Transformer
The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
Published on 19. May 2022
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-1-78816-054-4 (ISBN)
Description
'One of my favourite science writers' Bill Gates
For decades, biology has been dominated by information - the power of genes. Yet in terms of information there is no difference between a living cell and one that died a moment ago. What really animates cells and sets them apart from non-living matter? This question goes back to the flawed geniuses and heroic origins of modern biology. The answer could turn our picture of life on Earth upside down.
In Transformer, Nick Lane captures a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight. At its core is a cycle of reactions that transforms inorganic molecules into the building blocks of life, and the reverse - the iconic Krebs cycle that sits at the heart of metabolism. This conflicted merry-go-round of energy and matter has long taunted true understanding. Nick Lane is in the vanguard of scientists now tracing its ramifications across the tree of life.
To grasp the Krebs cycle is to fathom the deep coherence of biology. It connects the first photosynthetic bacteria with our own peculiar cells. It links the emergence of consciousness with the inevitability of death. And it puts the subtle differences between individuals in the same grand story as the rise of the living world itself.
Life is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic.
For decades, biology has been dominated by information - the power of genes. Yet in terms of information there is no difference between a living cell and one that died a moment ago. What really animates cells and sets them apart from non-living matter? This question goes back to the flawed geniuses and heroic origins of modern biology. The answer could turn our picture of life on Earth upside down.
In Transformer, Nick Lane captures a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight. At its core is a cycle of reactions that transforms inorganic molecules into the building blocks of life, and the reverse - the iconic Krebs cycle that sits at the heart of metabolism. This conflicted merry-go-round of energy and matter has long taunted true understanding. Nick Lane is in the vanguard of scientists now tracing its ramifications across the tree of life.
To grasp the Krebs cycle is to fathom the deep coherence of biology. It connects the first photosynthetic bacteria with our own peculiar cells. It links the emergence of consciousness with the inevitability of death. And it puts the subtle differences between individuals in the same grand story as the rise of the living world itself.
Life is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic.
Reviews / Votes
A stone-cold classic -- Adam Rutherford One of the most creative of today's biologists ... this is a book filled with big ideas, many of which are bold instances of lateral thinking * New Scientist * Bold ... passionate ... a dramatically revisionist account [of the] origins of life * New Yorker * A thrilling tour of the remarkable stories behind the discoveries of some of life's key metabolic pathways and mechanisms. He lays bare the human side of science ... The book brings to life the chemistry that brings us to life ... masterful * Science * Deeply researched and cogently written * Nature * Remarkable * New Humanist * Transformer is a complex yet accessible, illuminating, and thrilling exploration of the vitality and elemental mysteries of our existence * Booklist * The story in Transformer is not just lively and engaging but filled with stimulating ideas about life's origins and evolution, about what regulates health and disease, and about the fundamental nature of life itself * Nautilus * Biochemist Nick Lane is one of our boldest thinkers and a key researcher into the origin and deep history of life. -- Peter Forbes * Prospect * [An] indefatigable exploration of the genesis of biology . . . [Lane] beautifully lays out the sheer improbability of our biosphere, explains why life may be exceedingly rare in our universe, and considers death as a process, not simply as an instantaneous end * The Atlantic * Groundbreaking ... [opens] a new chapter in biology that turns our assumptions upside down. * New Humanist * Nick Lane challenges us to see life differently ... probably the best book on biology I've ever read -- Brian Clegg * Popular Science * A thrilling journey... the book is a tour de force. -- Laura Eme and Courtney W. Stairs * Nature Ecology & Evolution * In this compulsively readable book, Lane takes us on a riveting journey, ranging from the flow of energy to new ways of understanding cancer. Lane provides a luminous understanding of how scientists, including Lane himself, are rethinking energy and living organisms. -- Siddhartha Mukherjee, author * The Emperor of All Maladies, The Gene: An Intimate History * Nick Lane's exploration