Microbial Evolution

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781621820376
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Microbial Evolution by : Howard Ochman

Download or read book Microbial Evolution written by Howard Ochman and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bacteria have been the dominant forms of life on Earth for the past 3.5 billion years. They rapidly evolve, constantly changing their genetic architecture through horizontal DNA transfer and other mechanisms. Consequently, it can be difficult to define individual species and determine how they are related. Written and edited by experts in the field, this collection from Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology examines how bacteria and other microbes evolve, focusing on insights from genomics-based studies. Contributors discuss the origins of new microbial populations, the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that keep species separate once they have diverged, and the challenges of constructing phylogenetic trees that accurately reflect their relationships. They describe the organization of microbial genomes, the various mutations that occur, including the birth of new genes de novo and by duplication, and how natural selection acts on those changes. The role of horizontal gene transfer as a strong driver of microbial evolution is emphasized throughout. The authors also explore the geologic evidence for early microbial evolution and describe the use of microbial evolution experiments to examine phenomena like natural selection. This volume will thus be essential reading for all microbial ecologists, population geneticists, and evolutionary biologists.

Microbial Evolution and Co-Adaptation

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309131219
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Microbial Evolution and Co-Adaptation by : Institute of Medicine

Download or read book Microbial Evolution and Co-Adaptation written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-05-10 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Joshua Lederberg - scientist, Nobel laureate, visionary thinker, and friend of the Forum on Microbial Threats - died on February 2, 2008. It was in his honor that the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats convened a public workshop on May 20-21, 2008, to examine Dr. Lederberg's scientific and policy contributions to the marketplace of ideas in the life sciences, medicine, and public policy. The resulting workshop summary, Microbial Evolution and Co-Adaptation, demonstrates the extent to which conceptual and technological developments have, within a few short years, advanced our collective understanding of the microbiome, microbial genetics, microbial communities, and microbe-host-environment interactions.

Microbial Life

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Publisher : Sinauer Associates, Incorporated
ISBN 13 : 9780878936854
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (368 download)

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Book Synopsis Microbial Life by : James T. Staley

Download or read book Microbial Life written by James T. Staley and published by Sinauer Associates, Incorporated. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Special features of this second edition are: complete coverage of all aspects of microbiology; a newly updated and expanded treatment of microbial physiology and metabolism; a completely new approach to presenting the biology of eukaryotic microorganisms; updated information on genetics and genomics; a more extensive, phylogenetic approach to microbial diversity; a revised up-to-date section on microbial structure and function that reflects current concepts and techniques; expanded treatment of microbial diseases; recent information about the taxonomy, evolution, and speciation of Bacteria and Archaea; a new section on energetics covering both chemical and light energy conservation; expanded and updated treatment of immunology; chapters on the popular area of beneficial symbioses and on human host-microbe interactions; separate chapters on industrial microbiology and applied and environmental microbiology.

Links Between Geological Processes, Microbial Activities & Evolution of Life

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1402083068
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Links Between Geological Processes, Microbial Activities & Evolution of Life by : Yildirim Dilek

Download or read book Links Between Geological Processes, Microbial Activities & Evolution of Life written by Yildirim Dilek and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Microbial systems in extreme environments and in the deep biosphere may be analogous to potential life on other planetary bodies and hence may be used to investigate the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. This book examines the mode and nature of links between geological processes and microbial activities and their significance for the origin and evolution of life on the Earth and possibly on other planets. This is a truly interdisciplinary science with societal relevance.

Life's Engines

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691247684
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Life's Engines by : Paul G. Falkowski

Download or read book Life's Engines written by Paul G. Falkowski and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The marvelous microbes that made life on Earth possible and support our very existence For almost four billion years, microbes had the primordial oceans all to themselves. The stewards of Earth, these organisms transformed the chemistry of our planet to make it habitable for plants, animals, and us. Life's Engines takes readers deep into the microscopic world to explore how these marvelous creatures made life on Earth possible—and how human life today would cease to exist without them. Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built—and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes. A vibrantly entertaining book about the microbes that support our very existence, Life's Engines will inspire wonder about these elegantly complex nanomachines that have driven life since its origin. It also issues a timely warning about the dangers of tinkering with that machinery to make it more "efficient" at meeting the ever-growing demands of humans in the coming century.

