検索キーワード： 進化・遺伝学

Inevitably, life on Earth will come to an end, whether by climate disaster, cataclysmic war, or the death of the sun in a few billion years. To avoid extinction, we will have to find a new home planet, perhaps even a new solar system, to inhabit. In this provocative and fascinating book, Christopher Mason argues that we have a moral duty to do just that.

പരിണാമത്തെപ്പറ്റിയുള്ള പുസ്തകങ്ങള്‍ ഒരുപക്ഷേ മുമ്പേ മലയാളത്തില്‍ ഉണ്ടായിട്ടുണ്ടാകാം. എന്നാല്‍ പരിണാമശാസ്ത്രത്തിന്റെ അടിസ്ഥാനവും തെളിവുകളും പ്രസക്തിയും പ്രതിപാദിക്കുന്ന ഇതുപോലൊന്ന് ഞാന്‍ വായിച്ചിട്ടില്ല. പ്രപഞ്ചത്തിന്റെ ഉല്‍പ്പത്തി മുതല്‍ ഡിഎന്‍എ വരെ, എന്താണ് ജീവന്‍ എന്ന ചോദ്യം മുതല്‍ മനുഷ്യന്റെ ജനനംവരെ വളരെ ലളിതമായ ഭാഷയില്‍ ഈ പുസ്തകം പറഞ്ഞുതരുന്നു. ശാസ്ത്രത്തില്‍ അറിവില്ലാത്തവര്‍ക്കും, അറിവ് വേണമെന്ന് ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നവര്‍ക്കും വേണ്ടി വേണ്ടത്ര റഫറന്‍സുകള്‍ കൊടുത്ത് വളരെ ആധികാരികതയോടെ എഴുതിയ ഒന്നാണിത്. — ഡോ. മുരളി തുമ്മാരുകുടി

Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four, legs. From an evolutionary perspective, this is an illogical development, as it slows us down. But here we are, suggesting there must have been something tremendous to gain from bipedalism. First Steps takes our ordinary, everyday walking experience and reveals how unusual and extraordinary it truly is. The seven-million-year-long journey through the origins of upright walking shows how it was in fact a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human.

The Earth teems with life: in its oceans, forests, skies, and cities. Yet there's a black hole at the heart of biology. We do not know why complex life is the way it is, or, for that matter, how life first began. In The Vital Question, award-winning author and biochemist Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a solution to conundrums that have puzzled generations of scientists.

The body is magnificent but it doesn't come with a lifetime warranty or an operating manual. You're the result of millions of years of evolution, but many of the adaptations that helped your ancestors survive are now working overtime to accelerate the aging process. The assumption here is that we are our genes and therefore trapped by the past. The good news is that your genetic code - the DNA sequence that is the biochemical basis of heredity - can play a minor role in the way you age.

The Ancestor's Tale is a pilgrimage back through time - a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about six million years in the past, gorillas at seven million years, orangutans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band. The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales.

Imagine a world without bees, butterflies, and flowering plants. That was Earth 125 million years ago. Turn back the clock 400 million years, and there were no trees. At 450 million years in the past, even the earliest insects had not yet developed. And looking back 500 million years, the land was devoid of life, which at that time flourished in a profusion of strange forms in the oceans. These and other major turning points are the amazing story of evolution.

Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard - only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is right - or is there another possibility?

In one of the great ironies of the modern world, the science that was expected to solve life’s mysteries has done just the opposite. New discoveries have led to more unanswered questions, created deeper mysteries, and brought us to the brink of forbidden territory when it comes to explaining our origin and existence. New York Times best-selling author and 2018 Templeton Award nominee Gregg Braden crosses the traditional boundaries of science and spirituality to answer the timeless question at the core of our existence.

We’re constantly seeking answers to these fundamental human questions, and now, science has the answers. The foods we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold can all be traced back to our DNA, germs, and environment. This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions.

In The Social Leap, William von Hippel lays out a revolutionary hypothesis, tracing human development through three critical evolutionary inflection points to explain how events in our distant past shape our lives today. From the mundane, such as why we exaggerate, to the surprising, such as why we believe our own lies and why fame and fortune are as likely to bring misery as happiness, the implications are far-reaching and extraordinary.

The scuba-diving philosopher and best-selling author of Other Minds explores the origins of animal consciousness. Dip below the ocean’s surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals and flower-like worms, whose rooted bodies and intricate geometry are more reminiscent of plant life than anything recognisably animal. Yet these creatures are our cousins.

A preeminent geneticist hunts the Neanderthal genome to answer the biggest question of them all: what does it mean to be human? What can we learn from the genes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pbo’s mission to answer that question, beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in his sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2009.

Cooperation is the means by which life arose in the first place. It’s how we progressed through scale and complexity, from free-floating strands of genetic material, to nation states. But given what we know about the mechanisms of evolution, cooperation is also something of a puzzle. How does cooperation begin, when on a Darwinian level, all that the genes in your body care about is being passed on to the next generation? A biologist by training, Raihani looks at where and how collaborative behavior emerges throughout the animal kingdom, and what problems it solves.

Alice Roberts uses the latest research to uncover the evolutionary history hidden in all of us, from the secrets found only in our embryos and genes - including why as embryos we have what look like gills - to those visible in your anatomy. This is a tale of discovery, exploring why and how we have developed as we have. This is your story, told as never before.

In this lively and illuminating discussion of his landmark research, esteemed primatologist Frans de Waal argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within. Moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution. For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness.

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Humans are the only species who can reprogram themselves. This is astounding. In episode 8 of The Book Club, Amit Varma recommends you read 'Hacking Darwin' by Jamie Metzl, a lucid summation of the technological implications of genetic science – and the ethical questions they raise.

Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier tell the Denisovans’ story in The Secret World of Denisovans. Leading us through the excavation of Denisova cave, the sequencing of the Denisovan genome, and recent research on Denisovan fossils, Condemi and Savatier uncover how the Denisovans migrated to Asia, who they interacted with along the way, and why traces of Denisovan DNA can be found in modern-day humans.

"Guerras CRISPR: Cómo la Edición Genética Revolucionará la Guerra" es una obra de no ficción que explora el asombroso y aterrador potencial de la tecnología CRISPR en el campo de batalla. A través de un análisis detallado, el libro examina cómo la manipulación genética puede dar lugar a soldados mejorados, capaces de hazañas físicas y cognitivas que antes eran imposibles. Además de los avances científicos, se abordan los dilemas éticos, el impacto estratégico en los conflictos militares y las consecuencias globales.