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Title details for Life on a Young Planet by Andrew H. Knoll - Available

Life on a Young Planet

by Andrew H. Knoll
Eric Jason Martin
Audiobook
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Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites-such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty. The very latest discoveries in paleontology-many of them made by the author and his students-are integrated with emerging insights from molecular biology and earth system science to forge a broad understanding of how the biological diversity that surrounds us came to be. Moving from Siberia to Namibia to the Bahamas, Knoll shows how life and environment have evolved together through Earth's history. Listeners go into the field to confront fossils, enter the lab to discern the inner workings of cells, and alight on Mars to ask how our terrestrial experience can guide exploration for life beyond our planet. Along the way, Knoll brings us up-to-date on some of science's hottest questions, from the oldest fossils and claims of life beyond the Earth to the hypothesis of global glaciation and Knoll's own unifying concept of "permissive ecology."
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Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc. Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781618035639
  • File size: 282364 KB
  • Release date: October 8, 2019
  • Duration: 09:48:15

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781618035639
  • File size: 282406 KB
  • Release date: October 8, 2019
  • Duration: 09:56:15
  • Number of parts: 12
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

Science Nonfiction

Languages

English

Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites-such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty. The very latest discoveries in paleontology-many of them made by the author and his students-are integrated with emerging insights from molecular biology and earth system science to forge a broad understanding of how the biological diversity that surrounds us came to be. Moving from Siberia to Namibia to the Bahamas, Knoll shows how life and environment have evolved together through Earth's history. Listeners go into the field to confront fossils, enter the lab to discern the inner workings of cells, and alight on Mars to ask how our terrestrial experience can guide exploration for life beyond our planet. Along the way, Knoll brings us up-to-date on some of science's hottest questions, from the oldest fossils and claims of life beyond the Earth to the hypothesis of global glaciation and Knoll's own unifying concept of "permissive ecology."
Expand title description text
Science Nonfiction