Engaging anecdotes add intimacy to tales of Earth's 4 billion years of evolution Each December for decades now, I've spent a few days in Pacific Grove, California, attending the Asilomar Chromatin, Chromosomes, and Epigenetics Conference. Before reading Neil Shubin's Some Assembly Required, however, I never knew that the city's first female mayor, Julia Platt, was also an accomplished embryologist. Having been shut out of academic positions, which were, at the turn of the 20th century, seldom given to women, she pivoted instead to politics, where her legacy includes the establishment of a marine protected area in California's Monterey Bay. This anecdote is one of many intimate and thoughtful stories tucked into the pages of this brief overview of Earth's 4 billion years of evolution.

中文翻译：

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进化变得个性化

引人入胜的轶事为地球 40 亿年的进化故事增添了亲切感 几十年来，每年 12 月，我都会在加利福尼亚州太平洋格罗夫度过几天，参加 Asilomar 染色质、染色体和表观遗传学会议。然而，在阅读 Neil Shubin 的 Some Assembly Required 之前，我从来不知道该市的第一位女市长 Julia Platt 也是一位有成就的胚胎学家。由于在 20 世纪之交很少授予女性学术职位，她被拒之门外，转而投身于政治，她的遗产包括在加利福尼亚州蒙特雷湾建立海洋保护区。这个轶事是这个关于地球 40 亿年进化的简要概述的页面中隐藏的许多亲密而深思熟虑的故事之一。