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The vital question

By: Language: English Publication details: London Profile Books 2016Description: 360p. illISBN:
  • 9781781250372 (PB)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction : why is life the way it is? Part I. The problem. What is life? What is living? Part II. The origin of life. Energy at life's origin The emergence of cells Part III. Complexity. The origin of complex cells Sex and the origins of death Part IV. Predictions. The power and the glory Epilogue : from the deep
Summary: Why is life the way it is? Bacteria evolved into complex life just once in four billion years of life on earth-and all complex life shares many strange properties, from sex to ageing and death. If life evolved on other planets, would it be the same or completely different? In The Vital Question, Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a cogent solution to conundrums that have troubled scientists for decades. The answer, he argues, lies in energy: how all life on Earth lives off a voltage with the strength of a bolt of lightning. In unravelling these scientific enigmas, making sense of life's quirks, Lane's explanation provides a solution to life's vital questions: why are we as we are, and why are we here at all? This is ground-breaking science in an accessible form, in the tradition of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel
Item type: BOOKS List(s) this item appears in: New Arrivals (16 February 2025)
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IMSc Library 575.8:001.92 LAN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Checked out 27/01/2026 78377

Introduction : why is life the way it is?
Part I. The problem. What is life?
What is living?
Part II. The origin of life. Energy at life's origin
The emergence of cells
Part III. Complexity. The origin of complex cells
Sex and the origins of death
Part IV. Predictions. The power and the glory
Epilogue : from the deep

Why is life the way it is? Bacteria evolved into complex life just once in four billion years of life on earth-and all complex life shares many strange properties, from sex to ageing and death. If life evolved on other planets, would it be the same or completely different? In The Vital Question, Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a cogent solution to conundrums that have troubled scientists for decades. The answer, he argues, lies in energy: how all life on Earth lives off a voltage with the strength of a bolt of lightning. In unravelling these scientific enigmas, making sense of life's quirks, Lane's explanation provides a solution to life's vital questions: why are we as we are, and why are we here at all? This is ground-breaking science in an accessible form, in the tradition of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel

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The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India