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Indeholder "Introduction", "1. The Origin of Life", "2. DNA", "3. Photosynthesis", "4. The Complex Cell", "5. Sex", "6. Movement", "7. Sight", "8. Hot Blood", "9. Consciousness", "10. Death", "Epilogue", "Notes", "List of Illustrations", "Acknowledgements", "Bibliography", "Index".
Nick Lane har
Hans kriterier er lidt pudsige, fx skal det være noget ikonisk, så opfindelsen af maven er ikke med på listen.
Kapitel 1 kommer ind på teorierne inden Black Smokers - Sorte Skorstene og hvorfor de ikke har den store appel længere. Problemet er at en ursuppe eller lignende hurtigt bliver en stor lunken pøl af uinteressante kemikalier, hvor alle energigivende processer stort set allerede er foregået. Der er et naturfænomen, der ligner black smokers: alkaline vents. De er basiske og koldere, men skyldes også kontinentalpladernes bevægelser, for de opstår der, hvor gassen fra genbrugt skorpe siver op. Teorien er at livet er opstået i alkaline vents, hvor brint bobler op og giver nogle meget komplicerede aflejringer med små hulrum i. På indersiden af hulrummene er der mineraler, der kan virke som katalysatorer og sætte gang i nogle af de kemiske processer, der er nødvendige for at opbygge organiske molekyler. Det hele foregår i et basisk miljø, så hvis det skal kunne bevæge sig udenfor i et surt hav, har man brug for en celle-lignende ting, der kan lave noget kompleks kemi indeni. Krebs-cyklen ser ud til at være ren kemi, dvs de reaktioner vil begynde at køre, såsnart de indgående reagenser er til stede.
Kapitel 2 har en fin gennemgang af DNA-koden, dvs at AAA koder for lycin osv. De 64 tre-bogstavskoder bliver til 20 forskellige aminosyrer og koden er vældig smart, idet punktmutationer tit vil skifte koden, men til en kode, der giver samme aminosyre. Nogle koder er også ret sjældne, dvs en mutation, der ændrer på brugen af en sjælden kode er ikke nødvendigvis fatal. Faktisk er der nogle bakterier, der har variationer i koden. Koden ser også ud til at have udviklet sig fra en to-bogstavskode.
Kapitel 3 handler om fotosyntesen og det sjove er at fotosyntese er meget nemmere at få til at trigge alle mulige varianter, der ikke har noget med ilt at gøre. Da ilt først kommer i spil, stopper det fx fordampning af brint fra atmosfæren og gør det muligt at lave kollagen og giver mulighed for mere effektivt stofskifte, dvs det muliggør større dyr. På et tidspunkt var iltprocenten oppe på 30 og så kunne bænkebidere og tusindben være meget større end de er i dag. Hvordan Z-processen kunne udvikle sig gradvist forklares også.
Kapitel 4 handler om den komplekse celle, som ser ud til at være splittet fra arkæer og bakterier på en sær måde. Lane argumenterer for at en arkæer og en bakterie er stødt sammen og har blandet sig, så mitokondrier kunne finde et fornuftigt miljø indeni en celle. At mitokondrier har deres eget - lille - genom er en del af argumentationen.
Kapitel 5 handler om kønnet forplantning og hvordan den kan være opstået. Teorien er at kønnet formering er den mest effektive måde at slippe af med mutationer på, som samtidig kan fastholde gunstige mutationer. Og hele maskineriet er næsten klar, hvis celledeling allerede er en mulighed.
Kapitel 6 indeholder en mængde information om muskler og om hvordan man nærmest skal ned på nanoniveau for at finde ud af hvordan de virker. Små insekter har hurtigere muskelfibre, så de kan svirre med vinger. Molekylærbiologi har fundet ud af ret meget de sidste 10-15 år.
Kapitel 7 handler om øjne og syn. Der er masser af forskellige øjne, så det ser ud til at være nemt for evolution at frembringe øjne.
Kapitel 8 om varmblodethed. Der er en interessant redegørelse for at det er superdyrt at være varmblodet. Krybdyr kan snildt være 10 gange så mange på det samme stykke land som tilsvarende pattedyr, så der må være en kæmpefordel ved at være varmblodet. Udholdenhed ser ud til at være svaret..
Kapitel 9 handler om bevidsthed.
Kapitel 10 handler om død.
Kapitel 9 og 10 er der ikke meget kød på, men resten af kapitlerne er fine.
Nick Lane har
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udvalgt 10 "opfindelser", som er opstået gennem evolution. Han bruger ordet "invention" og forklarer grundigt at det ikke har noget at gøre med "Intelligent design".Hans kriterier er lidt pudsige, fx skal det være noget ikonisk, så opfindelsen af maven er ikke med på listen.
