Life as We Made It
How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined—and Redefined—Nature

Life as We Made It was a super-interesting look into the topic. The author did a great job in bringing this big-picture story to the reader here. Author Beth Alison Shapiro is an American evolutionary molecular biologist. She is a Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the U......more

Ancient DNA specialist Beth Shapiro examines our past impact on evolution, showcasing science communication at its finest, while her look to the future stimulated me to reflect critically on the role of biotechnology. See my full review at [URL not allowed]......more

This is a very interesting look into how humans have modified their environment from the beginning, sometimes for good but also for evil. We’ve caused whole species to go extinct, but we also have the capacity to use our powers for good. Shapiro shows this, as well as the new tools at our disposal t......more

Too many stories that I was already familiar with. > Wolbachia don’t kill the insects that they infect but they do cause fertility problems. When an uninfected female mosquito breeds with an infected male, their offspring don’t survive … it’s difficult to produce only males in a laboratory environme......more

Solid History, Perhaps A Bit Too Optimistic On Future Tech. In showing the history of how humans have been using crude genetic engineering essentially since we first began interacting with the world - both plant and animal - and in showing how our more modern techniques - including CRSPR - came to b......more