Steve Jones

Coral : a pessimist in paradise

You may have come across coral in a piece of jewellery, or you may even have seen living coral while diving, but you probably wouldn't have thought of all of the links between coral and humans which Steve Jones describes in his new book Coral : a pessimist in paradise.

The book starts with Jones looking at a coral brooch which came down to him from his sea-captain grandfather. He goes on to describe how coral reefs are formed, showing how Darwin's ideas were eventually proved correct when reefs were used in nuclear tests Coral can reproduce asexually rather than grow old and die, so hopeful humans have harvested and sold them as rejuvinatives. They also live as symbionts, but recently there has been much 'bleaching' of coral where they split up with their symbiotic partner. There's a chapter on earthquakes and epidemics, and one on the links between corals and carbon in several forms including diamond and CO₂. So you can see that theres plenty of opportunity for pessimism. Jones concludes the book with a chapter on the destruction of coral reefs, and its uncertain future.

In The Single Helix I felt that Jones chapters were too short. Here I felt that they are too long at 30 - 40 pages each without anything to break them up. If you like the sort of book which rambles from one thing to another, sometimes with only a tenuous link to the main subject, then this might suit you, but I wouldn't recommend it to readers who want to learn about corals.

Amazon.com info

Paperback 242 pages
ISBN: 0316729418
Salesrank:
Weight:0.75 lbs

Published: 2007 Little Brown and Company

Marketplace::Used from $11.89

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Amazon.co.uk info

Paperback 256 pages
ISBN: 0349118353
Salesrank: 288074
Weight:1.11 lbs

Published: 2008 Abacus

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Amazon.ca info

Paperback 242 pages
ISBN: 0316729418
Salesrank: 190693
Weight:0.75 lbs

Published: 2007 Little Brown

Amazon price CDN$ 17.52

Marketplace:New from CDN$ 16.11:Used from CDN$ 11.89

Buy from Amazon.ca

DAILY MAIL
'This is a startling, energetic and provocative read. It's also surprisingly funny'

DAILY MAIL

'This is a startling, energetic and provocative read. It's also
surprisingly funny'

Coral: A Pessimist in Paradise *****
This splendid book joins science with history politics, myths and literature. Coral takes you on a spectacular journey of enlightenment with an unlikely group of individuals - Darwin, Captain Cook, Gauguin on Tahiti, as well as a visit to Bikini Atoll where atomic bombs were tested and false promises were made to unfortunate islanders. The author's sparkling narrative reveals fascinating information on coral - a tiny creature with astonishing engineering skill; creatures whose DNA relates close to our own, and is almost as complex and in some ways superior to our own. Human's stewardship of Earth has been far from exemplary and under our heavy footprint many species are in sharp decline. Others have succumbed and are no more. Perhaps through our own greed and exploitation of the planet's resources we, too, are precariously close to the point of no return. Coral is without a doubt a five star read

Coral: A Pessimist in Paradise *****

This splendid book joins science with history politics, myths and literature. Coral takes you on a spectacular journey of enlightenment with an unlikely group of individuals - Darwin, Captain Cook, Gauguin on Tahiti, as well as a visit to Bikini Atoll where atomic bombs were tested and false promises were made to unfortunate islanders.
The author's sparkling narrative reveals fascinating information on coral - a tiny creature with astonishing engineering skill; creatures whose DNA relates close to our own, and is almost as complex and in some ways superior to our own. Human's stewardship of Earth has been far from exemplary and under our heavy footprint many species are in sharp decline. Others have succumbed and are no more. Perhaps through our own greed and exploitation of the planet's resources we, too, are precariously close to the point of no return.
Coral is without a doubt a five star read