Kapitel 1 kommer ind på teorierne inden Black Smokers - Sorte Skorstene og hvorfor de ikke har den store appel længere. Problemet er at en ursuppe eller lignende hurtigt bliver en stor lunken pøl af uinteressante kemikalier, hvor alle energigivende processer stort set allerede er foregået. Der er et naturfænomen, der ligner black smokers: alkaline vents. De er basiske og koldere, men skyldes også kontinentalpladernes bevægelser, for de opstår der, hvor gassen fra genbrugt skorpe siver op. Teorien er at livet er opstået i alkaline vents, hvor brint bobler op og giver nogle meget komplicerede aflejringer med små hulrum i. På indersiden af hulrummene er der mineraler, der kan virke som katalysatorer og sætte gang i nogle af de kemiske processer, der er nødvendige for at opbygge organiske molekyler. Det hele foregår i et basisk miljø, så hvis det skal kunne bevæge sig udenfor i et surt hav, har man brug for en celle-lignende ting, der kan lave noget kompleks kemi indeni. Krebs-cyklen ser ud til at være ren kemi, dvs de reaktioner vil begynde at køre, såsnart de indgående reagenser er til stede.
Kapitel 2 har en fin gennemgang af DNA-koden, dvs at AAA koder for lycin osv. De 64 tre-bogstavskoder bliver til 20 forskellige aminosyrer og koden er vældig smart, idet punktmutationer tit vil skifte koden, men til en kode, der giver samme aminosyre. Nogle koder er også ret sjældne, dvs en mutation, der ændrer på brugen af en sjælden kode er ikke nødvendigvis fatal. Faktisk er der nogle bakterier, der har variationer i koden. Koden ser også ud til at have udviklet sig fra en to-bogstavskode.
Kapitel 3 handler om fotosyntesen og det sjove er at fotosyntese er meget nemmere at få til at trigge alle mulige varianter, der ikke har noget med ilt at gøre. Da ilt først kommer i spil, stopper det fx fordampning af brint fra atmosfæren og gør det muligt at lave kollagen og giver mulighed for mere effektivt stofskifte, dvs det muliggør større dyr. På et tidspunkt var iltprocenten oppe på 30 og så kunne bænkebidere og tusindben være meget større end de er i dag. Hvordan Z-processen kunne udvikle sig gradvist forklares også.
Kapitel 4 handler om den komplekse celle, som ser ud til at være splittet fra arkæer og bakterier på en sær måde. Lane argumenterer for at en arkæer og en bakterie er stødt sammen og har blandet sig, så mitokondrier kunne finde et fornuftigt miljø indeni en celle. At mitokondrier har deres eget - lille - genom er en del af argumentationen.
Kapitel 5 handler om kønnet forplantning og hvordan den kan være opstået. Teorien er at kønnet formering er den mest effektive måde at slippe af med mutationer på, som samtidig kan fastholde gunstige mutationer. Og hele maskineriet er næsten klar, hvis celledeling allerede er en mulighed.
Kapitel 6 indeholder en mængde information om muskler og om hvordan man nærmest skal ned på nanoniveau for at finde ud af hvordan de virker. Små insekter har hurtigere muskelfibre, så de kan svirre med vinger. Molekylærbiologi har fundet ud af ret meget de sidste 10-15 år.
Kapitel 7 handler om øjne og syn. Der er masser af forskellige øjne, så det ser ud til at være nemt for evolution at frembringe øjne.
Kapitel 8 om varmblodethed. Der er en interessant redegørelse for at det er superdyrt at være varmblodet. Krybdyr kan snildt være 10 gange så mange på det samme stykke land som tilsvarende pattedyr, så der må være en kæmpefordel ved at være varmblodet. Udholdenhed ser ud til at være svaret..
Kapitel 9 handler om bevidsthed.
Kapitel 10 handler om død.
Kapitel 9 og 10 er der ikke meget kød på, men resten af kapitlerne er fine.
Show Less
Publication
New York : W.W. Norton, 2009.
Description
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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member SamMartinez
The entire premise of Life Ascending is that Lane lists the ten most important evolutionary developments that have shaped life on Earth into what it is now - evolution's "inventions," as the title implies, though Lane is careful to define how he uses the word "invention" in his Introduction, lest
At any rate, Lane lists the following as the ten greatest inventions of evolution: life itself (obviously), DNA, photosynthesis, the complex cell, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness, and death. Each one has a chapter of its own, wherein Lane explains in-depth why he believes that the subject in question might be considered one of the ten greatest inventions of evolution, and the chapters are arranged so that the previous chapter leads up to the next, and builds upon the previous one. Since Lane is a biochemist, his views on evolution come from a biochemical perspective, but he expands upon that by including insights drawn from geology, paleontology, physics, medicine and psychology - a good thing, since even he admits that he is not an expert in everything, but that does not mean he can't expand on his knowledge by drawing upon other sources. Lane also utilizes illustrations - a great help, particularly for someone who might get lost in the technical terms he employs (like me).
