Neil Shubin

En abril de 2006, Neil Shubin y su equipo aparecieron en los titulares de prensa mundiales cuando dieron a conocer al Tiktaalik, un pez fósil con extremidades de 375 millones de años de edad, el eslabon perdido entre las antiguas criaturas del mar y las primeras criaturas en empezar a caminar en tierra. Sus descubrimientos fosiles han cambiado la manera en que entendiamos muchas de las transiciones clave en la evolucion de las especies.En Tu pez interior (2008), Shubin desarrolla las grandes transformaciones evolutivas con una perspectiva unica. Mostrando el extraordinario impacto que los 3.500 millones años de historia de la vida han tenido en el cuerpo humano, responde a preguntas basicas que nos planteamos a menudo: ¿por que nos parecemos tanto en el interior? ¿como hemos llegado a ese parecido? Para entenderlo no necesitamos dirigir expediciones fosiles en el desierto de Gobi o el norte de Africa, basta con comparar nuestros esqueletos, organos y genes. Cuando nos comparamos con los animales, plantas, hongos y microbios nos convertimos en una profunda evidencia de la evolucion. El origen de los animales, la transicion de los peces a los anfibios, el origen de los mamiferos, y muchos de los otros eventos clave de la evolucion han sido capturados en nuestros genes, esqueletos y organos.

A lo largo de miles de millones de años, los antiguos peces evolucionaron hasta caminar sobre la tierra, los reptiles se transformaron en aves que vuelan y los primates con aspecto de simios evolucionaron hasta convertirse en seres humanos que caminan sobre dos piernas, hablan y escriben. Durante mas de un siglo, los paleontologos han recorrido el planeta en busca de fosiles que muestren como se produjeron esos cambios.Ahora hemos llegado a un momento extraordinario: los fosiles prehistoricos, unidos a la nueva tecnologia del ADN, nos hanproporcionado las herramientas para responder a algunas de las preguntas basicas de nuestra existencia: ¿Como se producenlos grandes cambios evolutivos? ¿Es nuestra presencia en la Tierra producto de la casualidad? Esta nueva ciencia revela unahistoria evolutiva de miles de millones de años llena de giros, pruebas y errores, accidentes e invenciones.En Las piezas de la evolucion, Neil Shubin lleva a los lectores a un viaje de descubrimientos que abarca siglos, a medida que exploradores y cientificos tratan de comprender los origenes de la inmensa diversidad de la vida.

Your Inner Fish tells the extraordinary history of the human body and gives answers to some of the questions that only evolution can. Why do we look the way we do? Why are we able to do all the different things we do? And, finally, why do we fall ill in the way that we do? Neil Shubin draws on the latest genetic research and his huge experience as an expeditionary paleontologist to show the incredible impact the 3.5 billion year history of life has had on our bodies. He takes readers on a fascinating, unexpected journey and allows us to discover the deep connection to nature in our own bodies.

Intimate and thoughtful Exciting [A] sweeping evolutionary history. ScienceThe author of the bestselling Your Inner Fish gives us a brilliant, up-to-date account of the great transformations in the history of life on Earth.This is a story full of surprises. If you think that feathers arose to help animals fly, or lungs to help them walk on land, youd be in good company. Youd also be entirely wrong.Neil Shubin delves deep into the mystery of life, the ongoing revolutions in our understanding of how we got here, and brings us closer to answering one of the great questions was life on earth inevitableor was it all an accident?

Meet the scientists uncovering the secrets of Earths harshest environments the polar regionsSHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2025AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEARThrilling... This book is a reminder of how incredibly "cool" our planet can be, and how we must fight to protect it.Nick MohammedFrigid, remote and inhospitable the polar regions seem far removed from our everyday lives.But these seemingly isolated ice realms shape life on our planet far more than we realise, influencing everything from the climate to ocean health. They may even hold the secrets to the origins of the Earth.Taking an epic journey of discovery from pole-to-pole, ferrying between penguins and polar bears, Ends of the Earth reveals the polar regions as never before. Meeting with the leading physicists, climatologists, geologists, biologists and palaeontologists working in these extremes often as eccentric as they are intrepid Neil Shubin presents the compelling new science of the Arctic and Antarctic with characteristic verve and expertise.***A fast-moving, fascinating book that combines travelogue and natural science discovery... a delightful and compelling read. Daniel J. Levitin, author of The Organised MindGripping... Shubins captivating storytelling will give you a new appreciation for some of the harshest and most mysterious places on Earth.Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the DinosaursWhat a remarkable planet we live on wildest at its cold and lovely poles. This compelling volume should summon us to defend that cold, the vital task for our time on earth.Bill McKibben, author of The End of NatureFascinating. Important. Spectator

An exciting and accessible new view of the evolution of human and animal life on Earth. From the author of national bestseller, Your Inner Fish, this extraordinary journey of discovery spans centuries, as explorers and scientists seek to understand the origins of lifes immense diversity.Fossils, DNA, scientists with a penchant for suits of armorwhats not to love?BBC Wildlife MagazineOver billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and apelike primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. For more than a century, paleontologists have traveled the globe to find fossils that show how such changes have happened. We have now arrived at a remarkable momentprehistoric fossils coupled with new DNA technology have given us the tools to answer some of the basic questions of our existence: How do big changes in evolution happen? Is our presence on Earth the product of mere chance? This new science reveals a multibillion-year evolutionary history filled with twists and turns, trial and error, accident and invention. In Some Assembly Required, Neil Shubin takes readers on a journey of discovery spanning centuries, as explorers and scientists seek to understand the origins of lifes immense diversity.

