The Third Domain – The Untold Story of Archaea
By addebook • Jun 25th, 2008 • Category: Biology
The Third Domain – The Untold Story of Archaea
The Third Domain
By Tim Friend
Publisher: Joseph Henry Press
Number Of Pages: 312
Publication Date: 2007-07-12
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0309102375
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780309102377
Binding: Hardcover
Summary: outer limits
Rating: 5
Thank you — all of you — who reviewed the book. I’m the author. I take to heart your comments and regard your critiques a privilege. Honesty makes us grow. This was a tough book to write. Wanted initially to write third person. My publisher liked my experiences over the years as a reporter. So we ended up, for better or worse, with the first person narrative. I guarantee the stories are accurate, much more to be told.
Summary: Not quite what I was expecting
Rating: 3
Tim Friend’s recent book The Third Domain is an odd book on two levels — first of all, the story that one would think it tells, that of Carl Woese’s discovery of the Archaea, the initial hostile reaction that the discovery met with at the hands of the scientific establishment, and its eventual acceptance by the majority — makes up only one chapter (chapter 3) of the book. The rest of the book mostly follows field microbiologists like Karl Stetter and Eric Mathur as they collect samples (often, but not always, of archaea) from hot springs and thermal vents. Secondly, rather than being one unified whole, each chapter reads as its own story (which it may well have been; Friend is a former USA Today science writer and may be simply fleshing out articles he’s already written). I’m of two minds about this book; as a evolutionary microbial genomicist (and one who has had the honor of working with Woese), I’m glad that there’s a new book for the general public that acknowledges that microbes are worth studying for things other than their effect on human health; but on the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if the story of the Archaea couldn’t have been told in a more engaging manner. Bill Bryson, in his A Short History of Nearly Everything managed to tell Woese’s story (if a bit too simplified) in an exciting chapter there. In conclusion, The Third Domain is worth a read (especially if you are interested in the subject), but the definitive book on Woese and the archaea has yet to be written.
Summary: More bugs that you can imagine
Rating: 4
Friend writes on a difficult subject to popularize and this is popularized science. He cycles between tutorials on genetic science and microbes, the state of genetic engineering and technology, brief bios of the principal scientific personalities and adventures in sample collection. The book turns on Archaeia, a new class of microbes differing from bacterial only in subtle but critical elements of their genetic makeup. Friend reveals the surprising disarray in the taxonomy of microbes and attempts to describe the new way (based on genetics) forward in classifying microbes. He describes nanoarchaeia which may be the ur-nucleus which when embedded in bacterial, formed eukaryotes (organism with true nuclei) and describes the Thing that’s eating the Titanic, a corporation of many types of bacteria, archaeia and molds that cooperate in the disassembly of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic. It may show what the ur-multicell organism the evolved into us was like.
Summary: What the heck is it?
Rating: 3
I had high hopes for this book based on a review I read in Nature, expecting something with enchanting illustrations, and perceptive prose. It has a few small B and W photos, printed on what feels like thick card stock, stuck into the middle of the book. The author is a science writer, and tries hard to make a dramatic and exciting book about bacteria. These are not marauding lions or sharks. Mostly they differ from regular bacteria by their chemistry, never big crowd pleser, and the author spends considerable time reviewing basic aspects of nucleic acids. He tosses in some human interest to spice things up, from time to time. It comes across as a low budget effort that tries too hard, and lacks depth and style.
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