Short Life Lessons

I learned many valuable lessons from this book which gave me a different view on evolution and life. My first take was that species with shorter life spans evolve quicker and benefit the species as a whole. Before reading this, I believed organisms with short life spans were weak because they couldn’t live long. These organisms with short life spans were able to reproduce way quicker than most organisms. Rapidly, they can evolve which benefits the species as a whole which helps it achieve the ultimate goal of life, to survive and reproduce. The most fascinating information I read was that humans descend from water animals. Humans are the only land animal with attached fat to our body. All the other animals with fat are water animals such as whales. Humans have evolved over …show more content…
Hemochromatosis is a disease where the body has too much iron as it isn’t getting broken down. Hemochromatosis has been passed on to many different generations because people could survive and reproduce with it. Macrophages in those people are low on iron, therefore the diseases didn’t target them. During the plague in 1347, people that had hemochromatosis lived because the disease target people with high iron in the macrophages. As a result, people with hemochromatosis lived because the iron wasn’t distributed throughout the body. The author is saying that one disease can combat another and in this case hemochromatosis was a resistance to many bacteria. I think that idea is logical, and I agree with it. Surviving and reproducing are the main goals of life and they were able to do that. At first thought, it seems bad, but in reality that isn’t that bad. They are resistant to many diseases which help them live through the plague and other tough times. The trait gets passed down from each generation which shows that it is beneficial. Although they may have shorter lifespans today, plagues were more common in the past which was a helpful trait back