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Summary & Analysis of The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
- A Guide to the Book by David Quammen
- Narrated by: Michael London Anglado
- Length: 59 mins
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Publisher's summary
Please note: This is a summary and analysis of the book and not the original book.
The Tangled Tree is David Quammen's detailed, fascinating, and artful look into the history of evolutionary biology and the brilliant minds behind it, as well as the answers to those eternal questions: who are we and where did we come from?
What does this ZIP Reads Summary Include?
- Synopsis of the original book
- Detailed history of evolutionary biology from Darwin to today
- A guide to the science of genetics
- Key scientific milestones of the past 200 years
- Detailed stories from Quammen's extensive research
- An in-depth editorial review
- Background on the author
About the Original Book:
The Tangled Tree is so much more than a book about evolution. Quammen covers every facet of this incredible story from the personal history of Charles Darwin to the technological hurdles facing scientists today.
Understand the development of our human knowledge over time, how we built upon Darwinian evolution, and what questions are left to answer next. The writing is artful and compelling, and Quammen makes the complicated genetic science easy to understand. If you have ever wondered where humans came from or how we study and learn about our ancient past, this audiobook is a must-listen.
Disclaimer: This audiobook is intended as a companion to, not a replacement for, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life. ZIP Reads is wholly responsible for this content and is not associated with the original author in any way.
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Story
In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- By: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
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In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
- By Philomath on 06-17-17
By: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
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The Blind Watchmaker
- Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.
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Challenging textbook more than an enjoyable listen
- By Eric on 01-15-12
By: Richard Dawkins
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The Gene
- An Intimate History
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
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It's a Wonderful Book
- By JKC on 06-02-16
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Evolution
- The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Edward J. Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and eminent science historian. This marvelously readable, yet sumptuously erudite work traces the development of the scientific theory of evolution. From Darwin's essential trip to the Galápagos, to the most contemporary studies in sociobiology, this work takes listeners both into the field and laboratories of the world's greatest evolutionary scientists, and shows how the theory of evolution has itself evolved.
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An Excellent History!
- By Bradly D. Elder on 08-13-07
By: Edward J. Larson
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Why Darwin Matters
- The Case for Evolution and Against Intelligent Design
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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Columnist and publisher Michael Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents invoke a combination of ad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology in their new brand of creationism. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
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TOTAL MISREPRENTATION: WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?
- By Theo Tsourdalakis on 09-04-11
By: Michael Shermer
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Know This
- Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments
- By: John Brockman
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Dan John Miller
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientific developments radically alter our understanding of the world. Whether it's technology, climate change, health research, or the latest revelations of neuroscience, physics, or psychology, science has, as Edge editor John Brockman says, "become a big story, if not the big story". In that spirit this new addition to Edge.org's fascinating series asks a powerful and provocative question: What do you consider the most interesting and important recent scientific news?
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Pete and Repeat and Re-repeat
- By Daniel L on 02-25-18
By: John Brockman
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How to Clone a Mammoth
- The Science of De-Extinction
- By: Beth Shapiro
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? The science says yes. In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist and pioneer in "ancient DNA" research, walks listeners through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction.
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Very Readable Take on a Complex Subject
- By John on 04-26-15
By: Beth Shapiro
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Population Wars
- A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence
- By: Greg Graffin
- Narrated by: Tom Zingarelli
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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From the very beginning, life on Earth has been defined by war. Today, those first wars continue to be fought around and literally inside us, influencing our individual behavior and that of civilization as a whole. War between populations - whether between different species or between rival groups of humans - is seen as an inevitable part of the evolutionary process. The popular concept of "the survival of the fittest" explains and often excuses these actions.
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Life Changing Book. No other like it.
- By Abraham R. Herrick-Rough on 05-16-16
By: Greg Graffin
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What Is Life?
- How Chemistry Becomes Biology
- By: Addy Pross
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventy years ago, Erwin Schrdinger posed a simple, yet profound, question: What is life?. How could the very existence of such extraordinary chemical systems be understood? This problem has puzzled biologists and physical scientists both before, and ever since. Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology?
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Profound & Life Changing...
- By Daegan Smith on 04-06-15
By: Addy Pross
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The Compatibility Gene
- How Our Bodies Fight Disease, Attract Others, and Define Our Selves
- By: Daniel M. Davis
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Most of the 25,000 genes we possess are the same for all of us. Compatibility genes are those that vary most from person to person and give each of us a unique molecular signature. These genes determine both the extent to which we are susceptible to a vast range of illnesses and the different ways each of us fights disease.
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If interested in medicine, got to read
- By Howard Sterling on 06-29-16
By: Daniel M. Davis