The Social Biology of Microbial Communities

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309264324
Total Pages : 633 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis The Social Biology of Microbial Communities by : Institute of Medicine

Download or read book The Social Biology of Microbial Communities written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the germ theory of disease in the 19th century and extending through most of the 20th century, microbes were believed to live their lives as solitary, unicellular, disease-causing organisms . This perception stemmed from the focus of most investigators on organisms that could be grown in the laboratory as cellular monocultures, often dispersed in liquid, and under ambient conditions of temperature, lighting, and humidity. Most such inquiries were designed to identify microbial pathogens by satisfying Koch's postulates.3 This pathogen-centric approach to the study of microorganisms produced a metaphorical "war" against these microbial invaders waged with antibiotic therapies, while simultaneously obscuring the dynamic relationships that exist among and between host organisms and their associated microorganisms-only a tiny fraction of which act as pathogens. Despite their obvious importance, very little is actually known about the processes and factors that influence the assembly, function, and stability of microbial communities. Gaining this knowledge will require a seismic shift away from the study of individual microbes in isolation to inquiries into the nature of diverse and often complex microbial communities, the forces that shape them, and their relationships with other communities and organisms, including their multicellular hosts. On March 6 and 7, 2012, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Forum on Microbial Threats hosted a public workshop to explore the emerging science of the "social biology" of microbial communities. Workshop presentations and discussions embraced a wide spectrum of topics, experimental systems, and theoretical perspectives representative of the current, multifaceted exploration of the microbial frontier. Participants discussed ecological, evolutionary, and genetic factors contributing to the assembly, function, and stability of microbial communities; how microbial communities adapt and respond to environmental stimuli; theoretical and experimental approaches to advance this nascent field; and potential applications of knowledge gained from the study of microbial communities for the improvement of human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health and toward a deeper understanding of microbial diversity and evolution. The Social Biology of Microbial Communities: Workshop Summary further explains the happenings of the workshop.

Molecular Mechanisms of Microbial Evolution

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319690787
Total Pages : 452 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis Molecular Mechanisms of Microbial Evolution by : Pabulo H. Rampelotto

Download or read book Molecular Mechanisms of Microbial Evolution written by Pabulo H. Rampelotto and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-12 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most profound paradigms that have transformed our understanding about life over the last decades was the acknowledgement that microorganisms play a central role in shaping the past and present environments on Earth and the nature of all life forms. Each organism is the product of its history and all extant life traces back to common ancestors, which were microorganisms. Nowadays, microorganisms represent the vast majority of biodiversity on Earth and have survived nearly 4 billion years of evolutionary change. Microbial evolution occurred and continues to take place in a great variety of environmental conditions. However, we still know little about the processes of evolution as applied to microorganisms and microbial populations. In addition, the molecular mechanisms by which microorganisms communicate/interact with each other and with multicellular organisms remains poorly understood. Such patterns of microbe-host interaction are essential to understand the evolution of microbial symbiosis and pathogenesis.Recent advances in DNA sequencing, high-throughput technologies, and genetic manipulation systems have enabled studies that directly characterize the molecular and genomic bases of evolution, producing data that are making us change our view of the microbial world. The notion that mutations in the coding regions of genomes are, in combination with selective forces, the main contributors to biodiversity needs to be re-examined as evidence accumulates, indicating that many non-coding regions that contain regulatory signals show a high rate of variation even among closely related organisms. Comparative analyses of an increasing number of closely related microbial genomes have yielded exciting insight into the sources of microbial genome variability with respect to gene content, gene order and evolution of genes with unknown functions. Furthermore, laboratory studies (i.e. experimental microbial evolution) are providing fundamental biological insight through direct observation of the evolution process. They not only enable testing evolutionary theory and principles, but also have applications to metabolic engineering and human health. Overall, these studies ranging from viruses to Bacteria to microbial Eukaryotes are illuminating the mechanisms of evolution at a resolution that Darwin, Delbruck and Dobzhansky could barely have imagined. Consequently, it is timely to review and highlight the progress so far as well as discuss what remains unknown and requires future research. This book explores the current state of knowledge on the molecular mechanisms of microbial evolution with a collection of papers written by authors who are leading experts in the field.

Microbial Evolution under Extreme Conditions

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110340712
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Microbial Evolution under Extreme Conditions by : Corien Bakermans

