The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

Regular price $8.90
Unit price
per

Evolutionary history redefined: DNA's surprising journey.

If you've ever pondered the intricate web of evolution and the role DNA plays in it, "The Tangled Tree" is right up your alley. David Quammen doesn't just lay out facts; he narrates the history of life with a flair that breathes excitement into molecular biology. You'll be introduced to groundbreaking concepts and the unheralded scientists who've shaped our understanding of genetic inheritance—think of it as meeting the ancestors you never knew you had, hidden within your very DNA.

  • National Book Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2018)
  • PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Nominee for Longlist (2019)
  • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science & Technology (2018)
  • High Plains Book Award for Medicine & Science AND Big Sky Award (2019)
  • Society of Midland Authors Award Nominee for Adult Nonfiction (2019)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

Regular price $8.90
Unit price
per
Condition guide

Special Offer

Buy 3, Get Another Free On All Items Under S$10 Storewide

Discount applied automatically when you add them to your cart.

ISBN: 9781476776637
Authors: David Quammen
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date of Publication: 2019-08-06
Format: Paperback
Related Collections: Biographies & Memoirs, Nature, History, Science
Goodreads rating: 3.97
(rated by 4530 readers)

Description

Science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and life’s history, with powerful implications for human health and even our own human nature. 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 field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them—such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” 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.
 

Evolutionary history redefined: DNA's surprising journey.

If you've ever pondered the intricate web of evolution and the role DNA plays in it, "The Tangled Tree" is right up your alley. David Quammen doesn't just lay out facts; he narrates the history of life with a flair that breathes excitement into molecular biology. You'll be introduced to groundbreaking concepts and the unheralded scientists who've shaped our understanding of genetic inheritance—think of it as meeting the ancestors you never knew you had, hidden within your very DNA.

  • National Book Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2018)
  • PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Nominee for Longlist (2019)
  • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science & Technology (2018)
  • High Plains Book Award for Medicine & Science AND Big Sky Award (2019)
  • Society of Midland Authors Award Nominee for Adult Nonfiction (2019)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.