...

The birth of bacterial genomics since the mid-1990s brought withit several conceptual modifications and wholly new controversies. Working beyond the scope of the neo-Darwinian evolutionary synthesis, a group of leading microbial evolutionists addresses the following and related issues, often with markedly varied viewpoints: · Did the eukaryotic nucleus, cytoskeleton and cilia also orginate from symbiosis? · Do the current scenarios about he origin of mitochondria and plastids require revis...

During the late 1960s and 1970s, massive herds of poisonous crown-of-thorns starfish suddenly began to infest coral reef communities around the world, leaving in their wake devastation comparable to a burnt-out rainforest. In What is Natural?, Jan Sapp both examines this ecological catastrophe and captures the intense debate among scientists about what caused the crisis, and how it should be handled. The crown-of-thorns story takes readers on tropical expeditions around the world,...

Genes, Germs and Medicine explores the development of modern biomedical science in the United States through the life of one of the Twentieth Century's most influential scientists.Joshua Lederberg was a scientific renaissance man. He and his collaborators founded the field of bacterial genetics, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 33 (the second youngest in history). He helped to lay the foundations for genetic engineering, made fundamental revisions to immunological and evolu...

This book is about tropical biology in action- how biologists grapple with the ecology and evolution of the great species diversity in tropical rainforests and coral reefs. Tropical rainforests are home to 50% of all the plant and animal species on earth, though they cover only about 2% of the planet. Coral reefs hold 25% of the world's marine diversity, though they represent only 0.1 % of the world's surface. The increase in species richness from the poles to the tropics has remained enig...

**2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist"Science book of the year"—The Guardian**One of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2018One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2018One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018“Extraordinary”—New York Times Book R...

The dazzling promise of stem cell medicine: does it work and will it save us? Two experts look at the hypeFor decades, we've been anticipating the dawn of regenerative medicine. Again and again, we've been promised that stem cells will soon cure just about every ill imaginable. If not tomorrow, then the next day, or the day after that, and so on. We're still waiting.This book is an antidote to hype and a salve to soothe the itch for stem-cell salvation. In ...

Uniting the conceptual foundations of the physical sciences and biology, this groundbreaking multidisciplinary book explores the origin of life as a planetary process. Combining geology, geochemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, evolution and statistical physics to create an inclusive picture of the living state, the authors develop the argument that the emergence of life was a necessary cascade of non-equilibrium phase transitions that opened new channels for chemical energy flow on Earth...

Parasites that manipulate the behaviour of their hosts represent striking examples of adaptation by natural selection. This field of study is now moving beyond its descriptive phase and into more exciting areas where the processes and patterns of such dramatic adaptations can be better understood. This innovative text provides an up-to-date, authoritative, and challenging review of host manipulation by parasites that assesses the current state of developments in the field and lays out a fr...

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of The Gene tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Siddhartha Mukherjee's book.Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.This short summary and analysis of The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee includes:Historical contextChapter-by-chapter summariesDeta...

New in paperback, from the bestselling author of Hyperspace, this spellbinding book brings together the cutting-edge research of today's foremost scientists to explore the science of tomorrow. Michio Kaku describes the development of computers and artificial intelligence, reveals how the decoding of the genetic structure of DNA will allow us to alter and reshape our genetic inheritance, and observes how quantum physicists are perfecting new ways of harnessing the matter andenergy of the Un...

From the bestselling author of The Science of Why series, "a 'whodunit' about one of the most fascinating and improbable tales of medical discovery" (Jonathan A. Edlow, MD, author of The Deadly Dinner Party : A nd Other Medical Detective Stories).Discovered and identified as the cause of mad cow disease only three decades ago, the prion is a protein molecule that, when misshapen in the brain, becomes fatal. Novel and controversia...