Life on the Edge

	Life	on the		Edge

	Michael Gross: Life on the Edge. Amazing Creatures Thriving in Extreme Environments Hardback: Plenum, May 1998; reprinted by Perseus Books August 1999, ISBN 0-306-45786-5, $ 25.95, 200 + xiii pp. Paperback (with a new afterword): Perseus Books January 2001, ISBN 0-738-20445-5, $ 15.00, 210 + xiii pp.

Table of contents: Of Extremists and Eccentrics: A Personal Preface Introduction: Life and Its Limits Things you need for a Living What Do We Mean by "Normal", after All? The Limits of Life on Earth Extreme Environments and Their Inhabitants ___Profile: Thomas Brock and the Discovery of the Hyperthermophiles Some like it Hot: Life around Geysers and Volcanoes Stay Cool: Life at Subzero Temperatures ___Sidelines: Of Polar Bears and Penguins -- Vertebrate Life at the Poles Living under Pressure: The Deep Sea ___Sidelines: On Diving A light in the dark: Luminescent Creatures of the Deep Sea Travel to the Center of the Earth: The Deep Subsurface as a Biotope Extra Dry: Survival in the Desert Saturated with Salt: The (Allegedly) Dead Sea as a Biotope Acid Heads and Basic Needs: Life at Extreme pH Nature's Eco-Brigade: Oil-Degrading Bacteria The Cell's Survival Kit The Heat Shock Response ___Sidelines: How to Hunt for Stress Proteins Heat Shock Proteins Acting as Molecular Chaperones ___Focus: Structure and Function of the Heat Shock Protein GroEL Antifreeze and Cold Shock Proteins Adaptations by Changes of Amino Acid Sequences Chemical Adaptations: Small Molecules Some New Tricks from the Cell's Repair Workshop ___Focus: The Growing Family of Photolyase Enzymes ___Sidelines: How Hot Love Helps Archaebacteria to Survive ___Focus: The Case of the Missing Alanine -- a Biochemical Detective Story Waiting for Better Times: Sporulation as a Survival Strategy Two's Company: Symbiosis Helps Species to Spread in Hostile Environments Relevance of extremes for biotechnology and medicine An extremely short history of biotechnology Hyperthermophilic enzymes ___Profile : Kary Mullis and the polymerase chain reaction Preservation by freezing and freeze-drying ___Profile : Pierre Douzou and the invention of cryoenzymology High pressure biotechnology Bacteriorhodopsin as an opto-electronic component Extremophiles and disease: Acid resistant bacteria in the stomach Medical applications of heat shock proteins Extremists and the tree of life The origin of life: The primeval earth as an extreme habitat ___Profile : Stanley Miller and the primordial soup From building blocks to chain molecules Ribozymes -- Relics of a lost world? ___Focus: Ribozymes with new activities and new structures Archaebacteria: a new, very old domain of life Methanococcus jannaschii: Decoding an archaebacterium ___Focus: Inteins everywhere -- a surprising by-product of the Methanococcus sequence Do we all come out of the heat? Searching for Gaia: Life on Earth as a hyper-organism ___Profile : James Lovelock -- a heretic? Life beyond Earth How to detect life on a planet ___Profile : Carl Sagan and the quest for life in the Universe Is there life on Mars? SIDELINES: First results of Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor Strange worlds: The moons of the big gas planets Are there any planets orbiting other stars? The spore's guide to the galaxy Glossary Further reading and internet links Index
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