Colin Tudge

The astonishing new discovery that could change everything . . . Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the worlds leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by an astonishing forty-four million years. A secret until now, the fossil - Ida- is the most complete early primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million years old, Ida rewrites what weve assumed about the earliest primate origins. Her completeness is unparalleled. With exclusive access to the first scientists to study her, the award-winning science writer Colin Tudge tells the history of Ida and her place in the world. The Link offers a wide-ranging investigation into Ida and our earliest origins - and the magnificent, cutting-edge scientific detective story that followed her discovery. At the same time it opens a stunningly evocative window into our past and changes what we know about primate evolution and, ultimately, our own.

Este libro monumental, bellamente ilustrado, y de fácil y agradable lectura nos ofrece, nada más y nada menos que la historia de todas las criaturas que existen o han existido sobre nuestro planeta. Para construir esta increible sintesis, el profesor Colin Tudge, quiza la mayor autoridad mundial en historia natural, estudia en este libro, mediante la clasificacion taxonomica, cada uno de los grupos a los que pertenecen todos los seres vivientes o extintos, desde las bacterias hasta los seres humanos. La variedad de la vida es un libro pionero de una nueva fase de la biologia en la que, por vez primera, los biologos van a disponer de una aproximacion total a la verdadera diversidad de la vida y de los metodos adecuados para estudiarla. Este libro, sorprendente por su brillantez y claridad, ha sido calificado por la revista Nature de extraordinariamente valioso como obra de referencia para los estudiantes, e indispensable para todos los naturalistas aficionados por la enorme informacion que contiene sobre la vida que les rodea y los fosiles que se hallan bajo sus pies.Mas de 500 ilustraciones a dos tintas

Colin Tudge es Research Fellow en el Centre for Philosophy de la London School of Economics. Entre sus libros: Last Animals at the Zoo y The Day before Yesterday.

La obra de Colin Tudge es el contrapunto provocador y necesario a la corriente neo-darwinista y positivista que ha dominado la ciencia en los últimos años. En este libro ameno y didáctico, Tudge enumera las interpretaciones parciales de las ciencias de la vida que se han ido sucediendo a partir de la teoria evolutiva de Darwin. Una vez expuesto el panorama actual de las ciencias, nos hace reflexionar acerca de las consecuencias que estas interpretaciones de la vida y el mundo tienen para el ser humano, y preguntarnos por las grandes cuestiones que la ciencia y la tecnica, cada vez mas especializadas, poco a poco han ido relegando a un segundo plano. "Este libro hace honor a su subtitulo. De hecho, reta a las grandes malas ideas, tanto si son sobre el mundo natural, la condicion humana dentro de el, o nuestros habitos de pensamiento y comportamiento, y sugiere alguna que otra idea, mejor y mayor, para el futuro. Resumiendo, vuelve a poner en su sitio la sabiduria convencional. Todo ello se despliega de un modo facil pero erudito y las conclusiones son un testamento personal. El mensaje es: piensa diferente. Ahora somos mas capaces de hacerlo" - Sir Crispin Tickell Colin Tudge (1943) Escritor de profesion, Colin Tudge estudio biologia en la Universidad de Dulwich entre 1954 y 1961, y se especializo en zoologia en Peterhouse en el periodo de 1962 a 1965. Ha escrito numerosos articulos en diferentes publicaciones especializadas como New Scientist, y ha mantenido un espacio de divulgacion propio en BBC Radio 3. Ha expuesto sus tesis fundamentales acerca de la historia natural, la evolucion, alimentacion y agricultura, en los numerosos libros que ha publicado; y tambien ha sido invitarlo a exponerlas en diferentes universidades, la Royal Society britanica, y en el Schumacher College de Devon. Una de sus aportaciones fundamentales a la agricultura es lo que denomino Agricultura Ilustrada (o agricultura real), que define como la agricultura que se diseñado expresamente para proporcionar a todos, en todas partes, los alimentos de la mas alta calidad nutricional y gastronomica, sin destruir el mundo.

All animals are equal - but some, as George Orwell said, are more equal than others, and birds, most people would surely agree, are in the very first rank. They can do almost everything that mammals can do - and more. By mastering flight, they have a way of living that encompasses the whole world. In The Secret Life of Birds, Colin Tudge explores the life of birds, all around the globe. From the secrets of migration to their complicated family lives, their differing habitats and survival techniques to the secrets of flight, this is a fascinating account of how birds live, why they matter, and whether they really are dinosaurs. Colin Tudge shows how birds - who are like us in the general sense but very different in the particulars - live and think. For birds have minds: they feel, they are aware, they work things out. And so, by considering the birds, asking how and why it is possible for them to be so different, we gain insight into ourselves. Birds are beautiful, lively, intriguing - and all around us. This rich and endlessly absorbing book opens up their lives to everyone.

