Oxygen: The molecule that made the world (Popular Science) [Paperback]

Oxygen is the story of life on Earth.... Lane’s chapters are dispatches from the frontiers of research into Earth and life history.... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

An extraordinary orchestration of disparate scientific disciplines, connecting the origins of life on earth with disease, age and death in human beings. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

an entertaining and cogent account of how oxidative stress fits in to our rapidly expanding knowledge about ageing... deserves to be widely read --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Lane's learning and historical scope enable vivid descriptions of the role oxygen has played in determining the course of evolution --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"A thought-provoking popularization of evolution and oxygen biochemistry."--New England Journal of Medicine

"Nothing less than a total rethink of how life evolved between about 3.5 billion and 543 million years ago, and how that relates to the diseases we suffer from today.... This is scientific writing at its best."--Financial Times

"A worthy effort with a clearly argued message, full of informative and entertaining details."--American Scientist

"Provocative and complexly argued."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"One of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read."--John Emsley

Enthralling... An excellent book. It held me spellbound for a 7 hour plane flight. I recommend it unreservedly

A wonderful book... a scientific saga as compelling as any creation myth and Lane tells it with appropriate zeal --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Lane overturns theories about how our planet came to have an atmosphere that was 21% oxygen... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

[Oxygen's] history has never been told as well as Lane tells it here... one of the better books to appear this year. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A truly unique book which takes the reader into unknown territory... might well become the talking point of 2003. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Highly ambitious... a piece of radical scientific polemic, nothing less than a total rethink of how life evolved... science writing at its best. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Oxygen has had extraordinary effects on life. Three hundred million years ago, in Carboniferous times, dragonflies grew as big as seagulls, with wingspans of nearly a metre. Researchers claim they could have flown only if the air had contained more oxygen than today - probably as much as 35 per cent. Giant spiders, tree-ferns, marine rock formations and fossil charcoals all tell the same story. High oxygen levels may also explain the global firestorm that contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs after the asteroid impact. The strange and profound effects that oxygen has had on the evolution of life pose a riddle, which this book sets out to answer. Oxygen is a toxic gas. Divers breathing pure oxygen at depth suffer from convulsions and lung injury. Fruit flies raised at twice normal atmospheric levels of oxygen live half as long as their siblings. Reactive forms of oxygen, known as free radicals, are thought to cause ageing in people. Yet if atmospheric oxygen reached 35 per cent in the Carboniferous, why did it promote exuberant growth, instead of rapid ageing and death? Oxygen takes the reader on an enthralling journey, as gripping as a thriller, as it unravels the unexpected ways in which oxygen spurred the evolution of life and death. The book explains far more than the size of ancient insects: it shows how oxygen underpins the origin of biological complexity, the birth of photosynthesis, the sudden evolution of animals, the need for two sexes, the accelerated ageing of cloned animals like Dolly the sheep, and the surprisingly long lives of bats and birds. Drawing on this grand evolutionary canvas, Oxygen offers fresh perspectives on our own lives and deaths, explaining modern killer diseases, why we age, and what we can do about it. Advancing revelatory new ideas, following chains of evidence, the book ranges through many disciplines, from environmental sciences to molecular medicine. The result is a captivating vision of contemporary science and a humane synthesis of our place in nature. This remarkable book will redefine the way we think about the world.

'...popular science writing at its very best - clear yet challenging, speculative yet rigorous. The book is a tour de force which orchestrates a seamless story out of both venerable ideas and very recent discoveries in several disparate fields.'
Bernard Dixon

'... a breathtaking, broad vision of the role of a single gas in our life, from the origin of organisms, through the emergence of creatures, and to their deaths ... packed full of interesting life- and death-stories .... A wonderful read.'
Peter Atkins

'... one of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read.'
John Emsley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Nick Lane studied biochemistry at Imperial College, University of London. His doctoral research, at the Royal Free Hospital, was on oxygen free-radicals and metabolic function in organ transplants. Dr Lane is an honorary research fellow at University College London and strategic director at Adelphi Medi Cine, a medical multimedia company based in London, where he is responsible for developing interactive approaches to medical education. Articles by Nick Lane have been published in
numerous international journals, including Scientific American, The Lancet and the British Medical Journal. He lives in London.

OXYGEN DEFIES EASY CLASSIFICATION. Ever since it was discovered in the 1770s, its properties and chemistry have been squabbled over by scholars and charlatans alike. The controversy persists today. Oxygen is hailed as the Elixir of Life — a wonder tonic, a cure for ageing, a beauty treatment and a potent medical therapy. It is also purported to be a fire hazard and a dangerous poison that will kill us in the end. The popular health press is contradictory. Inhaling pure oxygen in cosmopolitan ‘oxygen bars’ and health clinics is said to work wonders, yet the opposite — ‘high-altitude therapy’ — is claimed to eliminate superfluous oxygen, conferring the health benefits of austerity. So-called ‘active’ oxygen treatments, meaning ozone and hydrogen peroxide, are touted as miraculous scourges of bacterial infection, or as cures for cancer; yet at the same time we are told that the secret of a long life is to eat plenty of antioxidants, to protect us against the very same !
‘active’ forms of oxygen. Oxygen seems to attract nonsense and misinformation like a magnet.

However muddled these accounts, they agree about one thing: oxygen is important. After all, if we stop breathing it, we will be dead in minutes. Our bodies are beautifully designed to deliver oxygen to each of our 15 million million cells. All the symbolism of red blood ultimately rests in the simple chemical bonding between oxygen and haemoglobin in our red blood cells. Suffocation and drowning — the physical deprivation of oxygen — are among the darkest of human fears. If we think of a planet without oxygen, we think of a sterile place pockmarked with craters, a place like the Moon or Mars. The presence of oxygen in a planetary atmosphere is the litmus test of life: water signals the potential for life, but oxygen is the sign of its fulfilment — only life can produce free oxygen in the air in any abundance. If pressed for an unemotional reason for not cutting down the rain forests or polluting the oceans, we may argue that these great resources are the ‘lungs’ of the world!
, ventilating the Earth with life-giving oxygen. This is not true, as we shall see, but illustrates the reverence in which we hold oxygen. Perhaps it is not entirely surprising that we seek mystical or healing properties in a colourless, odourless gas.

This book is about life, death and oxygen: about how and why life produced and adapted to oxygen; about the evolutionary past and future of life on Earth; about energy and health, disease and death, sex and regeneration; and about ourselves. Oxygen is important in ways that most of us hardly even begin to imagine, ways that are far more fascinating than the loud claims of health features. But before we begin our journey, we need to mark out the playing field. Is oxygen an elixir or a poison, or both? And how can we tell the difference? The easiest way to find out is to go back in time, to the beginnings of our own understanding.....

....I have tried to write for a wide audience who may have little knowledge of science, and hope to be accessible to anyone prepared to make a little effort. The argument works out over the book as a whole, and you’ll have to read to the end to get the full story! Each chapter, however, tells a story of its own, and I have not assumed much prior knowledge from previous chapters. We shall see that life’s adaptations to oxygen, which began nearly 4 billion (4 thousand million) years ago, are still written in our innermost constitution. We shall see that radiation poisoning, nuclear reactors, Noah’s flood, photosynthesis, snowball Earths, giant insects, predatory monsters, food, sex, stress and infectious diseases are all linked by oxygen. We shall see that an oxygen-centric view gives striking insights into the nature of ageing, disease and death. We shall see that oxygen, a simple colourless odourless gas, made the world in which we live, framing our own passage across the stage. We shall see all this by thinking about how and why oxygen has influenced the evolution of life from the very beginning. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.