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Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
Not in stock at Prospero.
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 28 April 2016
- ISBN 9780198784937
- Binding Paperback
- No. of pages400 pages
- Size 195x131x23 mm
- Weight 293 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 13 black and white illustrations 10
Categories
Short description:
Oxygen is the engine of life and evolution. This book explores the impact that oxygen has had on Earth, and the history of life. Explaining the rise of animals and plants, the origin of two sexes, and the evolution of ageing and death, it offers fresh perspectives on our own lives, explaining why we age and what we can do about it.
MoreLong description:
Oxygen has had extraordinary effects on life.
Three hundred million years ago, in Carboniferous times, dragonflies grew as big as seagulls, with wingspans of
nearly a metre. Researchers claim they could have flown only if the air had contained more oxygen than today -
probably as much as 35 per cent. Giant spiders, tree-ferns, marine rock formations and fossil charcoals
all tell the same story. High oxygen levels may also explain the global firestorm that contributed to the
demise of the dinosaurs after the asteroid impact.
The strange and profound effects that oxygen has had on the evolution of life pose a riddle, which this book
sets out to answer. Oxygen is a toxic gas. Divers breathing pure oxygen at depth suffer from convulsions
and lung injury. Fruit flies raised at twice normal atmospheric levels of oxygen live half as long as their
siblings. Reactive forms of oxygen, known as free radicals, are thought to cause ageing in people. Yet if
atmospheric oxygen reached 35 per cent in the Carboniferous, why did it promote exuberant growth,
instead of rapid ageing and death?
Oxygen takes the reader on an enthralling journey, as gripping as a thriller, as it unravels the unexpected
ways in which oxygen spurred the evolution of life and death. The book explains far more than the size of
ancient insects: it shows how oxygen underpins the origin of biological complexity, the birth of photosynthesis, the sudden evolution of animals, the need for two sexes, the accelerated ageing of cloned animals like Dolly the sheep, and the surprisingly long lives of bats and birds.
Drawing on this grand evolutionary canvas, Oxygen offers fresh perspectives on our own lives and deaths,
explaining modern killer diseases, why we age, and what we can do about it. Advancing revelatory new ideas,
following chains of evidence, the book ranges through many disciplines, from environmental sciences to
molecular medicine. The result is a captivating vision of contemporary science and a humane synthesis of our
place in nature. This remarkable book might just redefine the way we think about the world.
Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.
'. . . popular science writing at its very best - clear yet challenging, speculative yet rigorous. The book is a tour de force which orchestrates a seamless story out of both venerable ideas and very recent discoveries in several disparate fields.'
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Elixir of Life - and Death
In the Beginning: The Origins and Importance of Oxygen
Silence of the Aeons: Three Billion Years of Microbial Evolution
Fuse to the Cambrian Explosion: Snowball Earth, Environmental Change and the First Animals
The Bolsover Dragonfly: Oxygen and the Rise of the Giants
Treachery in the Air: Oxygen Poisoning and X-Irradiation: A Mechanism in Common
Green Planet: Radiation and the Beginnings of Photosynthesis
Looking for LUCA: Last Ancestor in the Age Before Oxygen
Portrait of a Paradox: Vitamin C and the Many Faces of an Antioxidant
The Antioxidant Machine: A Hundred and One Ways of Living with Oxygen
Sex and the Art of Bodily Maintenance: Trade-offs in the Evolution of Ageing
Eat! Or You'll Live Forever: The Triangle of Food, Sex, and Longevity
Gender Bender: The Rate of Living and the Need for Sexes
Beyond Genes and Destiny: The Double Agent Theory of Ageing and Disease
Life, Death and Oxygen: Lessons From Evolution on the Future of Ageing
Further Reading
Glossary
Index
