Life at the Edge: Readings from Scientific American Magazine

Good, concise reviews regarding the evolution of the first lifeforms on the Earth by the editors, the earliest cells by J.W. Schopf of the University of California at Los Angeles, the first animals by M.A.S. McMenamin at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, chemosynthesis in the deep sea by James J. Childress at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Horst Felbeck and George N. Somero at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, intertidal fishes by Michael H. Horn at California State University at Fullerton and Robin N. Gibson at the Scottish Marine Biological Association at Oban, U.K., the physiology of the Koala by Robert Degabriele at Riverina College in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, raiding ability and slavery in ants by Edward O. Wilson at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and viroids by T.O. Diener at the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland. The other articles provide an excellent, broad overview of life's ability to survive in a variety of harsh environments.