The result is an interesting survey of what does appear to be the ten most important things to have come out of evolution, very different from Dawkins's book, but not in a bad way. In fact, Life Ascending builds on what Dawkins wrote about, focusing instead on the biochemical side of things. This is a very enlightening way of looking at evolution. By trying to understand the core biochemical processes that lie at the heart of evolution, Lane offers an interesting perspective: the "micro" supporting the "macro" of evolutionary processes.
Although the first chapters are interesting in their own way - not to mention they form the basis for the other chapters - it is the later chapters that may prove the most interesting to readers. I found the last four chapters - Sight, Hot Blood, Consciousness, and Death - to be more interesting than the ones before them, even the chapter on Sex. Not to say that the other chapters aren't interesting, but these chapters contained information that kept me thoroughly fascinated.
For example, the chapter on Sight not only explained the evolution of sight and the organ that allows it to happen in the first place, but it revealed an interesting fact regarding how humans see color - or imagine they see it. Apparently, red is an imaginary color, because it is the result of two different signals from two kinds of cone cell in the eyes. One of these cells "sees" green, and the other "sees" in the yellowish-green scale. That's right: the eye has no specialized cone cell that "sees" only red. To "see" red, the brain receives no signal from the green cone, but a fading signal from the yellowish-green one. This registers to us as the color red. Lane states (in one of the endnotes) that this is the power of the imagination at work, that the brain is capable of seeing a color that, scientifically speaking, really isn't there.
The chapter Hot Blood was equally fascinating because it focused on a question that has intrigued me since I was young: were the dinosaurs hot-blooded, or cold-blooded? Of course, Lane problematizes the terms "hot-blooded" and "cold-blooded" based on the terminology preferred (or not preferred) by scientists, but that's besides the point. That it dealt with dinosaurs in the first place was enough to keep me reading. Well, the question of hot or cold blood was interesting too, but still: dinosaurs. He also addresses the question of whether or not birds are the direct evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs, which is another question that has interested me since I learned of the theory years ago.
The chapters Consciousness and Death will, I am sure, raise the most questions and cause the most introspection in readers. These are two topics that are usually reserved for literature, philosophy and religion. People tend to get uncomfortable when science gets near them. But Lane dares to approach them with a scientific mind, and while his discussion of consciousness being the result of evolution still raises more questions than it answers, his discussion of death offers one very large and potentially controversial bomb regarding the question of human immortality - or at least, extending the human lifespan beyond current extremes.
Now, as interesting as this book is, it does have its problems. My biggest issue is with the jargon. Life Ascending is not a fast read, unless one is already familiar with biochemistry and hence can get around the jargon with ease. To be sure, Lane is a pretty good writer, and he does try to make his material as friendly and approachable to the average reader as possible, but there is simply no getting around the technical stuff. Lane tries his best by explaining difficult terms in layman's language, and the book does have quite a few illustrations and photographs, which do help with understanding, but it takes a while to actually digest everything.
The first chapters, in particular, can be difficult to wrap one's head around. I had to take my time with the chapter Origin of Life, which proved to be a bit of a hurdle given all the large concepts that Lane was throwing my way while I was reading it. Again, this isn't to say that Lane's a bad writer; he's a pretty good one (albeit not as lucid as Dawkins). It's just that the concepts he's trying to get the reader to understand aren't all that "average" to begin with, so the average reader has to go slow, or risk missing something important.
Despite that issue, though, I still think Life Ascending is a great book, taking a look at topics and ideas, controversial or otherwise, in an attempt to explain just which mechanisms and processes allowed - and still allow - life to flourish on this lovely blue marble we call home. I do recommend, though, that the reader get a copy of Dawkins's The Greatest Show on Earth, and reading that one first, to help gain a proper understanding of what just evolution is in the first place. Life Ascending is a step up in the "reading skills" department, as it were, and it will read somewhat more smoothly if The Greatest Show on Earth is read first.
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the reader make the mistake of assuming that there is a higher power driving evolution. Lane tries to ensure that his book steers well clear of the concept of Intelligent Design, which he opposes, though not as vociferously as Dawkins.At any rate, Lane lists the following as the ten greatest inventions of evolution: life itself (obviously), DNA, photosynthesis, the complex cell, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness, and death. Each one has a chapter of its own, wherein Lane explains in-depth why he believes that the subject in question might be considered one of the ten greatest inventions of evolution, and the chapters are arranged so that the previous chapter leads up to the next, and builds upon the previous one. Since Lane is a biochemist, his views on evolution come from a biochemical perspective, but he expands upon that by including insights drawn from geology, paleontology, physics, medicine and psychology - a good thing, since even he admits that he is not an expert in everything, but that does not mean he can't expand on his knowledge by drawing upon other sources. Lane also utilizes illustrations - a great help, particularly for someone who might get lost in the technical terms he employs (like me).
