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Zusatztext "An outstanding attempt to popularize the role of microbes, especially bacteria and archaea, in making multicellular eukaryotic life possible. . . . A superb introduction to the broader consequences of life and its study." ---Elof Axel Carlson, Quarterly Review of Biology Informationen zum Autor Paul G. Falkowski holds the Bennett L. Smith Chair in Business and Natural Resources at Rutgers University, where he studies how microbes have shaped the history of Earth. Klappentext For almost four billion years, microbes had the primordial oceans all to themselves. The stewards of Earth, these organisms transformed the chemistry of our planet to make it habitable for plants, animals, and us. Life's Engines takes readers deep into the microscopic world to explore how these marvelous creatures made life on Earth possible--and how human life today would cease to exist without them. Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built--and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes. Zusammenfassung Looks at how ancient microorganisms in primordial oceans transformed the chemistry of the planet over billions of years, eventually allowing the development of more complex forms of life, and how they continue to make life on earth possible.