**Shortlisted for the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize**The bestselling author of Your Inner Fish takes readers on an epic adventure to the North and South Poles to reveal the secrets locked in the ice about life, the cosmos, and our planets future.Urgent [and] prescientThe book captures Shubins reverence for both the beauty and the mysteries hidden in the cold, barren tundra.The New YorkerRenowned scientist Neil Shubin has made extraordinary discoveries by leading scientific expeditions to the sweeping ice landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic. Hes survived polar storms, traveled in temperatures that can freeze flesh in seconds, and worked hundreds of miles from the nearest humans, all to deepen our understanding of our world.Written with infectious enthusiasm and irresistible curiosity, Ends of the Earth blends travel writing, science, and history in a book brimming with surprising and wonderful discoveries. Shubin retraces his steps on a dinosaur dance floor, showing us where these beasts had populated the once tropical lands at the poles. He takes readers meteor hunting, as meteorites preserved in the ice can be older than our planet and can tell us about our galaxys formation. Readers also encounter insects and fish that develop their own anti-freeze, and aquatic life in ancient lakes hidden miles under the ice that havent seen the surface in centuries. It turns out that explorers and scientists have found these extreme environments as prime ground for making scientific breakthroughs across a vast range of knowledge. Shubin shares unforgettable moments from centuries of expeditions to reveal just how far scientists will go to understand polar regions. In the end, what happens at the poles does not stay in the polesthe ends of the earth offer profound stories that will forever change our view of life and the entire planet.

Your Inner Fish tells the extraordinary history of the human body and gives answers to some of the questions that only evolution can. Why do we look the way we do? Why are we able to do all the different things we do? And, finally, why do we fall ill in the way that we do? Neil Shubin draws on the latest genetic research and his huge experience as an expeditionary paleontologist to show the incredible impact the 3.5 billion year history of life has had on our bodies. He takes readers on a fascinating, unexpected journey and allows us to discover the deep connection to nature in our own bodies.

In The Universe Within, Neil Shubin, one of the worlds leading experts, reveals to us the extraordinary cosmic and evolutionary adventure of our own bodies.During the past 13.7 billion years (or so) since the Big Bang, our universe has evolved, stars have formed and died and our planet congealed from the matter in space. For aeons, the earth has circled the sun while mountains, seas and entire continents have come and gone. Against this epic backdrop, humanitys place in the cosmos can look tiny and insignificant. But as Neil Shubin shows in this revelatory new book, the one place where universe, solar system and planet merge is inside your body. Shubin shows how the origin of the Moon is tied to our internal body clocks; how the vast amounts of water on Earth and inside all living creatures crossed the deepest stretches of space to us; how strange fluctuations in the orbits within our solar system have led to our irregular ice-ages; and how tiny imbalances in the chaos immediately after the Big Bang can explain why matter exists at all.Delving below the earths surface and into the frozen Arctic, exploring the smallest atomic structures and the vast reaches of space, Neil Shubin uncovers a sublimely beautiful, almost magical truth: that in every one of us lies the most profound story of all - how we and our world came to be.Shubin is not only a distinguished scientist, but a wonderfully lucid and elegant writer; he is an irrepressibly enthusiastic teacher ... a science writer of the first rank, Oliver SacksNeil Shubin is a palaeontologist in the great tradition of his mentors, Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould. He has discovered fossils around the world that have changed the way we think about many of the key transitions in evolution and has pioneered a new synthesis of expeditionary palaeontology, developmental genetics and genomics. He trained at Columbia, Harvard and Berkeley and is currently a Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. His previous book is Your Inner Fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor.

Durante más de un siglo, los paleontólogos han recorrido el mundo buscando fósiles que revelen cómo hace miles de millones de años ocurrieron asombrosos cambios en la Tierra que permitieron a los peces evolucionar hasta caminar, los reptiles a transformarse en aves y los primates a convertirse en humanos bipedos capaces de hablar y escribir. Por suerte, gracias a los fosiles prehistoricos y la avanzada tecnologia del ADN, por primera vez en la historia, podemos responder preguntas fundamentales sobre nuestra existencia. ¿Como han ocurrido todos esos grandes cambios evolutivos? ¿Es la vida en la Tierra fruto del azar? En Las piezas de la evolucion, Neil Shubin plantea todas esas cuestiones y guia a los lectores en una fascinante aventura a traves de los siglos en la que muestra como los exploradores y cientificos se han dedicado a desentrañar los origenes de la inmensa diversidad biologica y sus hallazgos.

A panorama of cutting edge science in our planet s harshest and most remote environments

Un libro que aborda la historia evolutiva del cuerpo humano desde una perspectiva única, a raíz de uno de los mayores descubrimientos científicos de los últimos años. En abril de 2006, Neil Shubin y