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Title: From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design by Sean B. Carroll, Jennifer K. Grenier, Scott D. Weatherbee ISBN: 0632045116 Publisher: Blackwell Science Inc Pub. Date: August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $54.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent Evo/Devo text
Comment: I havn't read the book all the way through, but from what I've seen, its an excellent book, good illustrations, straightforward info. This particular area of biology - using developmental genetics to elucidate evolutionary processes and relationships, is in my opinion one of the most exciting areas of biology today. I've had some advanced level classes in developmental and evolutionary biology myself, and I would probably have to say that for the lay person, the book may be somewhat out of grasp.
In regards to the mouse/fly eye develompent experiment, it is simply showing that the genes that regulate the most fundamental levels of development in the eye (or any part of the organism) are the same for fly and mouse... over the years, the end results have evolved to be much different, but at the deepest levels, the the genes that regulate the most fundamental develpment are still the same. ie. eye gene in mouse = mouse eye, eye gene in fly = fly eye. eye gene does the same thing in fly our mouse.
Rating: 5
Summary: I can't handle it yet.
Comment: This is a beautiful book with an attractive
illustration on almost every page.
A book review in Nature writes this intriguing statement,
"Despite more than 600 million years
of separate evolution of flies and mice,
the introduction of the [Pax6] mouse gene into flies
can induce new eye tissue -- not of the
camera-like eyes of mammals, but of the
insect compound eye!"
I wanted to understand this better.
I'm a nonbio major who spent all my spare
time in the past year reading biology books.
So I went to the bookstore and spent three hours
with this book. I found that I didn't have enough background
be able to gain a deeper understanding on the intriguing quotation.
Hopefully I'll be able to handle it after another year of preparation.
Rating: 5
Summary: Tough going, but worth it!
Comment: As a professor of English at a Swedish university I devoted several years to studies of British history of ideas, leading up, eventually, to a book about the general public's reception of Darwin's evolution theory in Mid-Victorian Britain. The subject has fascinated me ever since. I have naturally followed with interest the subsequent debates on evolutionary biology, including its philosophical implications, in the pages of such journals as Science and Nature. Therefore the title of the present book appealed to me. It seemed to promise an introduction to aspects of the Darwinian theory which were certainly unknown to Darwin and his times. At the same time I realised that knowing more about genetics was a must for me, if I was to keep abreast of the debate about Darwin.
I must confess I found it hard to assimilate the text, in spite of a clear style, and excellent illustrations. The sheer weight of unfamiliar facts and concepts made the reading laborious, to the point of exhaustion. But about half-way through the book (and helped by excursions into some undergraduate biological textbooks) I found that I had after all assimilated enough of the content to see that , for instance, the geneticist's seemingly perverse interest in the banana fly, Drosophila melanogaster, was indeed a rational choice. Many of the basic genes of the banana fly, especially those responsible for the early development of the fertilized egg onwards, are the same, or nearly so, as those that build up man. Not only are individual genes similar: their interactions with each other and their functions are also similar. For instance, though the banana fly's eyes are constructed entirely differently from those of man, their development, from egg to adult, are still controlled by genes that are clearly related to each other, and interact with other genes in similar ways.
These fundamental similarities between an insect and a human implies that their common roots must lie some 500 million years back in time, presumably in tiny organisms existing in the oceans at that time. Moreover, it seems that the genes in question, to be found in the DNA of the chromosomes of both insects and humans, probably come from even tinier organisms, namely primitive bacteria, which the multicellular organisms had incorporated, at first as parasites or symbionts, in their own more advanced cells. If so, we are carried back even further back in time, perhaps to a billion years before now. We seem to be on the point of uniting the biological and physical (and chemical) evolution of our planet. Darwin surely would have loved that prospect, far beyond his own reach. This book is not an easy read. But it will yield a rich reward to the persistent reader. Incidentally, such a reader might do worse than go on to read an astronomer's view of the same wide panorama: Delsemme's 0ur Cosmic Origins.
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Title: Genomic Regulatory Systems: Development and Evolution by Eric H. Davidson ISBN: 0122053516 Publisher: Academic Press Pub. Date: 15 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
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Title: The Evolution of Developmental Pathways by Adam S. Wilkins ISBN: 0878939164 Publisher: Sinauer Associates, Inc. Pub. Date: December, 2001 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
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Title: The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form by Rudolf A. Raff ISBN: 0226702669 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: July, 1996 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Genes & Signals by Mark Ptashne, Alexander Gann ISBN: 0879696338 Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Pub. Date: 13 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.00 |
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Title: Cells, Embryos, and Evolution: Toward a Cellular and Developmental Understanding of Phenotypic Variation and Evolutionary Adaptability by John Gerhart, Marc Kirschner, Marc W. Kirschner ISBN: 0865425744 Publisher: Blackwell Science Inc Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $81.95 |
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