Creation: How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself

by Adam Rutherford

What is life?
 
Humans have been asking this question for thou­sands of years. But as technology has advanced and our understanding of biology has deepened, the answer has evolved. For decades, scientists have been exploring the limits of nature by modifying and manipulating DNA, cells and whole organisms to create new ones that could never have existed on their own.
 
In Creation , science writer Adam Rutherford explains how we are now radically exceeding the boundaries of evolution and engineering entirely novel creatures—from goats that produce spider silk in their milk to bacteria that excrete diesel to genetic circuits that identify and destroy cancer cells. As strange as some of these creations may sound, this new, synthetic biology is helping scientists develop radical solutions to some of the world’s most pressing crises—from food shortages to pandemic disease to climate change—and is paving the way for inventions once relegated to science fiction.
 
Meanwhile, these advances are shedding new light on the biggest mystery of all—how did life begin? We know that every creature on Earth came from a single cell, sparked into existence four billion years ago. And as we come closer and closer to understanding the ancient root that connects all living things, we may finally be able to achieve a second genesis—the creation of new life where none existed before.
 
Creation takes us on a journey four billion years in the making—from the very first cell to the ground-breaking biological inventions that will shape the future of our planet.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Evolution, Popular Science, Audiobook, History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Adam David Rutherford is a British geneticist, author, and broadcaster. He was an audio-visual content editor for the journal Nature for a decade, is a frequent contributor to the newspaper The Guardian, hosts the BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science, has produced several science documentaries and has published books related to genetics and the origin of life.

Reviews

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rutherford explores the state of synthetic biology. While still in its early stages, much has been accomplished. The author is convinced this will be for the good of mankind. Others are far less sure. However, before he gets to the artificial creation of life, he uses the first half of the book to discuss related topics. He begins as so many science books for the lay audience do, with history from the discovery of the cell to natural selection to DNA and genomic sequencing. Along the way he reviews the concept of heredity and the structure and functioning of cells and DNA. His explanations are straightforward keeping the scientific jargon to a minimum. These discussions are very worthwhile for those unfamiliar with them, but repetitive for those of us who have read similar books. In the second half he covers synthetic biology. This part I found much more interesting with information I had not read before.

Rutherford repeatedly makes the point that all cells from bacteria to human operate in fundamentally the same way pointing to a single origin for all life. Not only do all cells use the same DNA structure to code for proteins, but the cellular machines (ribosomes) that manufacture proteins operate in the same way. The author digresses to the early earth to describe the environment that would spawn the first life. He favors the hot underwater vent scenario, primarily for the availability of outside sources of energy that can be readily incorporated into cellular processes. The chemicals in these vents form proton gradients in the honeycomb rocks similar to those used in the ATP ADP cycle that cells use to create and store energy. The small spaces in the rocks served the purpose of the cell membrane. When these chemical reactions could be said to be alive is problematic. Rutherford notes that the definition of life (and death) is controversial. Today, scientists can’t agree whether some viruses are alive.

In the second half of the book Rutherford finally discusses synthetic biology. He begins with Craig Venter’s creation in 2010 of Synthia, the first artificially created life. Synthia was designed on a computer using the minimum genome considered possible to produce a living thing. Based on a bacterium that caused minor infections in goats, Synthia was created by mixing the various ingredients inside another bacteria’s membrane. In essence this was an artificial replication of existing structures in bacteria, but Synthia was not produced by another bacterium, rather a computer, bottled ingredients and lab equipment. Venter also put into Synthia’s DNA clever quotes from Richard Feynman and James Joyce, something natural bacteria don’t have. Venter also disabled the infectious part of the genome and added in a suicide switch. Synthia still reproduced like other bacteria.

Next Rutherford talks about Freckles, the goat that makes silk in her udders. Freckles’ genome was modified with DNA from a spider. Freckles’ creators are still trying to improve her output to make silk producing goats profitable. With new gene editing tools and techniques that are steadily being improved, the animals on farms of the future could be really bizarre. While many object to eating genetically modified foods, far fewer will have a concern with using goods made with strong silk fibers or other products from genetically modified animals. Genetically modified crops designed to improve yields, taste, and nutrition, reduce pesticide use and grow in adverse conditions will be necessary to feed a rapidly expanding population challenged by climate change, despite many people’s misgivings. Less controversial is modifying yeasts to produce clean diesel fuel, an ambitious project already underway. However, yeasts consume a lot of sugar that must be farmed putting pressure on the environment partially offsetting its benefit.

