Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth

基本信息

Format:Hardback 384 pages

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Imprint:Bloomsbury Sigma

ISBN:9781472956712

Published:6 Feb 2020

Weight:530g

Dimensions:145 x 224 x 33 (mm)

页面参数仅供参考，具体以实物为准

书籍简介

在过去的大约30亿年里，地球上的生命是由自然力量塑造的。进化往往发生得很慢，物种经过数千年的精心雕琢。然后，几十万年前，出现了一种大胆的、脑容量大的两足灵长类动物，我们现在称之为智人。于是，地球的自然历史戛然而止。我们现在正生活在后自然阶段，在这个阶段，人类已经成为塑造进化的主导力量。

这本引人深思的书探讨了我们改变生物DNA和改变地球生命命运的许多方式。我们把狼变为吉娃娃，把原鸡变为花鸡。我们在山羊身上植入了蜘蛛基因，在热带鱼身上植入了珊瑚基因。人们可以买到转基因宠物，吃到转基因鱼，看着克隆小马在马球场上驰骋。

现在，随着我们在全球的主导地位不断增强，我们的影响力已经远远超出了这些物种。当我们温暖的世界,从根本上重塑这个生物圈,我们影响所有生物的进化,远近,从小说的出现混合动力车等拨弦熊,全新的菌株的动物和植物,正在以惊人的速度发展应对改变环境。

在《人类如何改变地球上的生命》中，海伦向我们介绍了这些后自然时代的创作，并与创造、研究和照料它们的科学家们进行了交谈。在这么多物种的未来还不确定的时候，我们遇到了一些自然资源保护主义者，他们试图用“精子直升机”、珊瑚试管受精和计划将野生大象放生到丹麦等新方法来引导进化到更坚实的基础上。海伦探索了人类和自然世界之间不断变化的关系，并揭示了人类如何通过循证思维使生活变得更好。

'Pilcher is both very funny and very, very clever.' Gillian Burke

'Richly entertaining throughout.' Sunday Times

For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth's natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution.

This thought-provoking book considers the many ways that we've altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth. We have carved chihuahuas from wolves and fancy chickens from jungle fowl. We've added spider genes to goats and coral genes to tropical fish. It's possible to buy genetically-modified pets, eat genetically-modified fish and watch cloned ponies thunder up and down the polo field.

Now, as our global dominance grows, our influence extends far beyond these species. As we warm our world and radically reshape the biosphere, we affect the evolution of all living things, near and far, from the emergence of novel hybrids such as the pizzly bear, to the entirely new strains of animals and plants that are evolving at breakneck speed to cope with their altered environment.

In Life Changing, Helen introduces us to these post-natural creations and talks to the scientists who create, study and tend to them. At a time when the future of so many species is uncertain, we meet some of the conservationists seeking to steer evolution onto firmer footings with novel methods like the 'spermcopter', coral IVF and plans to release wild elephants into Denmark. Helen explores the changing relationship between humans and the natural world, and reveals how, with evidence-based thinking, humans can help life change for the better.

作者简介

海伦·皮尔彻（Helen Pilcher），一位科普作家，喜欢喝茶、嚼饼干。在伦敦精神病学研究所获得细胞生物学博士学位，曾任《自然》杂志记者，并为《新科学家》《BBC聚焦》等知名刊物撰稿。目前致力于生物学、医学和异乎寻常的古怪科学。对于一个自称怪才的人来说，海伦还有一点与众不同：她曾是一位喜剧演员。现在，她时不时地咯咯笑，和她的丈夫、三个孩子和狗居住在沃里克郡乡间。

Helen Pilcher is a science writer and comedian, with a PhD in stem cell biology and years of stand-up comedy under her belt. Helen has worked as a freelance writer for the last 12 years, and she has written for the Guardian, New Scientist, BBC online, BBC Wildlife and Nature, for which she was formerly a reporter.

Helen's previous book for Bloomsbury Sigma, Bring Back the King, was Radio 2 'Fact not Fiction' book of the week; it was described by comedian Sara Pascoe as 'science at its funniest'.