What is life?

著者

書誌事項

What is life?

Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan ; foreword by Niles Eldredge

University of California Press, 2000

  • : pbk

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注記

"A Peter N. Nevraumont book."

Originally published: New York : Simon & Schuster, c1995. With new glossary

Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-253) and index

内容説明・目次

内容説明

Half a century ago, before the discovery of DNA, the Austrian physicist and philosopher Erwin Schrodinger inspired a generation of scientists by rephrasing the fascinating philosophical question: What is life? Using their expansive understanding of recent science to wonderful effect, acclaimed authors Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan revisit this timeless question in a fast-moving, wide-ranging narrative that combines rigorous science with philosophy, history, and poetry. The authors move deftly across a dazzling array of topics--from the dynamics of the bacterial realm, to the connection between sex and death, to theories of spirit and matter. They delve into the origins of life, offering the startling suggestion that life--not just human life--is free to act and has played an unexpectedly large part in its own evolution. Transcending the various formal concepts of life, this captivating book offers a unique overview of life's history, essences, and future. Supplementing the text are stunning illustrations that range from the smallest known organism (Mycoplasma bacteria) to the largest (the biosphere itself). Creatures both strange and familiar enhance the pages of What Is Life? Their existence prompts readers to reconsider preconceptions not only about life but also about their own part in it.

目次

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FOREWORD Undreamt Philosophies, by Niles Eldredge 1 LIFE: THE ETERNAL ENIGMA In the Spirit of Schroedinger * Life's Body * Animism vs. Mechanism * Janus among the Centaurs * Blue Jewel * Is There Life on Mars? * Life as Verb * Self-Maintenance * The Autopoietic Planet * The Stuff of Life * Mind in Nature 2 LOST SOULS Death: The Great Perplexer * The Breath of Life * Cartesian License * Entering the Forbidden Realm * Cosmic Wiggles * The Meaning of Evolution * Vernadsky's Biosphere * Lovelock's Gaia 3 ONCE UPON A PLANET Beginnings * Hell on Earth * Spontaneous Generation * Origins of Life * "Stumbling Forward" * Metabolic Windows * The RNA Supermolecule * Cells First 4 MASTERS OF THE BIOSPHERE Fear of a Bacterial Planet * Life Is Bacteria * The Metabolically Gifted * The Gene Traders * Our Splendid Kin * From Plenty to Crisis * Breakfast Ferment * Green, Red, and Purple Beings * Oxygen Excitement * Quintessential Polluters, Quintessential Recyclers * Living Carpets and Growing Stones 5 PERMANENT MERGERS The Great Cell Divide * Five Kinds of Beings * Twists in the Tree of Life * Squirmers * Strange New Fruit * Wallin's Symbionts * Multicellularity and Programmed Death * Sexual Genesis in the Microworld, or When Eating Was Sex * The Power of Slime 6 THE AMAZING ANIMALS The (Bower) Birds and the (Honey) Bees * What Is an Animal? * Great-Grandparent Trichoplax * Sex and Death * Cambrian Chauvinism * Evolutionary Exuberance * Messengers 7 FLESH OF THE EARTH The Underworld * Kissing Molds and Destroying Angels * Cross-Kingdom Alliances * Underbelly of the Biosphere * Hitchhiking Fungi, Counterfeit Flowers, and Aphrodisiacs * Hallucinogenic Mushrooms and Dionysian Delights * Transmigrators of Matter 8 THE TRANSMUTATION OF SUNLIGHT Green Fire * The Accursed Share * Ancient Roots * Primeval Trees * Floral Persuasion * Solar Economy 9 SENTIENT SYMPHONY A Double Life * Choice * Little Purposes * Butler's Blasphemy * Habits and Memory * Existence's Celebration * Superhumanity * Expanding Life * Rhythms and Cycles EPILOGUE NOTES GLOSSARY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS INDEX

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