Tyler Volk

Our world is nested, both physically and socially, and at each level we find innovations that are necessary for the next. Consider: atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form single-celled organisms; when people come together, they build societies. Physics has gone far in mapping the basic mechanics of the simplest things and the dynamics of the overall nesting, as have biology and the social sciences for their fields. But what can we say about this beautifully complex whole? How does one stage shape another, and what can we learn about human existence through understanding an enlarged field of creation and being? In Quarks to Culture, Tyler Volk answers these questions, revealing how a universal natural rhythm-building from smaller things into larger, more complex things-resulted in a grand sequence of twelve fundamental levels across the realms of physics, biology, and culture. He introduces the key concept of "combogenesis," the building-up from combination and integration to produce new things with innovative relations. He explores common themes in how physics and chemistry led to biological evolution, and biological evolution to cultural evolution. Volk also provides insights into linkages across the sciences and fields of scholarship, and presents an exciting synthesis of ideas along a sequence of things and relations, from physical to living to cultural. The resulting inclusive natural philosophy brings clarity to our place in the world, offering a roadmap for those who seek to understand big history and wrestle with questions of how we came to be.

Is Earth alive? Put more rigorously, is the biosphere a self- sustaining meta-organism? This is the essence of Gaia theory: if the biosphere really is a single coherent system, then it must have something like a physiology. It must have systems and processes that perform living functions. OK, then, what systems, what processes, what functions? Gaia's Body is Tyler Volk's answer to this question. In this book, he describes the environment that enables the biosphere to exist; various ways of looking at its "anatomy" and "physiology," the major biogeographical regions such as rainforests, deserts, and tundra; the major substances the biosphere is made of; and the chemical cycles that keep it in balance. He then looks at the question of whether there are any long-term trends in earth's evolution--is Gaia growing colder? more complex?--and examines the role of humanity in Gaia's past and future. Adherents and skeptics both have often been concerned that Gaia theory contains too much goddess and too few testable hypotheses. This is the book that describes, for scientists, students, and lay readers alike, the theory's firm basis in science.

Two books in one, these texts explore the two aspects of life that have most influenced mankind's fears and dreams. In Sex, Dorion Sagan takes the reader on a revealing and entertaining journey through science, philosophy, and literature. By combining evolutionary biology and discussions on thinkers such as the Marquis de Sade and Simone de Beauvoir, he addresses topics such as animals' genital tract, the sperm race, the difference between naked and nude, the origins of language and ovulation, and the concepts of love and loneliness. In Death, Tyler Volk describes the ways in which different creatures use death to make life better. Combining autobiography, biology, and world history, he highlights how death is part of evolution and how awareness of mortality affects people's daily lives. Dos libros en uno, estos textos exploran los dos aspectos de la vida que m s han influido los miedos y los sue os de la humanidad. En Sexo, Dorion Sagan lleva al lector por un paseo revelador y divertido por la ciencia, la filosof a y la literatura. Entrelazando la biolog a evolutiva con discusiones sobre pensadores como el marqu s de Sade y Simone de Beauvoir, trata cuestiones como el aparato genital de animales, la competici n esperm tica, la diferencia entre desnudez y desnudo, los or genes del lenguaje y de la ovulaci n y los conceptos del amor y la soledad. En Muerte, Tyler Volk nos muestra c mo diferentes criaturas se sirven de la muerte para mejorar la vida. Combinando autobiograf a, biolog a e historia mundial, pone de relieve c mo la muerte forma parte de la evoluci n y c mo la conciencia de la mortalidad afecta la vida cotidiana de las personas.

An introduction to the global carbon cycle and the human-caused disturbances to it that are at the heart of global warming and climate change. The most colossal environmental disturbance in human history is under way. Ever-rising levels of the potent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) are altering the cycles of matter and life and interfering with the Earth's natural cooling process. Melting Arctic ice and mountain glaciers are just the first relatively mild symptoms of what will result from this disruption of the planetary energy balance. In CO2 Rising, scientist Tyler Volk explains the process at the heart of global warming and climate change: the global carbon cycle. Vividly and concisely, Volk describes what happens when CO2 is released by the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), letting loose carbon atoms once trapped deep underground into the interwoven web of air, water, and soil. To demonstrate how the carbon cycle works, Volk traces the paths that carbon atoms take during their global circuits. Showing us the carbon cycle from a carbon atom's viewpoint, he follows one carbon atom into a leaf of barley and then into an alcohol molecule in a glass of beer, through the human bloodstream, and then back into the air. He also compares the fluxes of carbon brought into the biosphere naturally against those created by the combustion of fossil fuels and explains why the latter are responsible for rising temperatures. Knowledge about the global carbon cycle and the huge disturbances that human activity produces in it will equip us to consider the hard questions that Volk raises in the second half of CO2 Rising: projections of future levels of CO2; which energy systems and processes (solar, wind, nuclear, carbon sequestration?) will power civilization in the future; the relationships among the wealth of nations, energy use, and CO2 emissions; and global equity in per capita emissions. Answering these questions will indeed be our greatest environmental challenge.

-- Publishers Weekly