Synthetic therapies for human diseases are being developed. Synthetic cells can produce drugs more cheaply and reliably than traditional methods. Beyond that, the logic capacity of DNA is being exploited, for example, to correctly release insulin from synthetic organisms that could be placed in diabetics. Biosensors and release mechanisms for other conditions are rapidly being developed. Not only can logic be programmed into DNA but DNA can serve as an efficient means of data storage. Changing the game, standardized bio-circuits now can be ordered from an online catalogue. As the author points out, you don’t have to know how to make a wrench to use it. Synthetic biology expands exponentially when all one has to do is slap together ready made parts. However legal issues particularly patent law could slow progress considerably.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle is fear: Fear of The Andromeda Strain, the rogue virus, biological weapons and terrorism. Some of these fears are well placed and safeguards are needed. However, I think that mostly these fears will slow the worthwhile efforts of dedicated scientists while rogue scientists and governments will disregard any restrictions. The author believes such fears are overblown pointing to what he considers irrational concerns about genetically modified foods. He compares naysayers to the Luddites. I am not as sanguine about what can go wrong as is the author, but the potential to relieve human suffering and save the environment is too great to ignore. Just opposing synthetic biology will not stop it. Society should embrace it for the good it can do and work to guide it and control it.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written in a very layman-friendly, conversational style that makes wrapping your head around the topics discussed almost effortless.

It offers a broad overview of the topic but isn't afraid to stop every now and then to provide more detail. It's a fascinating subject and an engrossing read. I whipped through it in just four days, which is pretty fast for me when it comes to nonfiction; particularly science-based nonfiction.

I highly recommend this book to anybody with an interest in the subject. It covers it from the roots up and covers it well. I couldn't really ask for more from a popular science book. Great stuff!

[Seema Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read most of the 1st book (part one) a couple of years ago but decided to read again and complete it. Really well written and very enlightening.

[Charlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible book from start to finish. Rutherford has a gift for taking complex science and packaging it into something any curious person could understand. I have thought this about other writers, but Rutherford is truly one of the best writers I have read. Reading books that update our theory of evolution is nothing short of an addiction for me. Nick Lane's work is probably my favorite work. But he doesn't write for the masses. So his books are not accessible to those who are curious but are not specifically educated in membrane bioenergetics. Rutherford welcomes his reader to *fully* understand the new approach to origins of life research. Don't completely understand membrane bioenergetics, Biochem, thermodynamics, the problem with RNA World and Primordial Soup hypotheses, etc? Don't worry. Rutherford is insanely clear about what the arguments are and what science you need to know in order to keep up to date. In all the books I have read, no one has laid out a more lucid and easy to understand argument. If you need a primer before reading Nick Lane's seminal work, Vital Question, or if you have read Vital Question but are still confused, this book is a must. While it was written before Lane conducted much of his work, it gives you the basic idea and you can then interpret Lane's findings better.

In this book, Rutherford examines creation of cells, first by way of "natural" means -- at hydrothermal vents where the products of life were likely first assemble -- and then by "unnatural" means -- by scientists who create synthetic materials in the lab as a way to help the world sustain its energy use.

Some things you will learn in this book:

- The drama occurring in your own body when you get a paper cut. Rutherford makes this learning experience feel as if you are watching an episode of magic school bus, and Ms. Frizzle is driving the microscopic bus right though your own body. This serves to give the reader a glimpse of the magic that is biochem. A+

- Best explanation of symmetry and handedness of DNA, amino acids, etc that I have ever read. Didn't take organic chem? This is what you need to know to understand how and why atoms form the way they do in cells. Beautiful description.

- What is LUCA?

- What does LUCA have to do with evolution?

- Can we really trace the genome back to the first cells? (You could watch 50 different videos and read 50 different books, and IMO, none would give as clear an explanation as this book.)

- Why are ribosomes so important in our search for a universal common ancestor? And does temp matter in the folding of ribosomes proteins? Can that help us trace our ancestry?

- How does complex life emerge? How did chemistry likely give rise to biology? What role did endosymbiosis play in complexity?

- What does thermodynamics have to do with life and nonlife, and how does taking a thermodynamics approach to evolution change our view of life? This is an incredibly important question that most progressives in biology and physics related fields, who are interested in evolution, are asking.

-Is Earth alive?

- What is wrong with the RNA World hypothesis?

- What exactly are Nick Lane's experiments and what are their implications for our theory of evolution?

- How can creating GMOs, synthetic cells,synthetic bio circuits, and other synthetic bio products create solutions to some of our sustainability issues; feed populations who are facing illness, starvation, & death; help cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc?

