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Despite its provocative title, Sex & the Origins of Death is not as sensationalistic as it sounds. William R. Clark is a professor of immunology at UCLA, and his avowed intention is to enlighten his readers rather than to frighten or titillate. Drawing on his broad knowledge of the cellular systems that make up our bodies and the medical and ethical arguments on the nature of death, he presents a compelling tale of the evolution of sex and death interwoven with a story of a man experiencing a heart attack. This juxtaposition humanizes the discussion and grounds the reader firmly in day-to-day reality, even when considering such bizarre topics as immortal bacteria and Sea Monkey spores.
Clark covers the development of sex in microorganisms and how this novelty may have guaranteed the inevitability of death (though perhaps not that of taxes). From this level of thinking, he changes quickly to 20th-century American law, which has pondered the question of death at great length as our scientific prowess has enabled us to maintain deeply traumatized individuals in persistent vegetative states, presumably free from conscious awareness of any kind. Now that death has become a matter of opinion, Clark insists that we pay careful attention to it, both as scientists and as human beings. Sex & the Origins of Death is a great place to start. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
Death, for bacteria, is not inevitable. Protect a bacterium from predators, and provide it with adequate food and space to grow, and it would continue living--and reproducing asexually--forever. But a paramecium (a slightly more advanced single-cell organism), under the same ideal conditions, would stop dividing after about 200 generations--and die. Death, for paramecia and their offspring, is inevitable. Unless they have sex. If at any point during that 200 or so generations, two of the progeny of our paramecium have sex, their clock will be reset to zero. They and their progeny are granted another 200 generations. Those who fail to have sex eventually die. Immortality for bacteria is automatic; for all other living beings--including humans--immortality depends on having sex. But why is this so? Why must death be inevitable? And what is the connection between death and sexual reproduction? In Sex and the Origins of Death, William R. Clark looks at life and death at the level of the cell, as he addresses such profound questions as why we age, why death exists, and why death and sex go hand in hand. Clark reveals that there are in fact two kinds of cell death--accidental death, caused by extreme cold or heat, starvation, or physical destruction, and "programmed cell death," initiated by codes embedded in our DNA. (Bacteria have no such codes.) We learn that every cell in our body has a self-destruct program embedded into it and that cell suicide is in fact a fairly commonplace event. We also discover that virtually every aspect of a cell's life is regulated by its DNA, including its own death, that the span of life is genetically determined (identical twins on average die 36 months apart, randomly selected siblings 106 months apart), that human tissue in culture will divide some 50 times and then die (an important exception being tumor cells, which divide indefinitely). But why do our cells have such programs? Why must we die? To shed light on this question, Clark reaches far back in evolutionary history, to the moment when "inevitable death" (death from aging) first appeared. For cells during the first billion years, death, when it occurred, was accidental; there was nothing programmed into them that said they must die. But fierce competition gradually led to multicellular animals--size being an advantage against predators--and with this change came cell specialization and, most important, germ cells in which reproductive DNA was segregated. When sexual reproduction evolved, it became the dominant form of reproduction on the planet, in part because mixing DNA from two individuals corrects errors that have crept into the code. But this improved DNA made DNA in the other (somatic) cells not only superfluous, but dangerous, because somatic DNA might harbor mutations. Nature's solution to this danger, Clark concludes, was programmed death--the somatic cells must die. Unfortunately, we are the somatic cells. Death is necessary to exploit to the fullest the advantages of sexual reproduction. In Sex and the Origins of Death, William Clark ranges far and wide over fascinating terrain. Whether describing a 62-year-old man having a major heart attack (and how his myocardial cells rupture and die), or discussing curious life-forms that defy any definition of life (including bacterial spores, which can regenerate after decades of inactivity, and viruses, which are nothing more than DNA or RNA wrapped in protein), this brilliant, profound volume illuminates the miraculous workings of life at its most elemental level and finds in these tiny spaces the answers to some of our largest questions.
Customer Reviews:
Death - a price worth paying?.......2007-08-03
William Clark has done a great job here of explaining the connection in evolution between the origins of sexual reproduction and the origins of death. To know that the original living organisms, and their single-cell descendents today, do not die from aging but are potentially immortal leads to interesting questions about ourselves and particularly the relationship between our soma (body) cells and our gametes ie those cells that can potentially take our DNA into the future beyond the death of the body.
