The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781324065425)

Why are we the only species with chins? Where did our backbone come from? Why don't we have wings? For centuries, scientists have chased the secrets of how life on our planet arose, how it assumed its dazzling diversity of forms, and how we humans are related to everything else on Earth. With increasingly sophisticated genetic methods bringing us ever-closer to answers, evolutionary biologist Max Telford takes us inside this quest to reconstruct the "tree of life" the web of relationships between all our planet's species, from humans to mushrooms to bacteria. We learn how the tree of life is key to following evolution's twists and turns, starting with the mysterious "last universal common ancestor" to reach--eventually--you and me; how humans are "really" fish; and how the Venus flytrap got its trap. For any reader fascinated by evolution and natural history, The Tree of Life is an essential portal to the distant past and a window onto our collective origins.