The result is an interesting survey of what does appear to be the ten most important things to have come out of evolution, very different from Dawkins's book, but not in a bad way. In fact, Life Ascending builds on what Dawkins wrote about, focusing instead on the biochemical side of things. This is a very enlightening way of looking at evolution. By trying to understand the core biochemical processes that lie at the heart of evolution, Lane offers an interesting perspective: the "micro" supporting the "macro" of evolutionary processes.
Although the first chapters are interesting in their own way - not to mention they form the basis for the other chapters - it is the later chapters that may prove the most interesting to readers. I found the last four chapters - Sight, Hot Blood, Consciousness, and Death - to be more interesting than the ones before them, even the chapter on Sex. Not to say that the other chapters aren't interesting, but these chapters contained information that kept me thoroughly fascinated.
For example, the chapter on Sight not only explained the evolution of sight and the organ that allows it to happen in the first place, but it revealed an interesting fact regarding how humans see color - or imagine they see it. Apparently, red is an imaginary color, because it is the result of two different signals from two kinds of cone cell in the eyes. One of these cells "sees" green, and the other "sees" in the yellowish-green scale. That's right: the eye has no specialized cone cell that "sees" only red. To "see" red, the brain receives no signal from the green cone, but a fading signal from the yellowish-green one. This registers to us as the color red. Lane states (in one of the endnotes) that this is the power of the imagination at work, that the brain is capable of seeing a color that, scientifically speaking, really isn't there.
The chapter Hot Blood was equally fascinating because it focused on a question that has intrigued me since I was young: were the dinosaurs hot-blooded, or cold-blooded? Of course, Lane problematizes the terms "hot-blooded" and "cold-blooded" based on the terminology preferred (or not preferred) by scientists, but that's besides the point. That it dealt with dinosaurs in the first place was enough to keep me reading. Well, the question of hot or cold blood was interesting too, but still: dinosaurs. He also addresses the question of whether or not birds are the direct evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs, which is another question that has interested me since I learned of the theory years ago.
The chapters Consciousness and Death will, I am sure, raise the most questions and cause the most introspection in readers. These are two topics that are usually reserved for literature, philosophy and religion. People tend to get uncomfortable when science gets near them. But Lane dares to approach them with a scientific mind, and while his discussion of consciousness being the result of evolution still raises more questions than it answers, his discussion of death offers one very large and potentially controversial bomb regarding the question of human immortality - or at least, extending the human lifespan beyond current extremes.
Now, as interesting as this book is, it does have its problems. My biggest issue is with the jargon. Life Ascending is not a fast read, unless one is already familiar with biochemistry and hence can get around the jargon with ease. To be sure, Lane is a pretty good writer, and he does try to make his material as friendly and approachable to the average reader as possible, but there is simply no getting around the technical stuff. Lane tries his best by explaining difficult terms in layman's language, and the book does have quite a few illustrations and photographs, which do help with understanding, but it takes a while to actually digest everything.
The first chapters, in particular, can be difficult to wrap one's head around. I had to take my time with the chapter Origin of Life, which proved to be a bit of a hurdle given all the large concepts that Lane was throwing my way while I was reading it. Again, this isn't to say that Lane's a bad writer; he's a pretty good one (albeit not as lucid as Dawkins). It's just that the concepts he's trying to get the reader to understand aren't all that "average" to begin with, so the average reader has to go slow, or risk missing something important.
Despite that issue, though, I still think Life Ascending is a great book, taking a look at topics and ideas, controversial or otherwise, in an attempt to explain just which mechanisms and processes allowed - and still allow - life to flourish on this lovely blue marble we call home. I do recommend, though, that the reader get a copy of Dawkins's The Greatest Show on Earth, and reading that one first, to help gain a proper understanding of what just evolution is in the first place. Life Ascending is a step up in the "reading skills" department, as it were, and it will read somewhat more smoothly if The Greatest Show on Earth is read first.
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LibraryThing member rondoctor
Interesting in the way Lane pulls together disparate scientific threads to create a story. He sometimes is rather flippant, casting some doubt on the validity of his linkages and conclusions. However, that is his style and it does liven up the subject matter somewhat.
LibraryThing member Rozella
I am very impressed with this book. Nick Lane has taken what he calls "ten great inventions of evolution" and given some well argued narratives of how it all happened.
Shows some of the interesting linkages in muscle fibres which seem to run through all life. He has also a nicely argued story about
A nice juxtaposition of scientific fact and plausible speculation. Well argued. At times a bit hard going but worth persevering.
Shows some of the interesting linkages in muscle fibres which seem to run through all life. He has also a nicely argued story about
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the origins of life itself in the white smokers on the ocean floors. A nice juxtaposition of scientific fact and plausible speculation. Well argued. At times a bit hard going but worth persevering.
