Thursday, January 01, 2009
The Making of the Fittest - Sean Carroll
" The new science of " genomics" - is the comprehensive and most especially, comparitive study of species DNA - is profoundly expanding our knowledge of evolution of Life. Genomics allows us to peer deeply into the evolutionary process. For more than a century after Darwin, natural selection was observable only at the level of whole organism such as finches or moths as differences in their survival or reproduction.
Now, we can see how the fittest are made. DNA contains an entirely new and different kind of information than what Darwin could have imagined or hoped for, but which decisively confirms his picture of evolution. We can now observe specific changes in DNA that have enabled species to adapt to changing environments and to evolve new lifestyles. The DNA record reveals that, evolution can and does repeat itself !
This is powerful evidence that, confronted with the same challenges or opportunities , the same solution can arise at entirely different times and places in the history. This repetition overthrows the notion that , if we rewound and replayed the history of life, all of the outcomes would be different. Many of our genes bear the scars of natural selection - of the battles our ancestors fought with the germs that have plagues human civilisation for millennia.
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/** His book received a 4.5 rating at amazon.com. Here are editorial reviews.
"From Publishers WeeklyPicking up where scientists like Richard Dawkins have left off, Carroll, a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo), has written a fast-paced look at how DNA demonstrates the evolutionary process. Natural selection eliminates harmful changes and embraces beneficial ones, and each change leaves its signature on a species' DNA codes. For example, the Antarctic ice fish today has no red blood cells; yet a fossilized gene for hemoglobin remains in its DNA, showing that the fish has adapted over 55 million years by losing the red blood cells that thicken blood and make it harder to pump in extreme cold. The fish has developed other features that allow it to absorb and circulate blood without hemoglobin. . Carroll points out that by examining the DNA of these ice fish species, it's possible to map its origins as well as the history of the South Atlantic's geology. He also uses dolphins, colobus monkeys and microbes to demonstrate how deeply evolution is etched in DNA. While searches for the genetic basis for evolution are hardly new, Carroll offers some provocative and convincing evidence. 7 pages of color illus.; 50 b&w illus. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From BooklistSensing that many people misunderstand evolution or don't believe it, geneticist Carroll here hopes to teach the interested and convince the doubters. He uses popular interest in animals as his lure and selects specific creatures, beginning with bloodless fishes of the Antarctic seas, as stages for his substantive points about evolution. More particularly, Carroll focuses on specific genes carried by his cast of animals to demonstrate natural selection. Carroll considers the animals' most favorable adaptations, preserved in what he calls "immortal genes"; several hundred are common to all domains of life. Carroll then scales up to the macroscopic and considers traits such as color vision in monkeys; the vision and anatomy of fish, including the famous coelacanth; and the sickle-cell trait in humans. In each case, Carroll explains how the DNA code of the gene responsible for the trait is inferred to be the result of natural selection working on mutations, which occur at a steady rate. Here is evolution clearly explained and stoutly defended. REVWRCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Link here :
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolution/dp/0393330516/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230822741&sr=1-1
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Another book, ' Space time geometry' too, received a 5 star rating.
http://www.amazon.com/Spacetime-Geometry-Introduction-General-Relativity/dp/0805387323/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230822741&sr=1-2
Editorial Reviews:
------------------------
Product DescriptionSpacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity provides a lucid and thoroughly modern introduction to general relativity. With an accessible and lively writing style, it introduces modern techniques to what can often be a formal and intimidating subject. Readers are led from the physics of flat spacetime (special relativity), through the intricacies of differential geometry and Einstein's equations, and on to exciting applications such as black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology. For advanced undergraduates and graduate students, or anyone interested in astronomy, cosmology, physics, or general relativity. From the Back CoverSpacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity provides a lucid and thoroughly modern introduction to general relativity. With an accessible and lively writing style, it introduces modern techniques to what can often be a formal and intimidating subject. Readers are led from the physics of flat spacetime (special relativity), through the intricacies of differential geometry and Einstein's equations, and on to exciting applications such as black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology. For advanced undergraduates and graduate students, or anyone interested in astronomy, cosmology, physics, or general relativity.
