John L. Ingraham (Author)
Harvard University Press
Physical Details: pp. 304
Language: English
Since Darwin, people have speculated about the evolutionary relationships among dissimilar species, including our connections to the diverse life forms known as microbes. In the 1970s biologists discovered a way to establish these kinships. This new era of exploration began with Linus Pauling’s finding that every protein in every cell contains a huge reservoir of evolutionary history. His discovery opened a research path that has changed the way biologists and others think about the living world. In Kin John L. Ingraham tells the story of these remarkable breakthroughs. His original, accessible history explains how we came to understand our microbe inheritance and the relatedness of all organisms on Earth.Among the most revolutionary scientific achievements was Carl Woese’s discovery that a large group of organisms previously lumped together with bacteria were in fact a totally distinct form of life, now called the archaea. But the crowning accomplishment has been to construct the Tree of Life―an evolutionary project Darwin dreamed about over a century ago. Today, we know that the Tree’s three main stems are dominated by microbes. The nonmicrobes―plants and animals, including humans―constitute only a small upper branch in one stem.Knowing the Tree’s structure has given biologists the ability to characterize the complex array of microbial populations that live in us and on us, and investigate how they contribute to health and disease. This knowledge also moves us closer to answering the tantalizing question of how the Tree of Life began, over 3.5 billion years ago.
...MoreReview Laura Dawes (2018) Review of "Kin: How We Came to Know Our Microbe Relatives". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 175-176).
Similar Citations
Chapter
Sapp, Jan;
(2008)
The Iconoclastic Research Program of Carl Woese
(/isis/citation/CBB000960104/)
Article
Goldenfeld, Nigel;
Pace, Norman R.;
(2013)
Carl R. Woese (1928--2012)
(/isis/citation/CBB001320458/)
Article
Harman, Oren Solomon;
(2006)
Method as a Function of “Disciplinary Landscape”: C.D. Darlington and Cytology, Genetics and Evolution, 1932--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB000670096/)
Book
Zimmer, Carl;
(2008)
Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
(/isis/citation/CBB000800081/)
Book
Bernardino Fantini;
Fabrizio Rufo;
(2017)
Il codice della vita. Una storia della genetica tra scienza e bioetica
(/isis/citation/CBB297801530/)
Article
Jean Gayon;
Richard M. Burian;
Laurent Loison;
(2017)
The Contributions – and Collapse – of Lamarckian Heredity in Pasteurian Molecular Biology: 1. Lysogeny, 1900–1960
(/isis/citation/CBB496049162/)
Thesis
Green, Lisa Anne;
(2012)
Science for Survival: The Modern Synthesis of Evolution and the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
(/isis/citation/CBB001567386/)
Book
Brown, William;
Fabian, Andrew C.;
(2010)
Darwin
(/isis/citation/CBB001023129/)
Book
Margulis, Lynn;
Sagan, Dorion;
(2002)
Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species
(/isis/citation/CBB000201471/)
Book
Tudge, Colin;
(2001)
Impact of the Gene: From Mendel's Peas to Designer Babies
(/isis/citation/CBB000102136/)
Book
Ruse, Michael;
Travis, Joseph;
(2009)
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001232307/)
Article
Galperin, Charles;
(2000)
Aspects du développement dans la biologie du XXe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB000110069/)
Article
Alessandro Minelli;
(2020)
Genes, embryos and evolution
(/isis/citation/CBB307786830/)
Article
David Ceccarelli;
(2021)
“The bad habit of wandering”: Morgan, Osborn and the issue of evolutionary causality in genetics and paleontology
(/isis/citation/CBB874691467/)
Book
Cain, Joe;
Ruse, Michael;
Burkhardt, Frederick;
(2009)
Descended from Darwin: Insights into the History of Evolutionary Studies, 1900--1970
(/isis/citation/CBB001020901/)
Article
Angela N. H. Creager;
(2017)
A Chemical Reaction to the Historiography of Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB417096213/)
Article
Mikhail B. Konashev;
(2019)
Th. Dobzhansky and the Development of Evolutionary Biology in the USSR
(/isis/citation/CBB629293770/)
Essay Review
Smocovitis, Vassiliki Betty;
(2002)
Rogues and Rotters: A Popular View of Evolutionary Psychology
(/isis/citation/CBB000202117/)
Article
Stuart A. Newman;
Peter Godfrey-Smith;
Daniel L. Hartl;
Philip Kitcher;
Diane B. Paul;
John Beatty;
Sahotra Sarkar;
Elliott Sober;
William C. Wimsatt;
(2021)
Remembering Richard Lewontin (1929–2021)
(/isis/citation/CBB028869735/)
Book
Sapp, Jan;
(2003)
Genesis: The Evolution of Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB000330886/)
Be the first to comment!