A fascinating journey through the history of evolution—from the emergence of the first single-celled organisms to space flights and attempts to find life on other planets. Everything that a person should know about themselves and about the living world around them.
Billions of years ago, during the Gadyen period, our planet lived with a kind of life that was ordinary for a celestial body that appeared relatively recently. It was a comparatively calm watery world with rare islands, not the fiery hell of constantly erupting volcanoes, as artists like to depict it. And then something happened that fundamentally changed the planet’s subsequent entire history: life appeared on it. What was it—an accidental coincidence of a million different factors, or an inevitable course of events? What was the first cell? How did it change, evolve, become more complex—and how, as a result, did all the diversity of living organisms arise that we can observe around us: from humans and plants to bacteria and viruses? What secrets does our DNA keep? Why do genetic diseases appear? Are we the only ones in the universe?
Nick Lane offers a revolutionary and completely unexpected perspective on the origin of life.
Содержание:
Nick Lane. The Question of Life. Energy, evolution, and the origin of complexity
Introduction. Why life is the way it is?
Part I. The problem
Chapter 1. What is life?
Chapter 2. What does it mean to live?
Part II. About life
Chapter 3. Energy and the beginning of life
Chapter 4. The appearance of the first cells
Part III. About complexity
Chapter 5. The emergence of complex cells
Chapter 6. Sexual reproduction and the origin of death
Part IV. Predictions
Chapter 7. Power and glory
Epilogue. From the depths
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Bibliography
About illustrations