Synopses & Reviews
This book describes the interlaced histories of life and oxygen. It opens with the generation of the element in ancient stars, and its distribution to newly formed planets like the Earth. But free O2 was not available on the early Earth, so the first life forms had to be anaerobic. Life introduced free O2 into the environment through the evolution of photosynthesis. This must have been a disaster for many anaerobes, but others found ways to deal with toxic reactive oxygen species. Some even developed a much more efficient oxygen-based metabolism. The authors vividly describe how the introduction of O2 into the atmosphere and oceans changed world chemistry, and allowed the burst of evolution that created today's biota. They also discuss the interplay of O2 and CO2, with consequences such as worldwide glaciations and global warming. On the physiological level, they present an overview of oxidative metabolism and O2 transport in animals and the importance of O2 in human life and medicine, emphasizing that while oxygen is essential, it is also related to aging and many disease states.
Synopsis
The book depicts the interleaved histories of life and oxygen. It is argued that life must have originated in an environment lacking free O2, and must have spent nearly a billion years as anaerobic bacteria. Then, in a stunning reversal, the evolution of photosynthesis introduced O2 into the environment.
For many organisms this was a disaster, but a few were able to evolve a much more efficient aerobic metabolism. Chapters deal with this evolution, with how life coped with oxygen, and how oxygen levels in the sea and atmosphere changed world chemistry forever. The authors describe the subsequent burst of evolution that led to today's world. They also consider the interplay of oxygen and CO2 levels, the consequences such as massive glaciations (snowball earth episodes), and how life dealt with them. They discuss global warming in this context, and finally, devote chapters to the roles of oxygen in medicine and in extraterrestrial exploration.
Synopsis
This book depicts the interconnected histories of life and oxygen. It depict how changes in the earth's atmosphere have been interrelated with the origin of life and delineate the important implications for human health and humanity's future.
Table of Contents
Oxygen, its nature and chemistry.- What is so special about this element? - A brief history of oxygen.- Coping with oxygen.- Aerobic metabolism - benefits from an oxygenated world.- Facilitated oxygen transport.- Climate over the ages; is the environment stable? - Global warming: human intervention in world climate. - Oxygen in medicine.- Oxygen and the exploration of the universe.