Clark uses the hypothetical case of a man's second major heart attack to explain necrotic cell death. He also covers the problems we are faced with today around determing 'death', brain death and dealing with persistent vegetative state etc. Taking another perspective he looks at the dried cysts and spores of simple organisms in the search for a clearer definition of life at the level of the cell.
The type of cell death of particular interest is programmed cell death that arose along with sexual reproduction and multicellular organisms. Programmed cell death occurs in the developing fetus where excess cells quietly self-destruct. It also continues throughout life in, for example, the immune system. And ultimately body cells themselves are programmed to die once enough time has elapsed for the body's DNA to have passed on to new bodies.
As Clark puts it, the only purpose of somatic cells, from nature's point of view, is to optimize the survival and function of the true guardians of the DNA - the germ cells. In the original living organisms the first somatic DNA was itself germline DNA. But programmed death is apparently necessary in order to realize the full biological advantage of sex as part of reproduction. Our DNA makes a hundred trillion copies of itself to ensure the transmission of just a few copies to the next generation. Then it directs the destruction of the other hundred trillion copies and we die. Death of cells is therefore not an a priori requirement of life but an evolutionary consequence of the way we reproduce ourselves and of our multicellularity.
Perhaps the knowledge of our own mortality can be made more palatable when we see it as a price we all pay for the great and awesome diversity of life on our beautiful planet that has arisen from the evolution of sexual reproduction and multicellularity.
much misrepresented by reviewers.......2006-08-28
I delayed to read this book, put off by a reviewer who warned that it was difficult due to the author's use of scientific jargon. But that reviewer was wrong. There is a lot of jargon in this book: all clearly introduced, defined, and rarely used. In fact, the author presents things a little more simply than he could have!
This is one of the better biology books I've ever read (and I read about a dozen each year) because of the issue it deals with: why, literally why, we die. It explains exactly what death is and why, in evolutionary terms, it happens. Here is another one of those subjects which for so long we could only explore through philosophical and religious speculation, now explained clearly, if so much less dramatically, by science. This, indeed, will be the starting point for religions of the future.
Next time a child asks, "Why do people die?" I will have the answer, and an answer likely to appeal to the child's sense of wonder at the universe, likely to inspire her to learn more about her world.
Topics covered include a basic introduction to cell biology, "accidental" cell death (necrosis), programmed cell death (apoptosis), the difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, sex (in this book, "sex" is simply genetic exchange, not the "sexy sex" we all obsess over; nothing titillating here), the difference between germ cells and somatic (body) cells, the causes of senescence (aging), progeria (a disease of premature aging), the various functions of different parts of the brain, biological and legal definitions of death, permanent vegetative states, biological definitions of life, and cryptobiosis (spores). In addition, embryology, immunology, cancer, metabolism, viruses, and neurology are lightly covered.
All of that is well-explained; if you are curious, you will certainly be able to understand this book.
By far the highlight of the book, the most interesting part, is the minute descriptions of the processes of cell death, incorporated into a detailed description of processes of the death of a human being.
Let me recommend some other books that go very well with this one. Sherwin Nuland has written several, including "How We Die," which I've read and very highly recommend. It focuses exclusively on human death, and describes how various illnesses lead to death; it also deals with things from a more personal angle. "Sex and the Origins of Death" introduces us to a "gene's eye view" of life, which was popularized in Richard Dawkins' classic "The Selfish Gene," which I also strongly recommend, along with his other books. In addition, Matt Ridley's two best books are "Genome," as fine an introduction to genetics as a layperson could ask for, and "The Red Queen," which brilliantly explores the significance of sex for evolution.
More distantly related to this book, Carl Zimmer's "At the Water's Edge" has the best account of embryology and evolution that I've read--though I haven't yet read Sean Carroll's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful," which is likely to be even better. Zimmer also wrote "Parasite Rex," which explores perhaps the most neglected topic in biology, parasitism, and its importance for evolution: which is very relevant to the evolution of symbiosis and eukaryotic cells, and perhaps sex--and therefore, as you'll see from "Sex and the Origins of Death," to the evolution of death.