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LibraryThing member MarkBeronte
Where does DNA come from? What is consciousness? How did the eye evolve? Drawing on a treasure trove of new scientific knowledge, Nick Lane expertly reconstructs evolution’s history by describing its ten greatest inventions—from sex and warmth to death—resulting in a stunning account of
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nature’s ingenuity. 20 figures Show Less
LibraryThing member markm2315
One can study the biochemistry of photosynthesis in some detail and be unaware of the different pathways that exist and existed in different organisms, of its effect on the color of the sky, of its effect on the structural components of large plants and animals, and of the peculiarities of its
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evolutionary origin. Nick Lane gives a brilliant overview of the nature, significance and origin of the 10 greatest inventions of evolution including, the origin of life itself, DNA, photosynthesis, the eukaryotes, sex, movement, sight, warm bloodedness (homeothermy), consciousness, and death. I found the degree of detail to fit well with the text's readability and I was uniformly impressed with the author's knowledge and presentation. The relative low point, for me, was the chapter on consciousness. There is a great deal of interest there, but I think I am a little more radical than the author on this topic; he blows off Dennett with a single paragraph and he ends his discussion of the tragic case of a girl with hydranencephaly by stating that if it is the case that if the roots of consciousness are not to be found in the cerebral cortex, "then the neural transform, from firing to feeling, loses some of its mystique". Yes, that's what Dennett says, and it loses all of its mystique. Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
Nick Lane is a biochemist and the first Provost’s Venture Research Fellow at University College London. This book, which the author describes as “grand in scope,” covers much of what is understood about the multidimensional phenomena we call “biological Evolution.”
Lane writes about ten
To qualify on his list of seminal events in life’s history, the invention had to meet four criteria. First, the invention had to revolutionize the living world. Second, it had to be of surpassing importance today. Third, it had to be a direct outcome of natural selection rather that, say, cultural evolution. And fourth, it had to be iconic in some way.
This is not easy reading. Lane engages the reader at a fairly sophisticated level.
For example, he first discusses the very origin of life. He debunks the once popular theory that life arose from a “primordial soup” that was energized by lightening for thermodynamic reasons. Instead, he looks to volcanic activity on the sea floor as a source not only of energy but of the chemical building blocks for primitive life through the operation of the so-called Krebs cycle. In his view, the last common ancestor of all life on earth was not a free-living cell “but a rocky labyrinth of mineral cells, lined with catalytic walls composed of iron, sulphur and nickel, and energized by natural proton gradients. The first life was porous rock that generated complex molecules and energy, right up to the formation of proteins and DNA itself.”
Informative and highly recommended.
(JAB)
Lane writes about ten
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aspects of evolution that he refers to as “inventions.” He clarifies his concept of invention as “the original contrivance or production of a new method or means of doing something, previously unknown; origination, introduction.” He emphasizes that in the case of evolution, these phenomena, all of which embody some form of design, occur naturally without an inventor or intelligent design.To qualify on his list of seminal events in life’s history, the invention had to meet four criteria. First, the invention had to revolutionize the living world. Second, it had to be of surpassing importance today. Third, it had to be a direct outcome of natural selection rather that, say, cultural evolution. And fourth, it had to be iconic in some way.
This is not easy reading. Lane engages the reader at a fairly sophisticated level.
For example, he first discusses the very origin of life. He debunks the once popular theory that life arose from a “primordial soup” that was energized by lightening for thermodynamic reasons. Instead, he looks to volcanic activity on the sea floor as a source not only of energy but of the chemical building blocks for primitive life through the operation of the so-called Krebs cycle. In his view, the last common ancestor of all life on earth was not a free-living cell “but a rocky labyrinth of mineral cells, lined with catalytic walls composed of iron, sulphur and nickel, and energized by natural proton gradients. The first life was porous rock that generated complex molecules and energy, right up to the formation of proteins and DNA itself.”
Informative and highly recommended.
(JAB)
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LibraryThing member booktsunami
I found myself thinking about one of the chapters in this book, years after I had finished the book. But alas, I could remember the basics about muscle fibres but not the name of the book so when I went searching for it in my collection I had difficulties. However, I just re-discovered it and find
1. the origin of life ....a reasonable overview and he seems to come down on the side of white (alkaline) smokers on undersea vents as the likely place where life originated. (I'm not so sure and note that he seems to entirely ignore the work of Cairns-Smith and a possible role for clay minerals as templates).
2. DNA.....which is mainly about routes for the possible evolution of RNA in the alkaline smokers and transformation into DNA. Quite fascinating. Lots to learn here.
3. Photosynthesis....Lane has written a whole book about oxygen so no surprise here that the photosynthesis story is about the role of electrons dropping to low energy levels (releasing energy) and being kicked back up to higher levels by more energy.....releasing oxygen in the process. (I must get his book on oxygen).
4. The complex cell...another masterful description of the biology of the cell ..but with only passing acknowledgement to Lyn Marguli's ideas about chloroplasts and mitochondria being organisms that were absorbed into the cell in a symbiotic relationship.
5. Sex...some interesting statistical stuff here but he makes the point that all eucaryotes: all plants, animals, algae, fungi, protists have sex but not bacteria...and huge numbers of genes were transferred to the cell by the absorption of mitochondria.