- Are there any real concerns with GMOs? Rutherford addresses the studies that suggested there were various problems and examined the study methods. For example, one study used rats that were already prone to cancer and fed them GM food. The rats developed cancer. Not a good study. However, he did think there was a legitimate concern about GMOs out competing non GMOs and suggested that solving this issues would require more, and not less, studies focused onGMOs.

- Can we stop technology? Can we stop revolutions, such as GMOs? How can we best accept the reality of technology and make sure we use it to take care of Earth? What challenges need to be overcome for these strategies to be successful?

[Gendou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous look into the cutting edge of genetics research, and the new field of synthetic biology. Adam Rutherford presents this often-misunderstood material simply enough for anyone to understand. I actually found this to be a problem.

When, for example, the author writes "winding stairway" to describe the shape of DNA, I found myself yelling, "Just say double-helix. Say it. Come on, double helix. It's not that hard. Just say it. Say it already!" Such is my dismay.

Other words censored for the polysyllable-phobic layperson include "eukaryote", which is routinely censored as "complex life". Because, apparently, Latin is scary and will decrease sales. Or something.

Oh, and "water hating" instead of "hydrophobic". More like science-phobic. lol

The author makes an inexpert attempt to describe entropy, in the context of the questions of "what is life". It came a cross as more poetry, and less an explanation of this important topic.

The author comes down hard on the anti-science anti-GMO movement. This chapter, to me, was particularly delicious.

I also love the part about encrypting messages in DNA molecules; in other words, DNA data storage. Cools stuff.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has kind of a fun design: the two sections are separated by flipping the book upside down. It’s a gimmick, but it’s kind of a cool design anyway. The topics are pretty interlinked, but you can read one half of the book without the other, or read them in either order; whatever you like. One half covers how life came to be, and one half covers the attempts to create life (or should that be recreate?), via genetic engineering, etc.

It’s an interesting bunch of issues, and Rutherford handles it well. His tone is informative, without being stultifyingly boring: he has some moments of humour which, while not laugh-out-loud funny, did provoke a snort or two. He writes engagingly, and those it is definitely an overview of the topics not really meant for a professional audience, he doesn’t shy away from discussing the complex ideas and different theories. None of it was really surprising or groundbreaking to me, because biology and genetics are big areas of interest for me, but it would make a good introduction for the intelligent reader, or a refresher to bring you up to date.

[Seema Singh]

Excellent book. The future of life is both exciting and terrifying. A very good read to end 2019.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is not often that a book jumps out at you as being fresh, original and excellent within minutes of starting to read it – but this was definitely the case with Adam Rutherford’s Creation. It is about both the biological origins of life and how we are artificially changing the nature of life with synthetic biology.

I have read plenty of books on basic biology, but Rutherford triumphs uniquely by giving us a clear exploration of the nature of life, breaking it down to its simplest components and seeing how these could have come into being. This goes far beyond the old ‘organic soup plus lightning’ concepts and takes us across that most difficult of jumps from a collection of organic compounds to something that has a living function.

To be honest, that would be enough on its own, but Rutherford also gives us an excellent and eye-opening look at how we are modifying and constructing life, from Craig Ventner’s synthetic bacterium, through ‘programmed’ bacteria to the practical applications of modified life. This synthetic biology is much more than the basics of genetic engineering and is totally fascinating, perhaps even more so than the ‘origin of life’ part.

What’s more, Rutherford has a breezy approachable writing style that never intimidates and manages to making information entertaining – no mean feat. Just occasionally he overdoes the bonhomie, particularly in his asides in footnotes. I was particularly unhappy with one about Fred Hoyle. Rutherford was rightly pointing out what a big mistake Hoyle made with his 747 from a scrapyard analogy, but Rutherford gets his history of science all wrong by demonstrating Hoyle’s iconoclastic ‘vocally rejecting mainstream ideas’ by saying ‘He disputed the universe’s origin being the result of the Big Bang, which is the overwhelming scientific consensus view.’

The problem with this is that at the time Big Bang was a seriously flawed theory, and arguably Hoyle et al’s alternative Steady State theory was better – Big Bang was certainly not the overwhelming consensus view. It was only later data, combined with a much hacked about and improved Big Bang theory that made it become that. To put it as Rutherford does totally misrepresents the significance of Hoyle’s theory at the time.

The other moan I have is the way the book is put together (I don’t think this applies to the US or Kindle versions). The two parts of the book, exploring the origins of life and looking at the synthetic future, are in two totally separate halves, begun at opposite ends of the book, one printed inverted to the other. This implies the two sections are independent and can be read in any order – but they aren’t. This is obvious as the introduction of the forward looking section has several references to reading the other section for detail. It should, without doubt, be read ‘origin of life’ first then ‘future of life.’ The flip book format is a silly gimmick that detracts from the outstanding quality of this book.

