Life Ascending - Week 1: A New Perspective on Evolution

           We have all learned about evolution and how it impacts the change of living organisms throughout time.  Majority of the time evolution and its impacts are consistently taught through descriptions of how evolution has impacted and effected various organisms throughout the history of life.   However,  Life Ascending takes a different approach in it's presentation of evolutionary thought.  Rather then describing how evolution has impacted the history of life, author Nick Lane uses the history of life to recreate the history of evolution.  Each chapter of this book concentrates on specific aspect of life that then extensivly expands on that subject to explain the history of evolution.  Just some examples of the major topics include DNA, sex, sight, and the cell complex, among many others.   I am excited to read and learn more about evolution from Life Ascending because it takes on evolution from a perspective I have never thought to look at before.  It has never occurred to me that major "inventions" of evolution could be manipulated to reconstruct the the history of evolution itself.  In the introduction, Lane stresses that interconnection of evolution and life is what has made our world so beautiful and complex today.  It through the study of these complexities that I will be able to gain a new and unique understanding of evolution.