The tree of life solving science's greatest puzzle
"Are humans really fish? Why are we the only animals with chins? How much of our DNA do we share with the trillions of bacteria in our bodies? For centuries, scientists have chased the secrets of how life on our planet arose, how it assumed its dazzling diversity of forms, and how we humans are rela...
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
W.W. Norton & Company,
2025.
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| Edition: | First American edition. |
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Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- Part I: What is the tree of life? Solving science's greatest puzzle
- The venus flytrap and other unlikely relatives
- A distant cousin from the ocean's depths
- The real history of the birds and the bees
- Are we still fishes?
- Some awfully big numbers
- Such stuff as genes are made on
- Part II: How to travel in time. Meet Luca, the last universal common ancestor
- Head-to-tail evolution and the first of the animals
- How the insects got their wings
- The microscopic hitch-hikers responsible for you and me
- When trees go wrong
- Problems with genes
- Rock of ages (or ages of rocks)
- Using our genes to tell the time
- Embryos and arrow worms
- The diet of worms
- Part III: Tracing our family tree. The first three billion years
- The first animals
- The road to mammals
- The end of the journey
- The trees within us
- Unknown unknowns and the end of the affair
- Acknowledgments
- Sources and bibliography
- Index.
