Description |
360 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
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. |
Subject |
Life -- Origin -- Popular works.
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Cells -- Evolution.
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Biogenesis.
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Biological Evolution.
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Cells.
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Biogenese. (NL-LeOCL)143904051
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Evolutionaire biologie. (NL-LeOCL)24442098X
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Genre/Form |
Popular works. (OCoLC)fst01423846
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Subject |
Cells -- Evolution.
(OCoLC)fst00850261
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Life -- Origin.
(OCoLC)fst00998169
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Other Form: |
ebook version 9781847658807 |
ISBN |
9781781250365 hardback |
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1781250367 hardback |
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9781847658807 (ebook) |
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