A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters

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Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. At some point before 2 billion years ago, small colonies of bacteria began to adopt the habit of living inside a common membrane.15 It began when a small bacterial cell, called an archaeon,16 found itself dependent on some of the cells around it for vital nutrients. This tiny cell extended tendrils toward its neighbors so they could swap genes and materials more easily. The participants in what had been a freewheeling commune of cells became more and more interdependent. In "A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth", Henry Gee has indeed provided the reader with a short, but broad, introduction to the history of the past "4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters". The chapters are fairly short, very interesting and have the occasional amusing observation. Nothing to snooze at in this book. Some of the commentary in the endnotes (which really should have been footnotes!) are also fairly entertaining and informative. The only unfortunate omission is the inclusion of some sketches or illustrations to show the reader what some of the fascinating creatures might have looked like. I enjoyed reading this book a great deal, and I particularly like Henry Gee's writing style. This book is like a summary of Campbell biology with a lot of lengthy walls of texts, namedrops, and NO illustrations. The way the book is formatted you move forward through time with the Earth as it starts out in the earliest and then move forward. Each chapter is nicely grouped and none stand out as being overwhelming or unnecessary. I loved that as he moved through the evolution Henry Gee didn’t just focus on the animal life, he looked at the plant life as well. There were interesting facts I didn’t know and none of the science was too technical. There was always an explanation to help the layman to understand subjects they might not have encountered.

A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you’ve never seen it before.Be sure to catch my interview with Dr. Henry Gee which comes out later this week! We will discuss the book, what its about, and some great topics! Its going to be great!

The first rumbles of an oncoming storm came from the rifting and breakup of a supercontinent, Rodinia. This included every significant landmass at the time.29 One consequence of the breakup was a series of ice ages that covered the entire globe, the like of which had not been seen since the Great Oxidation Event. But life responded once again by rising to the challenge.How we got here. Understanding, and learning this is a key to understanding where we are today, and where we are going tomorrow.

Schade, dass es außer den schematischen Karten der Erdzeitalter keine Illustrationen gibt, die diese Vielfalt auch optisch verdeutlichen, obwohl die für ein Sachbuch durchaus bildhafte Schreibweise doch die Vorstellungskraft anregt. Wer als Kind mit Dinosauriern auf du und du war, ist hier klar im Vorteil. Der Anspruch, das zeigt schon der Titel, ist nicht, das endgültige Buch über die Geschichte des Lebens auf der Erde zu schreiben, sondern einen Abriss in für Laien verständlicher Form zu geben und eine Einordnung zu versuchen. Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’ this book is like a tldr of earths history - geological history, evolutionary history. the concepts can be so difficult to grasp at times, I felt like wanting to know why a certain thing happened a little bit more, not just read in a sentence. The Earth’s heat, radiating outward from the molten core, keeps the planet forever on the boil, just like a pan of water simmering on a stove. Heat rising to the surface softens the overlying layers, breaking up the less dense but more solid crust into pieces and, forcing them apart, creates new oceans between. These pieces, the tectonic plates, are forever in motion. They bump against, slide past, or burrow beneath one another. This movement carves deep trenches in the ocean floor and raises mountains high above it. It causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It builds new land.About 2.5 million years ago, Homo erectus arose, a territorial savannah predator, deadly thanks to two traits: it was a powerful long-distance runner and a social animal. From this lineage, Homo sapiens evolved. Humanity’s first attempt at worldwide dispersal failed, shattered by the cold of an ice age 200,000 years ago. Confined to an oasis in what is now the Kalahari Desert, humankind nearly went extinct. We, as a species, are just as fragile as all the others, reminds Gee. There was a whole lot of information here that was new to me, as we follow the development of life in manifold ways, both in the different ways this happened but also in the way that everything fits together. This is one of the best things about the book. Like, I suspect, most people, I had a distinctly vague conception of the relative timing of many bits of the development and evolution of life - Gee gives us the big picture without ever overwhelming the reader or becoming too summary. So where does the hope come in? Well, I don't want to spoil it too much, but he goes into if the Earth continues on its trend that it has for all time, likely we humans won't see some of the truly big cataclysmic events (definitely not in my lifetime anyway). So that's somewhat comforting. Although it doesn't relieve us of the responsibility for doing better now so that current conditions stay relatively sane.