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Early life : evolution on the Precambrian earth / Lynn Margulis and Michael F. Dolan.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Margulis, Lynn, 1938-2011.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Life--Origin.
- Life.
- Life (Biology).
- Physical Description:
- xxiv, 168 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
- Edition:
- Second edition.
- Place of Publication:
- Sudbury, Mass. : Jones and Bartlett, [2002]
- Summary:
- Early Life attempts to tell the stories of primitive life. The text conveys some of the excitement in the current attempts to reconstruct the opening chapters of life on the planet Earth, long before the appearance of the simplest animal or plant.-- Are the well-formed filaments found so recently in the Warrawoona Series of northwestern Australia really evidence of the oldest life on the planet?-- Do the fossils found in the great Gunflint Iron Formation of Ontario tell us that bacteria were instrumental in the accumulation of the most important iron reserves in the world?
- No special scientific background is required of the reader, only a lively interest.
- Contents:
- Chapter 1 Evolution and Cells 1
- Two Kinds of Life 4
- Kingdoms of Organisms 8
- Living Clues to the Past 11
- Reconstructing the Ancient World 17
- Chapter 2 Life without Oxygen 25
- The Beginning of Life 28
- The First Metabolism 35
- Electron-Transport Chains and Porphyrin Rings 41
- Photoautotrophy 46
- New Dangers 49
- First Sex 51
- Ecology without Oxygen 53
- Chapter 3 Life with Oxygen 57
- The First Oxygen Producers 59
- The Transformation of the Atmosphere 63
- Stromatolites 66
- Learning to Breathe 69
- A Modern Environment 73
- Chapter 4 A New Kind of Cell 77
- The First Eukaryotes 79
- Biological Partnerships 81
- The Nucleus 83
- Eukaryotes without Mitochondria 85
- Undulipodia 89
- Movement within Cells 96
- Mitochondria 98
- Plastids 103
- Chapter 5 The Evolution of Sex 109
- Chromosomes and Mitosis 111
- The Mitotic Spindle 116
- Meiosis 119
- The Evolution of Meiosis 122
- Chapter 6 The Modern Era 129
- Clones, Colonies, and Differentiation 131
- Cells in Multicellular Organisms 135
- "Everywhereness of Life" 139.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 0763714631
- OCLC:
- 47521434
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