What is the origin of life? How did life begin? Is there life on other planets? Are we alone? These are questions which have been asked for thousands of years. In this ground-breaking, revolutionary text, over 40 top scientists from around the world, provide the answers in 28 paradigm busting chapters. The first steps toward life began in a state of disequilibrium whereas the chemicals for life came from the stars and were churned together in deep sea thermal vents. Viruses may have served as mobile RNA worlds, injecting the necessary genetic elements into proto-cells thereby fashioning the first living cell. Some scientists have championed the belief that life on Earth came from other planets. Even if that were the case, this simply moves the question of life's origins elsewhere but does not explain the ultimate question. Be it on Earth or some other world, life had to begin via processes known as abiogenesis Obviously, there must have been an evolutionary progression beginning with simple chemical compounds to proto-life, then to DNA-equipped life capable of replicating itself. As detailed in this text, those prebiological evolutionary steps may have taken place in submarine alkaline hydrothermal vents and required various chemical interactions and divisions involving amino acids, polyphosphate-peptide synergy, the creating of biosynthetic pathways and the emergence of sparse metabolic network, and the assembly of pre-genetic information by primordial cells, with some championing compartmentalizaton, others, vesicles, and all this leading to an RNA world in which viruses and retroviruses played an important part. The origin of life and evolution of prokaryotes was not a matter of chance, but deterministic, probable and necessary and that these bioenergetic principles are likely to apply throughout the universe and on planets and moon in our own solar system, including Mars, Titan, and Europa. Some life forms may be based on arsenic, silicon, sulfur, and ammonia. Others may dwell deep beneath the surface of water worlds which are common in the universe. Some may have evolved on planets like our own. This means: life is everywhere, and, we are not alone.

Origins, Abiogenesis and the Search for Life in the Universe

Science & Math

Nick Lane

Edward N. Trifonov

Stephen Freeland

John F. Allen

Andrew J. Pratt

Anne Volbeda

Pabulo H. Rampelotto

Michaell Russell (Editor)

Eugenio Simoncini

Christof B. Mast

Astronomy & Space Science

Cosmology Science Publishers

To explain the mystery of how life evolved on Earth, Nick Lane explores the deep link between energy and genes.
The Earth teems with life: in its oceans, forests, skies, and cities. Yet there's a black hole at the heart of biology. We do not know why complex life is the way it is or, for that matter, how life first began. In The Vital Question, award-winning author and biochemist Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a solution to conundrums that have puzzled generations of scientists.
For two and a half billion years, from the very origins of life, single-celled organisms such as bacteria evolved without changing their basic forms. Then, on just one occasion in four billion years, they made the jump to complexity. All complex life, from mushrooms to man, shares puzzling features, such as sex, which are unknown in bacteria. How and why did this radical transformation happen? The answer, Lane argues, lies in energy: All life on Earth lives off a voltage with the strength of a lightning bolt.
Building on the pillars of evolutionary theory, Lane's hypothesis draws on cutting-edge research into the link between energy and cell biology in order to deliver a compelling account of evolution from the very origins of life to the emergence of multicellular organisms while offering deep insights into our own lives and deaths.
Both rigorous and enchanting, The Vital Question provides a solution to life's vital question: Why are we as we are, and indeed, why are we here at all?

The Vital Question

Evolution

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

To explain the mystery of how life evolved on Earth, Nick Lane explores the deep link between energy and genes. 
Why is life the way it is? For two billion years, bacteria continually evolved without ever changing their basic form. Then single-celled organisms made the jump into complex life. In The Vital Question, award-winning author and biochemist Nick Lane argues that the evolution of multicellular life—the kind found in fungi, plants, animals, and humans—was contingent on a single event: the first successful prokaryotic endosymbiosis, or a bacterium living within another bacterium. Building on the pillars of evolutionary theory, Lane’s hypothesis draws on cutting-edge research into the link between energy and genes to suggest a novel account of cellular evolution and large-scale life as we know it. At once rigorous and enchanting, the conclusions in The Vital Question not only explain the vast sweep of evolutionary history but also provide insights that stretch forward into our understanding of sex, speciation, and the complexity of human life.

The Vital Question: Why is life the way it is?

Profile Books, Ltd.

The Vital Question:

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.\nIn 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.\nTo 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.\nLife is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic.

Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution

Profile Books

Life Ascending (Chinese Edition)

Science Press

The Vital Question (Chinese Edition)

Guizhou University Press

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Books by Nick Lane