Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human BodyThe paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co discovered Tiktaalik, the "fish with hands," tells a "compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human" (Oliver Sacks). By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria.

The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the "fish with hands," tells a "compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human" (Oliver Sacks).

By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest--enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.

Author: Neil Shubin
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 01/06/2009
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.48w x 0.74d
ISBN: 9780307277459

About the Author

Neil Shubin is the author of the best-selling Your Inner Fish, which was chosen by the National Academy of Sciences as the best book of the year in 2009. Trained at Columbia, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley, Shubin is associate dean of biological sciences at the University of Chicago. In 2011 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.