Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
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 10 greatest inventions - from sex and warmth to death - resulting in a stunning account of nature's ingenuity. Since Charles Darwin sketched out evolution’s process 150 years ago, a landslide of data has swept scientists into a more detailed understanding of how life’s variety emerged. In Life Ascending, Lane, a biochemist, describes how 10 evolutionary inventions transformed the living world.
Every day, we produce loads of data about ourselves simply by living in the modern world: we click web pages, flip channels, drive through automatic toll booths, shop with credit cards, and make cell-phone calls. Now, in one of the greatest undertakings of the 21st century, a savvy group of mathematicians and computer scientists is beginning to sift through this data to profile us as workers, shoppers, patients, voters, potential terrorists, even lovers. Their goal? To manipulate our behavior – what we buy, how we vote – without our even realizing it.
Offering a more concise resource for environmental scientists, the seventh edition explores important environmental issues and shows how to apply this information on the job. It focuses on a systems approach, presenting a framework for thinking about environmental science. The recurring theme of global climate change as a system is integrated throughout the chapters, uncovering both the positive and negative roles that people play in that system. Environmental scientists will also benefit from the revised art program.
Islands have captured the imagination of scientists and the public for centuries--unique and rare environments, their isolation makes them natural laboratories for ecology and evolution. This authoritative, alphabetically arranged reference, featuring more than 200 succinct articles by leading scientists from around the world, provides broad coverage of all the island sciences. But what exactly is an island? The volume editors define it here as any discrete habitat isolated from other habitats by inhospitable surroundings.
