Books
and disease. Metal-based drugs for
the treatment of parasitic illnesses and
current information regarding metal
elements essential for human life are
also reviewed.
Section 3 switches directions and
introduces us to metals commonly
used in industrial processes and their
potential toxicity, with a discussion of
how exposure to toxic metals can be a
risk factor for specific infectious diseases. Topics discussed in this section
include new metals used in industry
today, interactions between essential
and nonessential metals, and metallic
nanomaterials.
The final part of the book is focused
on the latest technologies being used
to study metal ions in biological systems. Highlights of this section include
information concerning the current
limits of today’s technology and what
future analytical methods are needed.
In contrast to many books that
focus on a very specific area of science,
a major strength of this volume is that
individual chapters review the effects
of metal ions on infectious diseases
from unique viewpoints. Whether we
are scientists or lay readers, we often
ask questions on the basis of our own
training and experience. Because the
editors have recruited experts from a
wide range of backgrounds, including microbiology, nutrition, chemistry, earth science, physics, medicine,
and biology, to summarize what is
known—and what is not known—in
their respective fields, each chapter is
written from a different perspective.
This diversity helps familiarize readers with a specific topic and, at the
same time, helps them think about the
­complexity of the bigger picture.
Another strength is the discussion
chapter at the end of each section,
which summarizes what we know
about this topic but also what we do
not know and what questions still need
to be addressed by today’s and future
scientists. These open-dialogue chapters elegantly tie together different
areas and types of research and help
the reader understand the broader
biological implications of current
research.
88 BioScience • January 2016 / Vol. 66 No. 1
Because of the essential role that
many metals play within all organisms
and the global increases in the prevalence of trace-metal deficiencies and
exposure to toxic metal ions, this book
is timely in that it collectively explores
the known links between metal ions
and infectious disease. With the everincreasing multidisciplinary nature of
science, this book offers something for
everyone and is a great starting point
for both students and scientists wanting to learn more about this exciting
emerging field.
Donald Prothero’s works. The Story of
Life in 25 Fossils was an engaging read,
wonderfully written, and each chapter
was short enough that I found myself
up much later than I planned, because
I kept saying to myself, “Well, okay, just
one more chapter.”
AMANDA J. BIRD
Amanda J. Bird is affiliated with
the Departments of Human Sciences
(Human Nutrition) and Molecular
Genetics at The Ohio State University, in
Columbus.
doi:10.1093/biosci/biv158
THE STORY OF LIFE IN ONE BOOK
The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales
of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the
Wonders of Evolution. Donald R.
Prothero. Columbia University Press,
2015. 432 pp., illus. $35.00 (ISBN
9780231171908 cloth).
A
s a professional paleontologist, I
find that it is a rare book that is
written for the nonspecialist about my
field that I can read without fidgeting. I do not mean this in a pejorative
sense—call it a personal failing if you
would like, but when you work deeply
within a subject matter, the shortcuts
that are made for a more general audience can be jarring. The terms used by
the author lack precision! The minutiae
of the consequence to our arguments
are neglected! The facts are wrong!
Each of these can make reading such a
book difficult, and given the wide popularity of paleontology, especially vertebrate paleontology (and by this I mostly
mean dinosaurs), there is a lot out
there to potentially make me squirm.
However, this was never the case with
this book, the most recent of the prolific
The Story of Life in 25 Fossils delivers on the promise of its title. It covers
the entirety of the history of life, from
the earliest evidence of life on Earth
2 billion or so years ago to the present. It does this by using a series of
touchstone fossils (the titular 25), each
identified in the beginning of a chapter. However, whereas this can set up
the expectation of a simple checklist of
25 fossils, the book goes much beyond
this. The entire subjects of paleontology, geology, and biology are covered.
The history of the development of evolutionary thought is discussed. And
the people who made the discoveries
are introduced, some for perhaps the
first time to the general public (and
for full disclosure, a fossil I described
is the focus of chapter 9).
Don Prothero is a former professor
at Occidental College, in Los Angeles,
California, and now holds several
adjunct or associate positions in Los
Angeles–area institutions, including
the Natural History Museum of Los
Angeles County and California State
Polytechnic University, in Pomona,
since retiring from Oxy. He has written more than 35 books, including
paleontology textbooks and books on
particular groups of animals (fossil
mammals being his specialty), and
being part of the skeptics’ community,
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org
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http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org
he works on the necessity of scientific
thinking to modern life. All of these
past works inform the present volume.
Prothero comes from the same tradition of science writing as Stephen Jay
Gould, but unlike Gould’s classical
erudition, which would often require a
high degree of background knowledge
to appreciate, Prothero’s style is accessible to all, no doubt a result of his
years of undergraduate teaching.
Each chapter develops a theme
related to the history of a particular
group of animals highlighted by the
focal fossil. In each chapter, the stories of discovery are unraveled progressively—some already fairly well
known (e.g., Archaeopteryx), some told
to a wider audience perhaps for the
first time (Eozoon springs to mind).
Interwoven with the stories of the discoveries are stories of the discoverers.
Cope and Marsh are here—Darwin
and Huxley, of course—but we also
find lesser known figures, such as Mary
Anning, seller of sea shells; former
stone quarry worker Hugh Miller;
and Karl Häberlein, who sold the first
Archaeopteryx fossil to the Natural
History Museum in London. And
whereas there is a single focal fossil per
chapter, rest assured that many more
are described to better provide the context for the importance of the focal fossil. Somehow, Prothero manages to do
this without drowning the reader in the
alphabet soup that anatomical terms
and Latin binomial names can create.
Each chapter is thorough and scholarly but accessible to nonspecialists.
You can read this book with no background in paleontology whatsoever.
And despite having now worked in the
field for decades, I remained engaged,
entertained, and, moreover, educated
at the end. Prothero told me things that
I had never heard, to my delight.
However, this book is not comprehensive—that would be impossible. It
has a strong tetrapod bias; plants (one
chapter) and bony fish (zero) in particular receive little attention, whereas
mammals are considered in some
detail (did you ever wonder where
manatees come from?). There is a
whiff of the scala naturae here, as well,
as we progress through the chapters up
from the muck and end on humanity.
Of course, these subjects encapsulate
our interest in the history of life, telling us where we come from, and they
give the book some internal order, but
I wonder if an opportunity might have
been lost to present more tree thinking
to the general public. Because primates
represent a relatively early divergence
in mammalian evolution rather than
the end point, hominin fossils could
have been introduced earlier. And I
cannot help but think a little too much
time is spent debunking various cryptozoology “stories” and thereby giving
then more weight than they deserve.
But then, Prothero is right to criticize the “science-y” garbage that now
dominates the airwaves of the formerly
educational cable channels.
Niggles aside, this is a thoroughly
enjoyable, highly readable, and entertaining book. Prothero is a masterful
communicator of science and a lover
of paleontology, and these traits have
combined to produce one of the best
books on the history of life I have read.
If you want an introduction to the
history of life on Earth, get this book.
If you want to learn about how paleontology is done, get this book. If you
are asked to do a history of life course
for nonmajors, you could do far worse
than to adopt this book as your text. If
you are a high school biology teacher,
yes, your students will be able to read
and enjoy this book.
JASON S. ANDERSON
Jason S. Anderson ([email protected])
is an associate professor in the Department
of Comparative Biology and Experimental
Medicine at the University of Calgary, in
Alberta, Canada.
doi:10.1093/biosci/biv168
January 2016 / Vol. 66 No. 1 • BioScience 89