Praising polyps' performance *****
The world of coral seems so distant and obscure. Tropical lagoons or long stretches of underwater realm. To us, it may be a paradisical mystery, remote and hidden with little to offer to our daily lives. Steve Jones, whose career has centred on these strange creatures, knows better. Those silent, tiny creatures which are capable of vast engineering monuments have much to convey - about our world and ourselves. With a strong facility in writing about nature and the science studying it, he gives us a fascinating look at the world beneath the waves. It begins with Darwin, of course, as any writing about life should. Charles Darwin's voyage in HMS Beagle was about much more than finches and iguanas. Beyond the Galapagos Islands, he travelled across the Pacific, encountering numerous reef-girdled islands. Studying them closely, he reasoned that coral reefs surrounding the islands were the result of their sinking centres. It was this discovery that made his reputation as a naturalist long before the publication of "Origin". He had noted that corals cannot thrive in deep water, away from the sun's nourishing light. That observation, as Jones goes on to explain, would later lead to momentous discoveries, some of them of significant medical importance. As a tribute to Darwin's discoveries, nearly all the illustrations in this book are his maps of various coral-ringed islands. Among the captivating facts Jones provides us is that some polyps, such as the Hydra, are immortal. The genetic commands leading to ageing and death in creatures such as ourselves, don't function in the polyps. They just go on budding and proliferating so long as conditions permit. The quest to understand polyps like Hydra was long on the track. The Romans, Jones explains, understood their need for water to survive, but it was two millennia before serious advances took place. Only in the 18th Century did an unacknowledged French researcher deem them animals and not plants. Modern molecular biology has demonstrated that polyp DNA is nearly as large and complex as that of the "higher animals". Their harsh living conditions have developed complex protective systems we are only now beginning to comprehend. Oxygen, which we need to live, is also an effective tissue destroyer. The polyps, with their tiny, vulnerable bodies, have devised means of coping with that. Their methods are far superior to ours, and all the antioxidants we consume to fight ageing are of little worth. Coral makes stone, the foundations of reefs being limestone the living polyps build on over the ages. As the seas rise and fall, the coral either extends its bastion or dies off, awaiting better times. The key to their survival is more than simply the availability of a watery home. Temperature changes, the proportion of atmospheric gases and pollutants scythe the polyps down. They are clearly under threat just at a time when knowledge of them can be put to effective use. Jones uses this knowledge to extend our recognition of the polyps' role in life. To explain the importance of coral, he follows the history and personalities that have, one way or another, contributed to our understanding. His reach encompasses such elements as the painter Gaugin and the unexpected contribution of De Beers' diamond monopoly. No stone, especially if made by Jones' favourite creature, is to be left unturned. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Praising polyps' performance *****

The world of coral seems so distant and obscure. Tropical lagoons or long stretches of underwater realm. To us, it may be a paradisical mystery, remote and hidden with little to offer to our daily lives. Steve Jones, whose career has centred on these strange creatures, knows better. Those silent, tiny creatures which are capable of vast engineering monuments have much to convey - about our world and ourselves. With a strong facility in writing about nature and the science studying it, he gives us a fascinating look at the world beneath the waves.

It begins with Darwin, of course, as any writing about life should. Charles Darwin's voyage in HMS Beagle was about much more than finches and iguanas. Beyond the Galapagos Islands, he travelled across the Pacific, encountering numerous reef-girdled islands. Studying them closely, he reasoned that coral reefs surrounding the islands were the result of their sinking centres. It was this discovery that made his reputation as a naturalist long before the publication of "Origin". He had noted that corals cannot thrive in deep water, away from the sun's nourishing light. That observation, as Jones goes on to explain, would later lead to momentous discoveries, some of them of significant medical importance. As a tribute to Darwin's discoveries, nearly all the illustrations in this book are his maps of various coral-ringed islands.

Among the captivating facts Jones provides us is that some polyps, such as the Hydra, are immortal. The genetic commands leading to ageing and death in creatures such as ourselves, don't function in the polyps. They just go on budding and proliferating so long as conditions permit. The quest to understand polyps like Hydra was long on the track. The Romans, Jones explains, understood their need for water to survive, but it was two millennia before serious advances took place. Only in the 18th Century did an unacknowledged French researcher deem them animals and not plants. Modern molecular biology has demonstrated that polyp DNA is nearly as large and complex as that of the "higher animals". Their harsh living conditions have developed complex protective systems we are only now beginning to comprehend. Oxygen, which we need to live, is also an effective tissue destroyer. The polyps, with their tiny, vulnerable bodies, have devised means of coping with that. Their methods are far superior to ours, and all the antioxidants we consume to fight ageing are of little worth.