Download or read book Microbial Evolution under Extreme Conditions written by Corien Bakermans and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's microorganisms represent the vast majority of biodiversity on Earth and have survived nearly 4 billion years of evolutionary change. However, we still know little about the processes of evolution as applied to microorganisms and microbial populations. Microbial evolution occurred and continues to take place in a vast variety of environmental conditions that range from anoxic to oxic, from hot to cold, from free-living to symbiotic, etc. Some of these physicochemical conditions are considered "extreme", particularly when inhabitants are limited to microorganisms. It is easy to imagine that microbial life in extreme environments is somehow more constrained and perhaps subjected to different evolutionary pressures. But what do we actually know about microbial evolution under extreme conditions and how can we apply that knowledge to other conditions? Appealingly, extreme environments with their relatively limited numbers of inhabitants can serve as good model systems for the study of evolutionary processes. A look at the microbial inhabitants of today's extreme environments provides a snapshot in time of evolution and adaptation to extreme conditions. These adaptations manifest at different levels from established communities and species to genome content and changes in specific genes that result in altered function or gene expression. But as a recent (2011) report from the American Academy of Microbiology observes: "A complex issue in the study of microbial evolution is unraveling the process of evolution from that of adaptation. In many cases, microbes have the capacity to adapt to various environmental changes by changing gene expression or community composition as opposed to having to evolve entirely new capabilities." We have learned much about how microbes are adapted to extreme conditions but relatively little is known about these adaptations evolved. How did the different processes of evolution such as mutation, immigration, horizontal (lateral) gene transfer, recombination, hybridization, genetic drift, fixation, positive and negative selection, and selective screens contribute to the evolution of these genes, genomes, microbial species, communities, and functions? What are typical rates of these processes? How prevalent are each of these processes under different conditions? This book explores the current state of knowledge about microbial evolution under extreme conditions and addresses the following questions: What is known about the processes of microbial evolution (mechanisms, rates, etc.) under extreme conditions? Can this knowledge be applied to other systems and what is the broader relevance? What remains unknown and requires future research? These questions will be addressed from several perspectives including different extreme environments, specific organisms, and specific evolutionary processes.

Life at the Edge of Sight

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 067497591X
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis Life at the Edge of Sight by : Scott Chimileski

Download or read book Life at the Edge of Sight written by Scott Chimileski and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-25 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This stunning photographic essay opens a new frontier for readers to explore through words and images. Microbial studies have clarified life’s origins on Earth, explained the functioning of ecosystems, and improved both crop yields and human health. Scott Chimileski and Roberto Kolter are expert guides to an invisible world waiting in plain sight.

Microbial Life History

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691231192
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Microbial Life History by : Steven A. Frank

Download or read book Microbial Life History written by Steven A. Frank and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful framework for understanding how natural selection shapes adaptation and biological design Design and diversity are the two great challenges in the study of life. Microbial Life History draws on the latest advances in microbiology to describe the fundamental forces of biological design and apply these evolutionary processes to a broad diversity of traits in microbial metabolism and biochemistry. Emphasizing how to formulate and test hypotheses of adaptation, Steven Frank provides a new foundation for exploring the evolutionary forces of design. He discusses the economic principles of marginal valuations, trade-offs, and payoffs in risky and random environments; the social aspects of conflict and cooperation; the demographic aspects of age and spatial heterogeneity; and the engineering control theory principles by which systems adjust to environments. Frank then applies these evolutionary principles to the biochemistry of microbial metabolism, providing the first comprehensive link between the forces that shape biological design and cellular energetics. Tracing how natural selection sculpts metabolism, Microbial Life History provides new perspectives on the life histories of organisms, from growth rate and survival to dispersal and defense against attack. Along the way, this incisive book addresses the conceptual and philosophical challenges confronting evolutionary biologists and other practitioners who study biological design and seek to apply its lessons.

The New Science of Metagenomics

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309106761
Total Pages : 170 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Science of Metagenomics by : National Research Council

Download or read book The New Science of Metagenomics written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2007-06-24 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although we can't usually see them, microbes are essential for every part of human life-indeed all life on Earth. The emerging field of metagenomics offers a new way of exploring the microbial world that will transform modern microbiology and lead to practical applications in medicine, agriculture, alternative energy, environmental remediation, and many others areas. Metagenomics allows researchers to look at the genomes of all of the microbes in an environment at once, providing a "meta" view of the whole microbial community and the complex interactions within it. It's a quantum leap beyond traditional research techniques that rely on studying-one at a time-the few microbes that can be grown in the laboratory. At the request of the National Science Foundation, five Institutes of the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy, the National Research Council organized a committee to address the current state of metagenomics and identify obstacles current researchers are facing in order to determine how to best support the field and encourage its success. The New Science of Metagenomics recommends the establishment of a "Global Metagenomics Initiative" comprising a small number of large-scale metagenomics projects as well as many medium- and small-scale projects to advance the technology and develop the standard practices needed to advance the field. The report also addresses database needs, methodological challenges, and the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in supporting this new field.

Microbes and Evolution

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781555815400
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (154 download)

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Book Synopsis Microbes and Evolution by : Roberto Kolter

Download or read book Microbes and Evolution written by Roberto Kolter and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore the fundamental role of microbes in the natural history of our planet with 40 first-person essays written by microbiologists with a passion for evolutionary biology, whose thinking and career paths in science were influenced by Darwin's seminal work On the Origin of Species.