6. Movement..it's this chapter that stayed so long with me. The big change that came after the great Permian extinction was motility and motile organisms.....and movement requires muscles...converting chemical energy into mechanical force. Because of their great interest to me, I'll attach some more detailed notes on these chemical/protein mechanisms towards the end of this review.
7. Sight and the evolution of the eye....a beautifully written chapter ...full of interesting insights...like the trilobites use of mineral calcite lenses and in 2001 a living brittlestar was found with calcite lenses on its arms.
8. Hot blood...well I found out there that large animals generate more internal heat and large alligators are technically cold blooded but generate enough heat to be borderline hot-blooded
9. Consciousness...makes the point that the brain has obviously evolved ...so this would imply that "mind" has also evolved ....undermining Pope John Paul's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that evolution was ok but the mind of man was above all of that (or words to that effect).
10. Death...some interesting observations on extending life spans. Makes the point that most diseases come with old age....postpone the biological old age and you postpone the diseases (and death).
And, as promised above, here are some nuggets that I've extracted from the chapter on movement that I found so fascinating.
"One meticulous study by the geneticists Satoshi Ōta and Naruya Saitou, at the National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, (I’ve walked by it many times....a lovely setting with views of Mt Fuji) Japan, showed that a selection of proteins in the skeletal muscles of mammals are so similar to those in the striated flight muscles of insects that both must have evolved from a common ancestor of vertebrates and invertebrates, living some 600 million years ago.
Jellyfish, it seems, also have striated muscles that are minutely comparable with our own. So both smooth muscle and striated muscle contract using a similar system of actin and myosin, but each system apparently evolved independently from a common ancestor that possessed both cell types - a common ancestor numbering among the earliest of animals, from a time when jellyfish were the acme of creation.
we now know, for example, that the gene sequences of yeast and human actin are 95 per cent identical.' And from this perspective, the evolution of muscle looks very different. The same filaments that power your muscles power the microscopic world of all complex cells. The only real difference lies in their organisation.
A set theme, the motor interactions between myosin and actin, for instance, is varied with the endless imagination of natural selection, to arrive at a breathtaking array of form and function.......
All the traffic of the cell is borne by protein motors that work in a broadly similar manner. First is myosin, which cranks up and down the actin filaments, just as it does in muscle. But here the variations begin. In muscle, the myosin heads spend nine tenths of their time detached from the actin filaments;
How did this great parade of motor proteins come to be? There is nothing that compares with it in the world of bacteria. Nor are actin and myosin the only motoring double-act in eukaryotic cells. A second family of motor proteins, called the kinesins, operates in much the same way as the myosins, in a hand-over-hand manner up and down the sky-wires of the cytoskeleton. In the case of the kinesins, though, the sky-wires in question are not the thin actin wires, but higher-bore tubes, known as microtubules, which are assembled from subunits of another protein called tubulin.
At the detailed level of their gene sequences, the two main types of motor protein, the myosins and the kinesins, have virtually nothing in common......Here and there are points of similarity, but for a long time this was taken to be either chance or a case of convergent evolution. Indeed the kinesins and myosins looked to be a classic case of convergent evolution, where two unrelated types of protein became specialised for a similar task, and so developed similarities in structure, just as the wings of bats and birds evolved independently to converge on similar solutions to the common challenge of flight.
On the basis of crystallography, then, we know that the myosins and kinesins did indeed share a common ancestor, despite having so little in common in gene sequence. Their three-dimensional shapes show many points of folding and structure in common, right down to critical amino acids being preserved in space with the same orientation. This is an astonishing feat of selection: the same patterns, the same shapes, the same spaces, all are preserved on an atomic level for billions of years.....
The shape of all eukaryotic cells, from long and spindly neurons to flat endothelial cells, is maintained by the fibres of the cytoskeleton; and it turns out that much the same is true of bacteria.
For generations, biologists ascribed many bacterial shapes (rods, spirals, crescents, and so on) to the rigid cell wall bounding the cell, so it came as a surprise in the mid-199s to discover that bacteria have a cytoskeleton too. This is composed of thin fibres that look a lot like actin and tubulin...... As with motor proteins, there is little genetic resemblance between the bacterial and eukaryotic proteins.......yet.. The bacterial and eukaryotic protein structures are virtually superimposable, with the same shapes, the same spaces, and a few of the same critical amino acids in the same places. Plainly the eukaryotic cell skeleton evolved from a similar skeleton in bacteria.
In short, the cytoskeleton is motile in its own right. How did such a thing come to be?
Both actin and tubulin filaments are composed of protein subunits that assemble themselves into long chains, or polymers. This ability to polymerise is not unusual; plastics,..... Something similar [spontaneous polymerisation] must have happened in the case of the cytoskeleton proper, long ago. The units of actin and tubulin fibres are derived from ordinary proteins, with other functions about the cell. A few trifling changes in their structure, as happens with the variant haemoglobin, enabled them to assemble spontaneously into filaments. Unlike sickle-cell anaemia, however, this change must have had an immediate benefit.
