The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor

Your Inner Fish

A fascinating journey around the human body, explaining where every little bit came from

Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish is the unexpected story of how one creature's journey out of the water made the human body what it is today - and one man's voyage of discovery in search of our origins. 
 
 Have you ever wondered why our bodies look and work and fail the way they do? 
 
 One of the world's leading experts in evolutionary history, Neil Shubin reveals the secrets of our biology: why if we want to understand our limbs we should take a close look at Tiktaalik, the first fish capable of doing a push-up; why if we want to know why we hiccup, the answer is in the way fish breathe; and why it is that fish teeth are surprisingly similar to human breasts. 
 
 'This would be Darwin's book of the year' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Sunday Telegraph 
 
 'An intelligent, exhilarating, and compelling scientific adventure story' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat 
 
 'Delightful ... his enthusiasm is infectious' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Steven D. Levitt, author of Freakonomics 
 
 'Profoundly fascinating ... a magisterial work ... expressed so clearly and with such good humour' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Financial Times 
 
 'Will make you think about your organs in ways you have never considered before' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Sunday Times 
 
 Neil Shubin is a palaeontologist in the great tradition of his mentors, Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould. He has discovered fossils around the world that have changed the way we think about many of the key transitions in evolution and has pioneered a new synthesis of expeditionary palaeontology, developmental genetics and genomics. He trained at Columbia, Harvard and Berkeley and is currently Chairman of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Chicago.

Neil Shubin is a palaeontologist in the great tradition of his mentors, Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould. He has discovered fossils around the world that have changed the way we think about many of the key transitions in evolution and has pioneered a new synthesis of expeditionary palaeontology, developmental genetics and genomics. He trained at Columbia, Harvard and Berkeley and is currently Chairman of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Chicago.

Your Inner Fish tells the extraordinary history of the human body and gives answers to some of the questions that only evolution can. Why do we look the way we do? Why are we able to do all the different things we do? And, finally, why do we fall ill in the way that we do? Neil Shubin draws on the latest genetic research and his huge experience as an expeditionary paleontologist to show the incredible impact the 3.5 billion year history of life has had on our bodies. He takes readers on a fascinating, unexpected journey and allows us to discover the deep connection to nature in our own bodies.

Neil Shubin

Shubin is not only a distinguished scientist, but a wonderfully lucid and elegant writer; he is an irrepressibly enthusiastic teacher ... a science writer of the first rank

Glorious, uplifting ... It tracks the very atoms in our bodies back to the Big Bang, and shows how all the molecules that comprise us have roots in the formation of Earth ... What is special about the book is its sweep, its scope, its panorama

A Scientific Adventure

What links the birth of the moon to our body clocks? How did the creation of the Atlantic Ocean affect how we have children? What does the water inside us and on Earth have to do with the deepest stretches of space? Humanity's status in the cosmos can seem insignificant. Yet, as Neil Shubin shows, the one place where the universe, solar system and planet merge is inside your body. Exploring the smallest atomic structures and vastest reaches of space, Shubin uncovers a sublime truth: that in every one of us lies the most profound story of all - how we and our world came to be.

Neil Shubin

Praise for The Universe Within

Shubin is not only a distinguished scientist, but a wonderfully lucid and elegant writer; he is an irrepressibly enthusiastic teacher ... a science writer of the first rank

Glorious, uplifting ... It tracks the very atoms in our bodies back to the Big Bang, and shows how all the molecules that comprise us have roots in the formation of Earth ... What is special about the book is its sw ...

Books by Neil Shubin

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