Today we are developing a science that could change the world - for good or ill - more quickly and more profoundly than ever before. The science of genetics promises - or threatens - nothing less than the creation of life. Colin Tudge leads the reader gently through the deepest intricacies of genetics. He traces its history. He explores its awesome power and its current applications. And he speculates on its thrilling - or terrifying - future. He has written an essential book for anyone interested in the future of the human race.

A blend of history, science, philosophy, and environmentalism, The Tree is an engaging and elegant look at the life of the tree and what modern research tells us about their future.There are redwoods in California that were ancient by the time Columbus first landed, and pines still alive that germinated around the time humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers, and a banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field. From the tallest to the smallest, trees inspire wonder in all of us, and in The Tree, Colin Tudge travels around the worldthroughout the United States, the Costa Rican rain forest, Panama and Brazil, India, New Zealand, China, and most of Europebringing to life stories and facts about the trees around us: how they grow old, how they eat and reproduce, how they talk to one another (and they do), and why they came to exist in the first place. He considers the pitfalls of being tall; the things that trees produce, from nuts and rubber to wood; and even the complicated debt that we as humans owe them. Tudge takes us to the Amazon in flood, when the water is deep enough to submerge the forest entirely and fish feed on fruit while river dolphins race through the canopy. He explains the memory of a tree: how those that have been shaken by wind grow thicker and sturdier, while those attacked by pests grow smaller leaves the following year; and reveals how it is that the same trees found in the United States are also native to China (but not Europe). From tiny saplings to centuries-old redwoods and desert palms, from the backyards of the American heartland to the rain forests of the Amazon and the bamboo forests, Colin Tudge takes the reader on a journey through history and illuminates our ever-present but often ignored companions.

Desde hace más de un siglo, los científicos luchan por trazar el árbol genealógico de la evolución humana enfrentándose a múltiples dificultades. Pero ahora, tras el sensacional hallazgo de un grupo de antropologos, todo lo que creiamos saber sobre los origenes de los primates podria cambiar. Depositado en la camara de alta seguridad de uno los museos de historia natural que gozan de mayor prestigio internacional se conserva el hallazgo mas relevante de las ultimas decadas: un fosil perfecto de un primate temprano que antecede a Lucy, el ejemplar mejor conocido en la actualidad, en 44 millones de años. Con 47 millones de años, Ida, nombre elegido por sus descubridores, es el fosil de primate completo mas antiguo jamas encontrado y obliga a reescribir la historia comunmente aceptada sobre los origenes de los primates, ya que, lejos de los restos parciales y fragmentos estudiados por el momento, nos muestra la sombra de su piel y el contenido de su estomago, posibilitando una reconstruccion que permite definir con fidelidad su aspecto, su alimentacion y modo de vida. El reconocido cientifico Colin Tudge nos relata la historia de Ida y del grupo de estudiosos que la encontraron. El eslabon constituye asi una amplia investigacion sobre el fosil y la esplendida labor realizada por los investigadores despues del descubrimiento, abriendo una evocadora ventana a nuestro pasado que no solo cambia lo que creiamos saber sobre la evolucion de los primates, sino tambien sobre nosotros mismos.

A work that focuses on the relentless drive for maximum food production at rock-bottom cost. As health scares spiral, rural workers are driven off the land and poor nations are forced to export their goods in a cut-throat marketplace. Colin Trudge proposes an alternative, looking at the global food industry and showing how - without resorting to GM crops - corporate barons can be stripped of control, the world can be fed and humanity can survive.

Everyone interested in the natural world will enjoy The Secret Life of Trees. I found myself reading out whole chunks to friends The Times, Books of the YearWhat is a tree? As this celebration of the trees shows, they are our countryside; our ancestors descended from them; they gave us air to breathe. Yet while the stories of trees are as plentiful as leaves in a forest, they are rarely told. Here, Colin Tudge travels from his own back garden round the world to explore the beauty, variety and ingenuity of trees everywhere: from how they live so long to how they talk to each other and why they came to exist in the first place. Lyrical and evocative, this book will make everyone fall in love with the trees around them.