The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
This book explores the human body. There are many different "stories" talking about parts and systems of the body. It is not a complete reference, but it does provide interesting exploration of different topics, from the common to obscure.
The book shows the lifecycle of chickens with illustrations showing the various states. It has a decent amount of detail, but is fairly short.
An ebook is available from libraries. Audiobook is available from audible and we have a paper book. I listened to the text to speech of the ebook. The simple thesis of this book is that "genes" are the primary unit of genetic propagation. Organisms are the vehicle for this propagation to get carried out. The author also admits that "cooperative gene" would also be a valid title for the book.
The text provides examples and additional stories to carry out these points. Having errors in the replication is key to the process. This lets new things appear and change. There is a long discussion of the "prisoner's dilemma" and how that is related to genetic propagation. People may have many descendents. A 20th generation descendent many not have any genetic material that came from this ancestor. However, social knowledge and changes could be passed down.
Though the book has been updated in recent years, some of the original content is present. There is some mention of computer power and resources which is totally out of date, but still makes it's point. (It can be a bit jarring when it is followed by mention of the author getting his genome sequenced.) The book seems fairly long for the points made.
Field Notes from a Fungi Forager: An Illustrated Journey Through the World of Pacific Northwest Mushrooms by Ashley Rodriguez and Libby England
This book claims not to be a field guide, but it is pretty close to it. Each mushroom is beautifully illustrated and described in details. There are hints as to which mushrooms are to be consumed as well as those that should be admired from a distance.
The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History by Thor Hanson
Seeds are key to survival and propagation of life, yet they are not well understood. Seeds are "living", but capable of long periods of dormancy. Seeds have successfully sprouted after hundreds or even thousands of years. They often have internal mechanisms to come out when the time is right. They may need just the right moisture or sunlight or other factors. Some need fire to kill off the competition before they sprout.
Seeds are also adapted to their environment. A rainforest seed may need to sprout as soon as possible to outgrow the competition. Other seeds may needs adopt mechanisms to be spread further. Dandelion seeds float. Many seeds are attractive to animals. Some travel through animal digestive systems. Nuts are just hard enough to extract. Animals will carry them away to other locations to eat. Some of these seeds will not be consumed and will be the source of new plants.
Seed banks store seeds for future use. We have highly protected climate controlled banks set up in various parts of the world. The soil also holds natural seed banks. Soil often holds many seeds waiting for the right time to come out. With diverse crops, many farms previously had a hidden "bank" of many seeds. These would often be traded with others. Today with industrial monoculture, the fortified seed banks often play the role of banking, with seed traders occupying a niche.
On Growth and Form by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
Living things grow in patterns. This book has plenty of math to analyze the various forms that cells grown and divide. It is along and detailed, with many pictures and a lot of math.
Skulls: An Exploration of Alan Dudley's Curious Collection by Simon Winchester and Nick Mann
Skulls is book full of photographs of various skulls interspersed with a few short essays by Simon Winchester. It explores various members of the animal kingdom, with demonstrations of classes of skulls that animals have. There is significant variation. The pictures include a photograph of the animal for reference. Some skulls are easily recognizable, while others are not.
The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena
The author has worked to help preserve and propagate endangered plants. He has worked with plants in individual islands as well as remote areas, such as the Amazon basin. The book talks about his experience working with the plants and what has been done to help recover the populations. In one case, the last known living tree was alone on an island. The residents would cut down sections of it. They ended up sorting to putting a cage around the tree to preserve what was left. They had to attempt to grow another tree via a cutting. However, this didn't bear fruit. The author then went through analysis and work to finally produce fruit. Then it was more effort to germinate the seed. Finally a version a new child was made available. In the book he details many other attempts at preserving species. He also identifies problems that lead to species eradications, such as poor political and environmental policies.
How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology by Philip Ball
Everything you thought you knew about biology is wrong - or at least inadequate to explain how things work. Biology had drifted towards a "genetic determinism" approach. It was assumed that genes were like computer programs. If we understood the genes we could understand everything. We could just manipulate the "code" to get any desire we wanted. However, biology is not that deterministic.
It was thought that DNA is primarily for coding proteins. Non-coding DNA was seen as "junk" that may have held a legacy purpose, but is not useful today. However, it is not that simple. Much of that non-coding DNA has distinct purposes that define how organisms develop and behave.
In general, genes are probabilistic, not deterministic. There are many factors in play. Cells are often guided by neighboring cells in their behavior. Epigenetics, neighboring genes and environmental conditions all can play a role in development. When comparing life to computers, it is much more like a learning model than a predefined algorithm. Or perhaps we could consider it more like the development of an unplanned city vs. central planning. There is simply a lot we don't understand and probably a lot more "chance" involved than we have suspected.
Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth
What makes you you? What is consciousness? What is intelligence? These are topics that we think we understand, yet cannot explain well. The latest scientific research is evolving. We can look at activity in the brain. Different types of thoughts cause the brain the "light up" in different ways. You could ask somebody in a motionless states to think of different things for "yes" or "no" and see the results in their brain.
We are getting a better understanding of consciousness. Being unconscious is very different from being asleep. We are also better understanding intelligence. Current artificial intelligence can match patterns and generate new content based on how it has been trained. However, it is still a long way away from consciousness.
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon
How did the female human body get to be the way it is? What did that do to help humans to grow and dominate. The author looks at the female body from both a biological and cultural perspective. Historical "Eves" were identified that were the first to have certain traits. At the start, these are millions of years old (such as live birth and producing milk). The book progresses to the more modern adaption. Cultural evolution such as gynecology, mating and sexism also come into play. The author looks at the historical sexist practice as having a mixed bag of benefits. (Cultural norms that had women eat last made it difficult on pregnant women. However, other practices ma have helped women. Today, these are seen as lest valuable.
The author tries to tie in trans and gay women, but this ends up muddying things up. (These are historic genetic dead ends. Though perhaps that is the evolutionary point - they could be passed on when people lived differently than how they may have felt. However, noe people live how they desire - but also have more ability to have medical means to reproduce.)
Exploration of non-child bear women is interesting. There are a few hypotheses. The grandma can help pass on information and assist in caring for younger children. The author seems to lean towards the "life extension" view. Humans have been able to extend their life, but the child bearing limit still remains. This has then given people the social advantage.
The book goes to extensive detail of differentiators between men and women and specific traits that help with reproduction. There are many great details. While many conclusions are very settled, there are some that are plenty of areas that are still up for debate. I am most hesitant to accept anything that our current cultural norms and practices are the ideal biological way of evolutionary reproduction.
The book mixes some general history of evolution with examples to raise the alarm about the negative impact of mankind on our world ecosystem. Evolution can lead to resilience. However, the species that are able to evolve the fastest are not necessarily the most beneficial. What are we to do?
The book starts with the origins of humans. Early hominids started to walk upright millions of years ago. This created many challenges, but also gave some advantages. (After all, they did not become extinct.) Brain size also increase. (There is still debate as to what caused what.) Eventually, homo sapien spread across the world, primarily as a hunter-gatherer society.
The human body is fairly well optimized for hunting and gathering life. This type of life required a great deal of physical exercise. It also required a lot of chewing (Which helped lead to good dental appearance.) Sweet food was prized and stored up. Humans store more fat than many other animals, giving advantages in survival. People have infrequent births, but a higher likelihood of a child living longer. Birthing is not easy. However, the wider hips allow for larger babies to be born, though they still need more attention after birth.
Our ailments today often come from "too much" or "too little". We have processed food to give us the primary energy that we crave. Our genes encourage us to stock up on this food and store it away. Alas, this lead to obesity and a number of other ailments. On the too little side, we don't move enough. Our bones and muscles are strengthened by stresses.
Our medical system focuses on treating symptoms rather than making lifestyle changes to reduce causes. This has inadvertently resulted in some negative evolution of disease. Social evolution has a curious interaction with different conditions. (Is near-sightedness more common because of related benefits? Or is it because it has little harm and is easily fixed?) Many diseases today also appear later in life, causing little negative pressure on reproduction.
Looking at the "long" picture provides an interesting insight into the human condition as well as some concerns about the way we are practicing medicine today.
The Red Queen hypothesis comes from the character in Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass who is always running in order to keep in the same place. Sexual selection must be used as part of the mechanism to continually evolve and adapt in order to stave off extinction. The book starts by asking "why sex?" It seems a very inefficient way to pass on genes. After all, why not just clone oneself to pass on all genes? There are many theories. The "change" is a key benefit. There are chances to clean up "mistakes" or introduce "new mistakes". It also encourages social behaviors. Different animals have adapted in various ways due to their mating patterns. Sex selection also happens in various manners (sometimes based on things such as temperature.) Humans are rather unique in not knowing the precise time of fertility and not producing off-spring that are "done" yet. (The "big brains" need to fit through the small birth canal.) People seem to have an in-built incest restriction against mating with people we have grown up with. Other mating rules have differed across cultures. Monogamy has become a common way to ensure the child has two parents to help with raising. Polygamy may benefit a few men at the top of the hierarchy, but in general it benefits women who now have greater access to the alphas. Men seek traits in women that allow for the production of more offspring (such as youth.)
There are many interesting theories put out and discarded in the book. The book even ends admitting that much of what is written will be proven wrong. Humans have adapted quite well to dominate the current world. Will we continue to do so?