All in all, among lots of great books out there, "Sex and the Origins of Death" is highly recommended.
However, I want to put in a little caveat, as an environmentalist. On page 177, Carrol says that due to the extinction of their natural hosts, which humans have undoubtedly contributed to, microorganisms have begun to infect us, "out of sheer desperation." He gives AIDS and Ebola as examples. However, both of those examples are completely wrong: neither of the original hosts of those diseases (chimpanzees and probably fruit bats) are near extinction. In fact, as far as I know, this entire characterization of the way diseases spread between species is wrong. It's certainly wrong in all the cases I know about, including the two he mentioned, bird flu, bubonic plague, and so on. I can't even imagine how a microorganism could feel desperate....
An argument like that would seem to support environmentalism: if diseases are spreading to us because their natural hosts are going extinct, we need to protect their natural hosts a little better. It certainly appeals to our sense that bad things happen to us because we do bad things. However, since it's probably incorrect, it would be better not to use it. We have plenty of sound ecological and moral reasons to try to protect the species of our planet without making ones up; and when it's discovered we made some up, unnecessary doubt will be cast on the legitimate reasons as well. So it's better not to make them up. No doubt Clark made his mistake innocently, as this is evidently not his field.
A thought-provoking book.......2005-04-03
I thought this was a VERY interesting book. The premise seems to be that death is the price we pay for the genetic variation that sex allows.
Why we die and how to beat it.......2003-01-27
From the outset what UCLA's Wm Clark reports is staggering; Death is "not an obligatory attribute of life" and did not appear with the advent of it. Cellular aging resulting in death may not have occurred for more than a billion years after life's first entry on earth. Programmed cell death (PCD) which we suffer (displayed through wrinkles and forgetfulness) seems to have arisen about the time cells were experimenting with sex.
Sex is an energy costly activity, engaged in because it rolls the genetic dice, inviting variations with each new offspring. An advantage because with environmental change what was well suited in the old world is often not suited for the new. Gene variations may result - through natural selection - in a few offspring amongst the dying progenitors that survive to save the species. For example, bacteria reproduce though cloning themselves, and can do so at a rate of 16 million per hour from one parent (take your antibiotics). But when the environment becomes harsh the parents spontaneously engage in sex, swapping genes with others as a gamble on survival.
In a description of catastrophic cell death Clark displays a talent to meet or exceed even Sagan's best - clear, rich, compelling. Here heart attack and the wonder of cell machinery resist the inevitable as systems and their back ups struggle to counter power failures and starvation in a chain reaction of failing miracles. Like a community, some components are wholly unaware of disaster while others sacrifice themselves transferring energy to last lines of defense - pumps stationed in cell walls countering a siege of water pressing in about to wash them away.
Such stunning, intentioned actions of this tiny, helpless, complex organism, the cell (of which we possess about 100 trillion - about as many cells as there are stars in the nearest 400 spiral galaxies including the Milky Way!) is starkly contrasted against our cell's decision to commit suicide. This happens when life is late, or as early as the womb when ancient relics of evolution are flushed out of us - like reminders of an ocean origin when interdigital webbing of our onetime fins are removed through PCD, leaving what's left between our fingers. Once the nucleus decides to pull the trigger, one last set of instructions emerge as its DNA begins disassembling. All the while a stack of unread instructions are being executed by unwary elements of the cell. The cell detaches from its neighbors, undulates, breaking into globules while still ignorant workers in these blobs work away, floating into a void where they are devoured by immune systems. Awful.
But there are rays of hope for immortality. "Growth factors" are given to cells like lymphocytes to put a safety on their trigger. And there are executioners in this tragedy, T-Cells. Having spotted an invader they do not murder the foreigner, they command the interloper to kill itself, orders dutifully followed. T-Cells know the security code. Paramecium dodge death by letting their macro-nuclei run the show while a micro-version lays dormant. After enough cell splitting, it has sex with another paramecium. Its macro-nuclei suffers PCD and the micro takes over as a newly minted micro-nucleus goes to sleep. Once eukaryotic cells (what we're made of) became multicellular, reproductive DNA would be not only kept in separate nuclei (as the paramecium) but in separate cells - our germ cells (sperm, egg). The rest of us, our bodies, are their guardians, not only redundant and irrelevant but we turn dangerous with too many divisions. When our germ cells meet others, clocks are reset just as they are for paramecium. Sex can save our germ cells but it cannot save us.
