Description
The Living World is often considered a student favorite. George Johnson has written this introductory biology textbook from the ground up to be an engaging and accessible learning tool with an emphasis on "how things work and why things happen the way they do".
New to This Edition Editing Your Genes
The most exciting advances since this text's last edition have involved the widespread application of a new, easy-to-use tool called CRISPR that allows researchers to edit genes. As described in chapter 13 on pages 280-28, CRISPR is being used to treat human diseases on many fronts, including developing a potential cure for AIDS, facilitating organ transplants from pigs(!), correcting disease causing mutations such as cystic fibrosis and sickle-cell disease, and genetically modifying a patient's own blood cells to fight leukemia.
CRISPR-Edited Human Babies
The invention of gene editing with CRISPR has led quickly to an ethical nightmare. As recounted in chapter 13 on page 284, a Chinese researcher in November of 2018 announced he had used CRISPR to edit the genomes of human babies! Do you see the problem? In the CRISPR applications described in the preceding paragraph, DNA was edited in the somatic (body) tissues of adults, changes that could not be passed on
to future generations. As described on page 284, the Chinese researcher edited the DNA of a single-cell embryo. This alters all the tissues that derive from it, germ-line as well as somatic-the changes he created with CRISPR will be passed on in the germ line to future human generations.
Metazoan Tree of Life
The classification of animals has until recently been based on close examination of their bodies, animals with similar traits being grouped together. Traits shared by many kinds of animals- like having body segments-have been judged fundamental. With the advent of DNA sequencing, genomes can now be compared directly, which has led to the more detailed under- standing of the animal family tree presented in chapter 19.
The Opioid Crisis
Opioids have been used as painkillers since 1806, when a German chemist isolated the active chemical ingredient of opium, calling it morphine. In an attempt to lessen addiction, morphine was chemically modified in 1898, but the modified form, heroin, proved even more addictive. In 1924, a substitute opioid was invented called oxycodone. Marketed as less addictive than heroin, it became widely used in the 195Os. By 2010, a continuous-release form called OxyContin reached over $3 billion in annual sales. Tragically, pharmaceutical marketing had downplayed the danger of their new painkiller: as detailed in chapter 28 on page 612, these next-generation opioids are actually quite addictive. And addicts often seek more powerful forms like fentanyl, increasing the danger of fatal overdoses. The Center for Disease Control reports that 47,600 Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2017, almost triple the number of fatal overdoses 10 years earlier. On the day you read this, a hundred more will die.
A Sense of Where You Are
How is a basketball superstar like LeBron James able to sink a jump shot without looking at the basket? Seeking an answer to this question, explored in chapter 28 on page 618, has led to two recent Nobel Prizes and a lot of rat races through mazes. Researchers were able to show that your brain keeps a "map" of where you are in three dimensions and constantly updates it as you move through space.
Vaping
Fearing the lung cancer caused by chemicals in tobacco, people are no longer smoking as much. While 40% of Americans smoked in 1965, only 16% did in 2017. The commercial answer to this lost market? Sell the addictive nicotine to consumers without the tobacco! As described in chapter 24 on page 539, e-cigarettes release nicotine as a vapor (hence, the term
vaping). An e-cigarette called a jull (pronounced "jewel") vaporizes a liquid that is 5% nicotine, a powerful amount. Juul users quickly become addicted to nicotine, just as cigarette smokers did, and a lot of teens are smoking juuls-nearly 21% of high school students vaped in 2018. Serious efforts are under way to regulate e-cigarette sales, driven by reports from the CDC that, over the course of 2018, the number of high
school students using tobacco products increased by 38% in a single year, almost entirely through e-cigarette smoking.
Global Warming Revisited
Perhaps the greatest challenge we face in the future is the rise in global temperature resulting from increases in the CO, content of earth's atmosphere. While the world's scientists are almost universal in blaming the increase on the burning of fossil fuels, there is considerable discussion among the general public about the reality of the problem and the need for action. Taking a closer look in chapter 38 on pages 822- 823, we address an array of questions about what is happening now, what scientists predict will happen soon, and what can be done.
Table of Contents
Chapter 0 Studying Biology
UNIT 1 THE STUDY OF LIFE
Chapter 1 The science of Biology
UNIT 2 THE LIVING CELL
Chapter 2 The Chemistry of Life
Chapter 3 Molecules of Life
Chapter 4 Cells
Chapter 5 Energy and Life
Chapter 6 Photosynthesis: Acquiring energy from the sun
Chapter 7 How Cells Harvest energy from Food
UNIT 3 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE
Chapter 8 Mitosis
Chapter 9 Meiosis
Chapter 10 Foundations of Genetics
Chapter 11 DNA: the Genetic Material
Chapter 12 How Genes Work
Chapter 13 Genomics and Biotechnology
UNIT 4 THE EVOLUTION AND DIVERSITY OF LIFE
Chapter 14 Evolution and natural selection
Chapter 15 How We name Living things
Chapter 16 Prokaryotes: the First single-Celled Creatures
Chapter 17 Protists: Advent of the eukaryotes
Chapter 18 Fungi Invade the Land
UNIT 5 EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS
Chapter 19 Evolution of the Animal Phyla
Chapter 20 History of the Vertebrates
Chapter 21 How Humans evolved
UNIT 6 ANIMAL LIFE
Chapter 22 The Animal Body and How It Moves
Chapter 23 Circulation
Chapter 24 Respiration
Chapter 25 The Path of Food through the Animal Body
Chapter 26 Maintaining the Internal environment
Chapter 27 How the Animal Body Defends Itself
Chapter 28 The nervous system
Chapter 29 The senses
Chapter 30 Chemical signaling Within the Animal Body
Chapter 31 Reproduction and Development
UNIT 7 PLANT LIFE
Chapter 32 Evolution of Plants
Chapter 33 Plant Form and Function
Chapter 34 Plant Reproduction and Growth
UNIT 8 THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT
Chapter 35 Populations and Communities
Chapter 36 Ecosystems
Chapter 37 Behavior and the environment
Chapter 38 Human Influences on the Living World