Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
Nick Lane is a University College London evolutionary biology professor and the author of five books. He lives in London, England, and is the codirector of UCL's Centre for Life's Origins and Evolution (CLOE).
What gives birth to the Earth and ends our lives?
For decades, the study of genetic information has dominated biology. Information is valuable, but it is only one component of what keeps us alive. Our living metabolic network is also passed down from generation to generation, all the way back to the beginning of life. In Transformer, biochemist Nick Lane exposes a hidden scientific renaissance: how the same fundamental chemistry gives rise to life and causes our demise.
Lane is among a group of scientists who are wondering why the Krebs cycle, the "perfect circle" at the center of metabolism, is still so elusive more than eighty years after it was discovered. Transformer is Lane's journey as a scientist to discover the inner meaning of the Krebs cycle and why it is still at the heart of life and death today.
Lane illustrates the beautiful, violent world within our cells, where hydrogen atoms are extracted from food carbon skeletons and fed to the insatiable beast of oxygen. However, this identical cycle, when reversed, provided the molecular building components that allowed life to arise on our planet. It now does both. How can the same pathway be both creative and destructive? What can we learn by studying the Krebs cycle about the mysteries of aging and the most difficult subject of all, consciousness?
Transformer connects the tale of our planet to the story of our cells, explaining what makes us who we are and how it relates to the origin of life. Transformer, enlivened by Lane's ability for simplifying and humanizing difficult research, is a must-read for anybody captivated by biology's major riddles. Life is fundamentally a chemical phenomenon: this is its fundamental logic.
Author: Nick Lane
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Transformer-Deep-Chemistry-Life-Death/dp/0393651487/
Ratings: 4.9 out of 5 stars (from 15 reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #7,598 in Books
#3 in Organic Chemistry (Books)
#3 in Cell Biology (Books)
#4 in Biochemistry (Books)