These growth factors, security codes, telemeres or some other mechanism may finally be commandeered to salvage us from oblivion. For now, as Clark writes, we must die and there are many mechanisms built into us to make sure we do. Death does not just happen, it is worked toward, with safeguards to assure cells don't backslide into immortality - as cancer cells do, a recipe for disaster. The winner is our species because germ cells are immortal through sex as we contribute molecular chains of ourselves to the future and whoever is made of us. Clark reveals this and so much more. A pure joy to read.
Learning as enjoyment.......2002-01-29
Not what it sounds like ~ some bizarre fetish manual ~ but an investigation by an apparently eminent immunologist and cytologist into the reasons that cells ~ and thus the animals and plants constructed of those cells ~ die. The sex comes in because at some point in the past, it would appear, in the choice (funny how one frequently speaks of evolutionary processes as animate) to mix the genetic material with the swapping of DNA (sex) implied the necessity of the death of the old DNA in order to pass on the new with a fair chance of survival. This is a really fascinating exploration, written for the layman, of some modern biology, cytology, molecular biology, thanatology, and even philosophy. Clark may be a professor, a department Chair in fact, but he can still write engagingly, simply, and pleasingly. I truly enjoyed learning here.
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Starting Time: A True Account of the Origins of Creation, Sex, Death and Golf
Gray Kochhar-Lindgren
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Sex and the Origins of Death.: An article from: American Scientist
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Equilibrium in Solutions and Surface and Colloid Chemistry (Commonwealth Fund Publications)
George Scatchard
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Visualizing Statistical Models and Concepts (Statistics: a Series of Textbooks and Monogrphs)
R.W. Farebrother , and
Michael Schyns
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"Examines classic algorithms, geometric diagrams, and mechanical principles for enhances visualization of statistical estimation procedures and mathematical concepts in physics, engineering, and computer programming."
Customer Reviews:
Grim portrait of China during the Cultural Revolution........2002-12-08
The author gives a poignant picture of the distressing everyday life in Mao's China under the Cultural Revolution.
There is a power struggle at the top of the CP. The Red Guards constitute their own rule. The political decisions are unpredictable (sometimes for then against the farmers or the intellectuals).
The result is that the population doesn't know anymore what to do and where they are (suicides or attempts). They are terrorized by suspicion, house searches, forced migrations and ... are terrorizing each other.
In the story 'Chin-Chin's Birthday' defy two children each other to insult chairman Mao. When their parents learn that other adults heard it, they are panic-stricken.
In 'The Guard' is theft a norm for the Red Guards.
In 'The Execution of Mayor Yin' is Yin a victim of his non proletarian origin. Although totally innocent, he is convicted and executed by the Red Guards.
Masterfully written stories which create a grim and depressing atmosphere. Not to be missed.
I recommend also the poignant book by Nien Cheng 'Life and Death in Shangai'.
Well written fictional account of the Cultural Revolution.......2000-07-11
Very few works of fiction have been written regarding the Cultural Revolution in China, especially by people, like Chen Jo-Hsi, who lived through it. There are some very good memoirs chronicling the events, but Chen Jo-Hsi's moving work of fiction gives the reader an excellent insight into one of the worst instances of censorship of the arts in the world's history. In addition, it brings to light in a very poignant way, how dichotmous and arbirtary the policies and reform movements during this period actually were. The book contains eight short stories that takes the reader from Nanking to the countryside and demonstrates the affects of the Cultural Revolution on different types of individuals from the professor to the laborer, sometimes with heart-breaking results.
Books:
- Size, Function and Life History
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- Squish!: A Wetland Walk
- Statistical Methods in the Biological & Health Sciences
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- Surgical Anatomy and Physiology for the Surgical Technologist
- Terrestrial Ecosystems in Changing Environments (Cambridge Studies in Ecology)
- The Chemical Bond: Structure and Dynamics
- The Correspondence of Charles Darwin
- The Human Brain: An Introduction to Its Functional Anatomy
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