The New Foundations of Evolution

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199889171
Total Pages : 765 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (998 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Foundations of Evolution by : Jan Sapp

Download or read book The New Foundations of Evolution written by Jan Sapp and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-24 with total page 765 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of a profound revolution in the way biologists explore life's history, understand its evolutionary processes, and reveal its diversity. It is about life's smallest entities, deepest diversity, and greatest cellular biomass: the microbiosphere. Jan Sapp introduces us to a new field of evolutionary biology and a new brand of molecular evolutionists who descend to the foundations of evolution on Earth to explore the origins of the genetic system and the primary life forms from which all others have emerged. In so doing, he examines-from Lamarck to the present-the means of pursuing the evolution of complexity, and of depicting the greatest differences among organisms. The New Foundations of Evolution takes us into a world that classical evolutionists could never have imagined: a deep phylogeny based on three domains of life and multiple kingdoms, and created by mechanisms very unlike those considered by Darwin and his followers. Evolution by leaps seems to occur regularly in the microbial world where molecular evolutionists have shown the inheritance of acquired genes and genomes are major modes of evolutionary innovation. Revisiting the history of microbiology for the first time from the perspective of evolutionary biology, Sapp shows why classical Darwinian conceptions centering on questions of the origin of species were forged without a microbial foundation, why classical microbiologists considered it impossible to know the course of evolution, and classical molecular biologists considered the evolution of the molecular genetic system to be beyond understanding. In telling this stirring story of scientific iconoclasm, this book elucidates how the new evolutionary biology arose, what methods and assumptions underpin it, and the fiery controversies that continue to shape biologists' understanding of the foundations of evolution today.

Uncultivated Microorganisms

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 3540854657
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (48 download)

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Book Synopsis Uncultivated Microorganisms by : Slava S. Epstein

Download or read book Uncultivated Microorganisms written by Slava S. Epstein and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1898, an Austrian microbiologist Heinrich Winterberg made a curious observation: the number of microbial cells in his samples did not match the number of colonies formed on nutrient media (Winterberg 1898). About a decade later, J. Amann qu- tified this mismatch, which turned out to be surprisingly large, with non-growing cells outnumbering the cultivable ones almost 150 times (Amann 1911). These papers signify some of the earliest steps towards the discovery of an important phenomenon known today as the Great Plate Count Anomaly (Staley and Konopka 1985). Note how early in the history of microbiology these steps were taken. Detecting the Anomaly almost certainly required the Plate. If so, then the period from 1881 to 1887, the years when Robert Koch and Petri introduced their key inventions (Koch 1881; Petri 1887), sets the earliest boundary for the discovery, which is remarkably close to the 1898 observations by H. Winterberg. Celebrating its 111th anniversary, the Great Plate Count Anomaly today is arguably the oldest unresolved microbiological phenomenon. In the years to follow, the Anomaly was repeatedly confirmed by all microb- logists who cared to compare the cell count in the inoculum to the colony count in the Petri dish (cf., Cholodny 1929; Butkevich 1932; Butkevich and Butkevich 1936). By mid-century, the remarkable difference between the two counts became a universally recognized phenomenon, acknowledged by several classics of the time (Waksman and Hotchkiss 1937; ZoBell 1946; Jannasch and Jones 1959).

Microcosmos

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Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520340515
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Microcosmos by : Lynn Margulis

Download or read book Microcosmos written by Lynn Margulis and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Microcosmos is nothing less than the saga of the life of the planet. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan have put it all together, literally, in this extraordinary book, which is unlike any treatment of evolution for a general readership that I have encountered before. A fascinating account that we humans should be studying now for clues to our own survival."—From the Foreword by Dr. Lewis Thomas Microcosmos brings together the remarkable discoveries of microbiology in the later decades of the 20th century and the pioneering research of Dr. Margulis to create a vivid new picture of the world that is crucial to our understanding of the future of the planet. Addressed to general readers, the book provides a beautifully written view of evolution as a process based on interdependency and their interconnectedness of all life on the planet.

The Vital Question

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781781250372
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis The Vital Question by : Nick Lane

Download or read book The Vital Question written by Nick Lane and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A game-changing book on the origins of life, called the most important scientific discovery 'since the Copernican revolution' in The Observer.

The Search for Life's Origins

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309042461
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Search for Life's Origins by : National Research Council

Download or read book The Search for Life's Origins written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1990-02-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of planetary biology and chemical evolution draws together experts in astronomy, paleobiology, biochemistry, and space science who work together to understand the evolution of living systems. This field has made exciting discoveries that shed light on how organic compounds came together to form self-replicating molecules-the origin of life. This volume updates that progress and offers recommendations on research programs-including an ambitious effort centered on Mars-to advance the field over the next 10 to 15 years. The book presents a wide range of data and research results on these and other issues: The biogenic elements and their interaction in the interstellar clouds and in solar nebulae. Early planetary environments and the conditions that lead to the origin of life. The evolution of cellular and multicellular life. The search for life outside the solar system. This volume will become required reading for anyone involved in the search for life's beginnings-including exobiologists, geoscientists, planetary scientists, and U.S. space and science policymakers.