And so the majesty of motility, from its most elementary beginnings, to the many-splendored power of skeletal muscle, depends on the workings of a handful of proteins, and their endlessly varied forms........ Some intriguing puzzles, when answered, may shine a brighter light. In bacteria, for example, the chromosomes are drawn apart using actin filaments, whereas the tightening that divides cells during replication is achieved with tubulin microtubules. The reverse is true of eukaryotic cells. Here, the scaffold of the spindle, which separates the chromosomes during cell division, is composed of microtubules, while the contracting corset that divides the cell is made of actin. When we know how and why this role reversal took place, we'll certainly have a better understanding of the detailed history of life on earth..... The ancestor of all living eukaryotes was motile. Presumably motility brought with it big advantages"
.
All in all, it fulfils some of the promotion quotes on the rear cover, like "If Charles Darwin sprang from his grave, I would give him this fine book to bring him up to speed" and "A science book that doesn't cheat: the structure is logical, the writing is witty, and the hard questions are answered"....I would agree with that. Five stars from me.
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it still as arresting as i found it the first time around. I'm really impressed with Nick Lane. He's a biochemist with a solid background in research and the current book won him many awards ...in eluding the royal Academy award for Science books in 2010. (Is it already that old?) He uses 10 inventions of evolution to elucidate life as we know it. They are.1. the origin of life ....a reasonable overview and he seems to come down on the side of white (alkaline) smokers on undersea vents as the likely place where life originated. (I'm not so sure and note that he seems to entirely ignore the work of Cairns-Smith and a possible role for clay minerals as templates).
2. DNA.....which is mainly about routes for the possible evolution of RNA in the alkaline smokers and transformation into DNA. Quite fascinating. Lots to learn here.
3. Photosynthesis....Lane has written a whole book about oxygen so no surprise here that the photosynthesis story is about the role of electrons dropping to low energy levels (releasing energy) and being kicked back up to higher levels by more energy.....releasing oxygen in the process. (I must get his book on oxygen).
4. The complex cell...another masterful description of the biology of the cell ..but with only passing acknowledgement to Lyn Marguli's ideas about chloroplasts and mitochondria being organisms that were absorbed into the cell in a symbiotic relationship.
5. Sex...some interesting statistical stuff here but he makes the point that all eucaryotes: all plants, animals, algae, fungi, protists have sex but not bacteria...and huge numbers of genes were transferred to the cell by the absorption of mitochondria.
6. Movement..it's this chapter that stayed so long with me. The big change that came after the great Permian extinction was motility and motile organisms.....and movement requires muscles...converting chemical energy into mechanical force. Because of their great interest to me, I'll attach some more detailed notes on these chemical/protein mechanisms towards the end of this review.
7. Sight and the evolution of the eye....a beautifully written chapter ...full of interesting insights...like the trilobites use of mineral calcite lenses and in 2001 a living brittlestar was found with calcite lenses on its arms.
8. Hot blood...well I found out there that large animals generate more internal heat and large alligators are technically cold blooded but generate enough heat to be borderline hot-blooded
9. Consciousness...makes the point that the brain has obviously evolved ...so this would imply that "mind" has also evolved ....undermining Pope John Paul's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that evolution was ok but the mind of man was above all of that (or words to that effect).
10. Death...some interesting observations on extending life spans. Makes the point that most diseases come with old age....postpone the biological old age and you postpone the diseases (and death).
And, as promised above, here are some nuggets that I've extracted from the chapter on movement that I found so fascinating.
"One meticulous study by the geneticists Satoshi Ōta and Naruya Saitou, at the National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, (I’ve walked by it many times....a lovely setting with views of Mt Fuji) Japan, showed that a selection of proteins in the skeletal muscles of mammals are so similar to those in the striated flight muscles of insects that both must have evolved from a common ancestor of vertebrates and invertebrates, living some 600 million years ago.
Jellyfish, it seems, also have striated muscles that are minutely comparable with our own. So both smooth muscle and striated muscle contract using a similar system of actin and myosin, but each system apparently evolved independently from a common ancestor that possessed both cell types - a common ancestor numbering among the earliest of animals, from a time when jellyfish were the acme of creation.
we now know, for example, that the gene sequences of yeast and human actin are 95 per cent identical.' And from this perspective, the evolution of muscle looks very different. The same filaments that power your muscles power the microscopic world of all complex cells. The only real difference lies in their organisation.
A set theme, the motor interactions between myosin and actin, for instance, is varied with the endless imagination of natural selection, to arrive at a breathtaking array of form and function.......
