The tangled tree
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 Nonpareil science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and life’s history, with powerful implications for human health and even our own human nature. In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen, “one of that rare breed of science journalists who blends exploration with a talent for synthesis and storytelling” (Nature), chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them—such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to…
Stats for nerds
11recommend
14mentions
14people
2018–2025years
79% recommend21% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- They don't kind of look like bacteria, there was a lot of gene sequencing and careful examination because it seemed like a very wild theory especially before we've really learned archaea. Quammen's "The Tangled Tree" has a nice writeup on on the process.
- I strongly recommend "The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life" by David Quammen
The old metaphor of a tree of life has completely broken down with crosslinks everywhere at all levels, far beyond what even Barbara McClintock wrote about.
It's not completely true (but in the area what is "completely true") that only the mitochondria and chloroplasts are captures or symbionts. Flagella and cilia are examples of others! Though technically they aren't considered organelles.
The book I mentioned above is really good! It doesn't simply talk about how current understanding has momved beyond the tree metaphor, it talks about how that came about, as well. Of course, being a book for the general public at talks a lot about the people involved too.
- I really like The Tangled Tree by Quammen, The Song of The Cell by Mukherjee, and Utopia or Oblivion by Fuller. Just some books that are staring at me from my work desk.
Edit: oh and in big history, Earth Transformed by Frankopan does a great job of being grounded, balanced and accessible.
- I’m curious why you think any of this should be novel to the coronavirus COVID-19. We are affected by every infection.
There are a number of studies that show if you ask people about the long-term effects of any infection they will report similar numbers to what is being reported about coronavirus. You can take this to support the previous paragraph, or as an instance of placebo effect.
If you’re interested in how viral infection impacts brain function there’s a lot of cool information out there. I would not start in a speculative area like COVID-19. Maybe start with viral meningitis.
Alternatively if you want to stay speculative some people think that mutations related to our rapid evolutionary increase in brain size may have been in part down to zoonotic virus exposure a couple million years ago.
edit: Maybe you would enjoy The Tangled Tree by David Quammen.
- If you enjoyed this article but your biology background is from the 1990's or early 2000's, you might check out The Tangled Tree (2018) by Quammen https://bookshop.org/books/the-tangled-tree-a-radical-new-hi...
It traces how we got to some of these new ideas from pre-Darwin, through Lynn Margulis, to present day nanopore sequencers via the guy who discovered Archea.
- A fascinating article. David Quammen's book "The Tangled Tree: A Radical History of Life" also has stories how DNA changes through more mechanisms than just mutation.
