Origins of Sex: Three Billion Years of Genetic Recombination

by Lynn Margulis

Book Overview

A fascinating and detailed examination of the evolution-and occasional devolution-of sexuality in microorganisms and more complex forms of life. Margulis and Sagan trace sex from its inauspicious beginnings in bacteria threatened by ultraviolet radiation to its intimate relation with the origin of mitotic division of nucleated cells. The origin of meiotic sex through cannibalism followed by centriole reproductive tardiness and the connection of cell...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300046197
• ISBN13: 9780300046199
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking

Excellent presentation of arguments, although some of the central ideas have been challenged since it's publication. Evoltionary ancestors of microtubules may have been found in pro-karyotes.

Another Hit for the Mother/Son Team

Well. I would not have been terribly suprised had this turned out to be a great book. Nonetheless, I was pleasently so when I realized I actually enjoyed it as much as Microcosmos. I don't know how much of which author went into what--and that does not really seem to matter. The ideas flow easily and evenly--the biology is straightforward and understandable, and the chronology seems (at least for me) easy to follow. In my humble opinion, another excellent book, and a must for any real thinkers library. I have mine..where's yours?