Now, we can see how the fittest are made. DNA contains an entirely new and different kind of information than what Darwin could have imagined or hoped for, but which decisively confirms his picture of evolution. We can now observe specific changes in DNA that have enabled species to adapt to changing environments and to evolve new lifestyles. The DNA record reveals that, evolution can and does repeat itself !
This is powerful evidence that, confronted with the same challenges or opportunities , the same solution can arise at entirely different times and places in the history. This repetition overthrows the notion that , if we rewound and replayed the history of life, all of the outcomes would be different. Many of our genes bear the scars of natural selection - of the battles our ancestors fought with the germs that have plagues human civilisation for millennia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/** His book received a 4.5 rating at amazon.com. Here are editorial reviews.
"From Publishers WeeklyPicking up where scientists like Richard Dawkins have left off, Carroll, a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo), has written a fast-paced look at how DNA demonstrates the evolutionary process. Natural selection eliminates harmful changes and embraces beneficial ones, and each change leaves its signature on a species' DNA codes. For example, the Antarctic ice fish today has no red blood cells; yet a fossilized gene for hemoglobin remains in its DNA, showing that the fish has adapted over 55 million years by losing the red blood cells that thicken blood and make it harder to pump in extreme cold. The fish has developed other features that allow it to absorb and circulate blood without hemoglobin. . Carroll points out that by examining the DNA of these ice fish species, it's possible to map its origins as well as the history of the South Atlantic's geology. He also uses dolphins, colobus monkeys and microbes to demonstrate how deeply evolution is etched in DNA. While searches for the genetic basis for evolution are hardly new, Carroll offers some provocative and convincing evidence. 7 pages of color illus.; 50 b&w illus. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From BooklistSensing that many people misunderstand evolution or don't believe it, geneticist Carroll here hopes to teach the interested and convince the doubters. He uses popular interest in animals as his lure and selects specific creatures, beginning with bloodless fishes of the Antarctic seas, as stages for his substantive points about evolution. More particularly, Carroll focuses on specific genes carried by his cast of animals to demonstrate natural selection. Carroll considers the animals' most favorable adaptations, preserved in what he calls "immortal genes"; several hundred are common to all domains of life. Carroll then scales up to the macroscopic and considers traits such as color vision in monkeys; the vision and anatomy of fish, including the famous coelacanth; and the sickle-cell trait in humans. In each case, Carroll explains how the DNA code of the gene responsible for the trait is inferred to be the result of natural selection working on mutations, which occur at a steady rate. Here is evolution clearly explained and stoutly defended. REVWRCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Link here :
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolution/dp/0393330516/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230822741&sr=1-1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another book, ' Space time geometry' too, received a 5 star rating.
http://www.amazon.com/Spacetime-Geometry-Introduction-General-Relativity/dp/0805387323/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230822741&sr=1-2
Editorial Reviews:
------------------------
Product DescriptionSpacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity provides a lucid and thoroughly modern introduction to general relativity. With an accessible and lively writing style, it introduces modern techniques to what can often be a formal and intimidating subject. Readers are led from the physics of flat spacetime (special relativity), through the intricacies of differential geometry and Einstein's equations, and on to exciting applications such as black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology. For advanced undergraduates and graduate students, or anyone interested in astronomy, cosmology, physics, or general relativity. From the Back CoverSpacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity provides a lucid and thoroughly modern introduction to general relativity. With an accessible and lively writing style, it introduces modern techniques to what can often be a formal and intimidating subject. Readers are led from the physics of flat spacetime (special relativity), through the intricacies of differential geometry and Einstein's equations, and on to exciting applications such as black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology. For advanced undergraduates and graduate students, or anyone interested in astronomy, cosmology, physics, or general relativity.
