For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place – covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea.
From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted.
A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters
by Henry Gee
2022/9/15
For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place – covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea.
From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you’ve never seen it before.
Life teems through Henry Gee’s words – colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from ‘gregarious’ bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life’s evolutionary steps – from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight – are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.
超圧縮 地球生物全史
by ヘンリー・ジー
地球誕生から何十億年もの間、この星はあまりにも過酷だった。激しく波立つ海、火山の噴火、大気の絶えまない変化。生命はあらゆる困難に直面しながら絶滅と進化を繰り返した。ホモ・サピエンスの拡散に至るまで生命はしぶとく生き続けてきた。本書はその奇跡の物語を描き出す。生命38億年の歴史を超圧縮したサイエンス書！
目次
1章：炎と氷の歌
2章：生物、大集合
3章：背骨のはじまり
4章：渚に打ち上げられて
5章：羊膜類あらわる
6章：トライアシック（三畳紀）・パーク
7章：進撃の恐竜
8章：素晴らしき哉、哺乳類
9章：猿の惑星
10章：世界を股にかける
11章：先史時代の終わり
12章：未来の歴史