Coral makes stone, the foundations of reefs being limestone the living polyps build on over the ages. As the seas rise and fall, the coral either extends its bastion or dies off, awaiting better times. The key to their survival is more than simply the availability of a watery home. Temperature changes, the proportion of atmospheric gases and pollutants scythe the polyps down. They are clearly under threat just at a time when knowledge of them can be put to effective use. Jones uses this knowledge to extend our recognition of the polyps' role in life. To explain the importance of coral, he follows the history and personalities that have, one way or another, contributed to our understanding. His reach encompasses such elements as the painter Gaugin and the unexpected contribution of De Beers' diamond monopoly. No stone, especially if made by Jones' favourite creature, is to be left unturned. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Coral: a Pessimist in Paradise ****
Part one of Jones' book gives us paradise (think south sea lagoons, Gauguin, Darwinian exploration, and immortality -- of polyps); and the second half gives us the pessimism (think global warming, dying reefs smothered in pollution, and mortality -- of the planet and ourselves). Jones explains the processes of symbiotics, and explains that "symbiotic" can be cooperative, or it can mean adaptation to invasion of one particle by another. Carbon is sequestered in all life -- and is sequestered twice as fast in coral reefs as in forests. The destruction of reefs, then, releases carbon into the atmosphere even faster than does destruction of vegetation on land. We are in an interglacial period now, and the polar ice caps have ebbed and flowed (at glacial pace) throughout Earth's history; her biography has been a tale of constant geological upheavel. This heaving up of the sea bed has given us the oil deposits of Texas and Iraq -- both once at the bottom of oceans. Evolution is shaped by haphazard geological events. Jones combines science with history and literature and an account of modern bomb testing in the South Pacific to explain some of the chapters of this shaping. Jones' whirlwind tour of planetary ecology also touches on painting, Captain Cook's explorations, cancer and genetics ... all in language aphoristic, sometimes overly-ornate and sometimes glib. But Jones' task is to show that we cannot explain coral animals and the reefs they make without linking to all else in science ("corals and their relatives are now at centre stage in the struggle to understand some of the basic rules of biology") and also to global climate change, technology and human overpopulation. The "green revolution" using fertilizers to feed humanity has "choked" the reefs in shallow lagoons and oceans. The calcium tablets some take to nourish their bones may come from coral reefs on which industrial sludge has been dumped. What goes around comes around. Sometimes Jones misleads, as when he says that Beatrix Potter, after trying to convey her theories of fungi and lichen to the experts at Kew, "gave up science and took up a new profession as the author of children's books." She wrote about Peter Rabbit and company indeed, but hardly give up science: she moved to the Lake District and became a leading conservationist and heritage sheep breeder. Although enormously informed by Jones' sparky interdisciplinary account, one has to wonder about other possible inexactitudes. But no matter -- a book like this one stimulates us to read further, dig deeper, check facts and competing theories. Jones' tour of the carbon cycle alone should be required reading in these days of global warming confusion. The loss of reefs -- their fragility -- makes them our index to the health and diversity of life on Earth. Jones convinces us that we cannot make sense of the environmental perils at hand without giving them our close attention: "their story is that of the planet, for the earliest reefs were made of the first life of all".

Coral: a Pessimist in Paradise ****

Part one of Jones' book gives us paradise (think south sea lagoons, Gauguin, Darwinian exploration, and immortality -- of polyps); and the second half gives us the pessimism (think global warming, dying reefs smothered in pollution, and mortality -- of the planet and ourselves).

Jones explains the processes of symbiotics, and explains that "symbiotic" can be cooperative, or it can mean adaptation to invasion of one particle by another.

Carbon is sequestered in all life -- and is sequestered twice as fast in coral reefs as in forests. The destruction of reefs, then, releases carbon into the atmosphere even faster than does destruction of vegetation on land.

We are in an interglacial period now, and the polar ice caps have ebbed and flowed (at glacial pace) throughout Earth's history; her biography has been a tale of constant geological upheavel. This heaving up of the sea bed has given us the oil deposits of Texas and Iraq -- both once at the bottom of oceans. Evolution is shaped by haphazard geological events. Jones combines science with history and literature and an account of modern bomb testing in the South Pacific to explain some of the chapters of this shaping.

Jones' whirlwind tour of planetary ecology also touches on painting, Captain Cook's explorations, cancer and genetics ... all in language aphoristic, sometimes overly-ornate and sometimes glib. But Jones' task is to show that we cannot explain coral animals and the reefs they make without linking to all else in science ("corals and their relatives are now at centre stage in the struggle to understand some of the basic rules of biology") and also to global climate change, technology and human overpopulation. The "green revolution" using fertilizers to feed humanity has "choked" the reefs in shallow lagoons and oceans. The calcium tablets some take to nourish their bones may come from coral reefs on which industrial sludge has been dumped. What goes around comes around.

Sometimes Jones misleads, as when he says that Beatrix Potter, after trying to convey her theories of fungi and lichen to the experts at Kew, "gave up science and took up a new profession as the author of children's books." She wrote about Peter Rabbit and company indeed, but hardly give up science: she moved to the Lake District and became a leading conservationist and heritage sheep breeder.

Although enormously informed by Jones' sparky interdisciplinary account, one has to wonder about other possible inexactitudes. But no matter -- a book like this one stimulates us to read further, dig deeper, check facts and competing theories. Jones' tour of the carbon cycle alone should be required reading in these days of global warming confusion. The loss of reefs -- their fragility -- makes them our index to the health and diversity of life on Earth. Jones convinces us that we cannot make sense of the environmental perils at hand without giving them our close attention: "their story is that of the planet, for the earliest reefs were made of the first life of all".