The Secret of Our Success explores the importance of cultural evolution in the success of homo sapiens. The book also explores the ways in which cultural evolution can synergisticly work with genetic evolution.
The social aspect of culture can be compared somewhat to moving work to the cloud. On one side, you can get more and more powerful computers. However, you can also combine many smaller computers together to achieve similar results. Combining the smaller computers also allows for more resiliency and rapid expansion. The culture can provide similar benefits. We don't need to re-learn what foods are safe and how to prepare them. Our culture is built on previous discoveries. Today we have tools and technologies built on top of many levels of previous ones.
This does have some challenges. As isolated societies grow smaller, they can lose cultural knowledge. There are also challenges when certain knowledgeable people are lost. (There is an example of a society that lost its kyak builders.)
Skin color is an interesting example of cultural and genetic evolution working in tandem. Darker skin is beneficial in warmer, sunnier climates. In more northerly climates, paler skin allows for more vitamin D formation and is beneficial for farming societies. However, Inuit societies are able to obtain the needed vitamins from the animals they consume in the arctic. Thus, the lighter skin is not as beneficial. We see cultural and genetic needs working in tandem.
Norms and goals are important. Societies have different languages, taboos and ways of doing things. They are often adopted based on observance of "models". Often these norms are based on some need that is now no longer understood. There are often seemingly "odd" behaviors that were built on a social requirement. (For example, food may be prepared in certain ways to provide needed nutrition.) There can also be cultural norms that were merely adopted based on models without any useful requirements. Different languages result in different types of communications. Some also have a sound structure that is optimized for the particular environment.
Cultural evolution became an integral part of human evolution. We have trouble surviving individually without our culture. Even eating is dependent on cultural learning. Our digestive system is not optimized for eating available raw foods. We need cooking and other processing for most of our eating. Genetic evolution has worked in tandem with the cultural evolution to optimize for the beneficial genes and let redundant ones to fade out. We don't need to rely on one individual brain, but can take knowledge from society past and present.
Fungi are one of the earliest life forms. They behave in a way that doesn't quite match our understanding of plants or animals. They have a form of intelligence. (He gave an example of a slime mold able to easily navigate a model of an IKEA) They are also essential for life as we know it. Many of our food depend on various fungi: from the nitrogen fixation of plants to the yeast used in bread. Fungi form relationships with many other beings. Lichens are a symbiotic combinations of algae and fungi.
The book is a great intro to fungi and their importance. It is told from a personal perspective with the science combined with tales of truffle hunting. It does start to ramble a bit - especially when talking about the psychosomatic mushrooms. It is almost as if the book went on a mushroom trip.
Sapiens takes the "far view" of analyzing the human species as if it where any other species. How did humans come to dominate? What about the other similar species (like Neanderthals) that previously existed. While it was politically correct to say that humans all came from the same genetic stock, it also appears that there was mixing with "related species" in different regions, giving some ethnicities small amounts of unique genes. However, modern humans managed to wipe these groups out as well as pretty much any new megafauna they encountered. The few that did survive were most often domesticated.
Companies, organisms and cities all scale using a non-linear power law. As cities increase in population, the benefits will not increase linearly. Instead, there will be economies of scale that allow larger cities to benefit more from their increased population. "Establishments" tend to increase at a linear rate. However, the diversity of the establishment changes as the size of the city increases. Similarly, the distance that people will travel to a given location tends to vary at a similar constant rate. (Though some locations, such as an airport may differ.) Rather than comparing cities on a per-capita basis, they can compared on on an adjusted basis to find those that are really "excelling" based on their size. San Jose continues to excel at patents, but there are other smaller cities that also have outsize patent production.
In A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson starts with the beginning of the universe and works his way down. He laments the poor stats of science textbooks. They often have a few diagrams that attract you to the possibilities of learning, then let you down with very poor text. In this work, he tries to provide an accessible "history" of the world. It starts with the big bang, works through how the universe, suns and planets were formed, then goes down to describe life on earth. From here, it goes through the initial history of organisms, the evolution to different species, and the many extinction events that have taken place and the new species that have come to fill voids. The narrative follows a dual chronology approach. The author discusses key events in rough chronology that the occurred. Within the discussion of the events, he discusses the way that our knowledge of the events has unraveled, with special attention to the key figures in the discovery process. In many of the cases the "first discoverer" is disregarded by society, and only comes to light after somebody else has popularized and attached his name to the discovery (it is almost always a he). The earth has often been much hotter than it is today. (We are in part of a long term ice age.) However, global warming has a lot of uncertainties that could make matters worse. The book ends with a look at homo sapien and how he has come on the scene, with both the ability to both understand and destroy the world.