of the building blocks that underlie life's big fundamental questions - the origin of life itself, aging, and disease - have shaped my thinking since I first came across his work. He is one of my favourite science writers -- Bill Gates Hugely important ... a powerfully persuasive case for life being about energy flow, flux and change. In Transformer, chemistry is quite literally brought to life -- Jim Al-Khalili, author * The World According To Physics * Amazing! Takes science writing to a new level ... with soaring prose but uncompromising on scientific detail, Transformer made me think about life on earth in a completely different way. -- Daniel M. Davis, author * The Secret Body * Hugely ambitious and tremendously exciting ... Transformer shows how a molecular dance from the dawn of time still sculpts our lives today. I read with rapt attention. -- Olivia Judson, evolutionary biologist and author A thrilling and highly persuasive account of what makes life and how the miracle started, coaxed not by genes but a remarkable cycle of energy and matter - a chemical cycle able to conjure the material of life from the elements of a rocky blue planet. This hugely important book is set to become a landmark, transforming our understanding of how life works. Lane's infectious enthusiasm had me gripped on a tour down the aeons and deep into the inner workings of our cells, to discover the chemistry that gives me the sentience for such fundamental self-knowledge. Marvellous -- Gaia Vince, author * Nomad Century, Adventures in the Anthropocene * Nobody explains the inner secrets of the living cell better than Nick Lane. He clarifies the complexities of the chemistry that drives all life in a most engaging way. The stories of how this hidden world was revealed by remarkable scientists is explored as a series of riveting detective stories, leaving the reader with admiration for the ingenuity and sheer persistence of those who unscrambled the reactions that underlie all life. -- Richard Fortey FRS FRSL, author * Fossils: The Key to the Past * An exhilarating account of the biophysics of life, stretching from the first stirrings of living matter to the psychology of consciousness. I felt as if I was there, every step of the way -- Mark Solms, author * The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness * Nick Lane never writes about the living world without offering entirely new perspectives on how life itself works. Transformer is no exception. His subject here - the Krebs cycle - is often seen as one of the driest staples of biochemical textbooks. But in Lane's hands, it becomes a key to life's origins and driving forces, to health, disease and ageing, and even to our awareness of the world. Biochemistry has never looked more exciting. -- Phillip Ball Nick Lane's marvellously engaging Transformer refocused my astronomer's gaze on the vital chemistry of life on our own planet. Both a scientific adventure story and an original quest to understand life on Earth, Transformer also guides us on how to find life beyond -- John Grunsfeld, former NASA Chief Scientist and Astronaut One of my favourite writers on biology, science, and life -- Lex Fridman I loved every page of Nick Lane's new book -- Lee Smolin, author * Einstein's Unfinished Revolution * In this fascinating book, Nick Lane brings together biology, chemistry, and physics to illuminate the role of energy in bringing matter alive -- Sean Carroll, author * Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime * A whirl-wind tour of the Krebs cycle and its long-stand-ing sway over our planet's biotic processes ... Read-ing about fam-iliar bio-chem-ical pro-cesses through such a dis-tinc-tive and person-able voice was a nov-elty to me, and I found even the foot-notes fun to read * American Society of Microbiology * The writing in the book is so articulate and the unfolding narrative so ambitious that one is carried along helter-skelter * South African Journal of Science * Provides compelling narratives on how seemingly unrelated research, such as studies on the origins of life, can lead to breakthroughs in areas like cancer therapy. Riveting * Nature Reviews in Chemistry *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 282 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
620 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78816-054-4 (9781788160544)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2022
Profile Books Ltd
€15.49
Available for download
Person
Nick Lane is a biochemist and writer. He is Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London, and the author of Life Ascending, which won the 2010 Royal Society Prize, and The Vital Question, of which Bill Gates wrote 'this biology book blew me away'. His excellence in communicating science was recognised by the Royal Society Faraday Prize in 2016. His lab is attempting to recreate the chemical conditions that drove the origin of life on Earth.