All the traffic of the cell is borne by protein motors that work in a broadly similar manner. First is myosin, which cranks up and down the actin filaments, just as it does in muscle. But here the variations begin. In muscle, the myosin heads spend nine tenths of their time detached from the actin filaments;
How did this great parade of motor proteins come to be? There is nothing that compares with it in the world of bacteria. Nor are actin and myosin the only motoring double-act in eukaryotic cells. A second family of motor proteins, called the kinesins, operates in much the same way as the myosins, in a hand-over-hand manner up and down the sky-wires of the cytoskeleton. In the case of the kinesins, though, the sky-wires in question are not the thin actin wires, but higher-bore tubes, known as microtubules, which are assembled from subunits of another protein called tubulin.
At the detailed level of their gene sequences, the two main types of motor protein, the myosins and the kinesins, have virtually nothing in common......Here and there are points of similarity, but for a long time this was taken to be either chance or a case of convergent evolution. Indeed the kinesins and myosins looked to be a classic case of convergent evolution, where two unrelated types of protein became specialised for a similar task, and so developed similarities in structure, just as the wings of bats and birds evolved independently to converge on similar solutions to the common challenge of flight.
On the basis of crystallography, then, we know that the myosins and kinesins did indeed share a common ancestor, despite having so little in common in gene sequence. Their three-dimensional shapes show many points of folding and structure in common, right down to critical amino acids being preserved in space with the same orientation. This is an astonishing feat of selection: the same patterns, the same shapes, the same spaces, all are preserved on an atomic level for billions of years.....
The shape of all eukaryotic cells, from long and spindly neurons to flat endothelial cells, is maintained by the fibres of the cytoskeleton; and it turns out that much the same is true of bacteria.
For generations, biologists ascribed many bacterial shapes (rods, spirals, crescents, and so on) to the rigid cell wall bounding the cell, so it came as a surprise in the mid-199s to discover that bacteria have a cytoskeleton too. This is composed of thin fibres that look a lot like actin and tubulin...... As with motor proteins, there is little genetic resemblance between the bacterial and eukaryotic proteins.......yet.. The bacterial and eukaryotic protein structures are virtually superimposable, with the same shapes, the same spaces, and a few of the same critical amino acids in the same places. Plainly the eukaryotic cell skeleton evolved from a similar skeleton in bacteria.
In short, the cytoskeleton is motile in its own right. How did such a thing come to be?
Both actin and tubulin filaments are composed of protein subunits that assemble themselves into long chains, or polymers. This ability to polymerise is not unusual; plastics,..... Something similar [spontaneous polymerisation] must have happened in the case of the cytoskeleton proper, long ago. The units of actin and tubulin fibres are derived from ordinary proteins, with other functions about the cell. A few trifling changes in their structure, as happens with the variant haemoglobin, enabled them to assemble spontaneously into filaments. Unlike sickle-cell anaemia, however, this change must have had an immediate benefit.
And so the majesty of motility, from its most elementary beginnings, to the many-splendored power of skeletal muscle, depends on the workings of a handful of proteins, and their endlessly varied forms........ Some intriguing puzzles, when answered, may shine a brighter light. In bacteria, for example, the chromosomes are drawn apart using actin filaments, whereas the tightening that divides cells during replication is achieved with tubulin microtubules. The reverse is true of eukaryotic cells. Here, the scaffold of the spindle, which separates the chromosomes during cell division, is composed of microtubules, while the contracting corset that divides the cell is made of actin. When we know how and why this role reversal took place, we'll certainly have a better understanding of the detailed history of life on earth..... The ancestor of all living eukaryotes was motile. Presumably motility brought with it big advantages"
.
All in all, it fulfils some of the promotion quotes on the rear cover, like "If Charles Darwin sprang from his grave, I would give him this fine book to bring him up to speed" and "A science book that doesn't cheat: the structure is logical, the writing is witty, and the hard questions are answered"....I would agree with that. Five stars from me.
Show Less
Awards
Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize (Shortlist — 2010)
Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize (Shortlist — 2010)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2009
Physical description
344 p.; 25 cm
ISBN
9780393065961
Local notes
Omslag: Buchanan-Smidt LLC
Omslaget viser en slags tidstavle for evolution og et firben
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Side 174: The second law of Leslie Orgel: Evolution is cleverer than you.
Side 192: Once the little squirt has found a suitable home, it attaches itself soundly to the spot and then, needing it no longer, reabsorbs its own brain.
Side 204: Some protozoa (dinoflagelates) have astonishingly complex mini-eyes, with a retina, lens and cornea all packed into the same cell.
Side 204: Eyes in their stars.
Side 205: Clement Freud: If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer, it just seems longer.
Omslaget viser en slags tidstavle for evolution og et firben
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Side 174: The second law of Leslie Orgel: Evolution is cleverer than you.
Side 192: Once the little squirt has found a suitable home, it attaches itself soundly to the spot and then, needing it no longer, reabsorbs its own brain.
Side 204: Some protozoa (dinoflagelates) have astonishingly complex mini-eyes, with a retina, lens and cornea all packed into the same cell.
Side 204: Eyes in their stars.
Side 205: Clement Freud: If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer, it just seems longer.
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Pages
344
DDC/MDS
| 576.8 |