Without doubt one of the most important popular science books of 2013 and highly recommended.

Review first published on www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who should read this book? Not everyone. If you already know a lot about this field, it's really just an excursion of light-hearted revision, as it was for me. On the other hand, if you're a non biologist, I think it's worth your time. For the former, I give it two stars; for the latter, I give it four - hence the average of three.

What you'll get out of this book:

1. A brief history of biology. You will learn about how life is arranged into organisms and cells, and delve a little further into the genetics and the chemistry.

2. Astrobiology is touched upon - is the origin of life found outside of the Earth?

3. You will also learn a little about some of the big players in biology over the ages.

4. Synthetic biology is touched upon - is it feasible and what does it mean for our future? Can you engineer life from non-life?
So that is what you will learn. Is it well-written? I think so - it's a little dry in parts, but he uses some analogies that help to colour the situation.

My criticisms:

1. His analogies can be inaccurate. For example, on p.18 Rutherford tries to argue that the life sciences took longer to get to grips with because no one had seen a cell until 1673, whereas, "Unlike the stars and planets, no one had even seen - or at least identified - a cell before 1673". But one could easily argue that no one had seen an atom until over a hundred years after the cell. By 1673, we had seen bodies, and what are stars and bodies if not celestial objects? In other words, they're both microscopic and his distinction is flawed.

2. Life is never actually defined properly (and though there is an admission that this might not be possible, he still makes some mistakes in trying to distinguish it from non-life). He uses some arguments from other people, such as Schrodinger, but doesn't parse them sufficiently. Schrodinger made the point that life is a constant battle against entropy. Rutherford extrapolates: "The process of living is the chemistry that perpetually holds off decay."

But you could say the same about machines. They're holding off decay by increasing the entropy of their local system. You might argue: "but humans eat, and sleep and clean etc". Well you can do that with a machine too. But not on its own? That is not true if the computer is programmed to do so. "But it needs life to do that." But we need non-life to get to life anyway...

The invocation of metabolism as the definition of life might be worth its salt though. Maybe I will come back to this review and confirm it if I give it enough thought.

I could write a lot more but I think that should serve as enough for people to make their own minds up.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book, although not quite what I expected. As you can see from the ToC below, he spends half the book dealing with the origins of life. I've read more in depth analyses, but his isn't bad & is certainly good for general audiences. Unfortunately, he cops out on Chapter 4 & doesn't even attempt to answer "What is Life?" His attitude is like that of many scientists in the field that say we don't really need to know. I can see their point. Making a neat box for it to fit in wouldn't help.

In the second part of the book, there was some really good material on genetic engineering, especially the social aspects & some newer treatments I wasn't aware of. How they're creating new types of DNA, creating tool kits for performing specific functions, & other advances are really interesting. I liked his discussion of the dangers of this experimentation, but he skipped a biggy. Just because U.S. scientists have guidelines doesn't mean everyone does as recent history has shown. This isn't just a danger, but a reason for freeing up our own research. Again, it's all pretty general & easily understandable.

Table of Contents
PART I. THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
CHAPTER 1. Begotten, Not Created
CHAPTER 2. Into One
CHAPTER 3. Hell on Earth
CHAPTER 4. What Is Life?
CHAPTER 5. The Origin of the Code
CHAPTER 6. Genesis
PART II. THE FUTURE OF LIFE
CHAPTER 7. Life, Not as We Know It
CHAPTER 8. Created, Not Begotten
CHAPTER 9. Logic in Life
CHAPTER 10. Remix and Revolution
CHAPTER 11. The Case for Progress
Afterword (I normally don't include this in the ToC, but this is as meaty as the rest.)

Definitely recommended. It's not the best, but it's certainly worth the time. Well narrated & fine in audio format.

[J.D. Steens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about life’s story, from its earliest beginnings to now, the era of genetic engineering. My interest in the book is more on the former and, particularly, three issues: Life’s origins, definition, and goal-seeking.

Rutherford believes that life’s origins began roughly four billion years ago. This is when the transition from chemistry to biochemistry and to life occurred. Rutherford sides with the ocean vent theory of life’s origins. Though his technical account is difficult to follow, it is roughly this: Acidic seawater reacts with virgin mantle rock, splitting up the rocks into oxygen and hydrogen, and creating cavities that allow biochemicals, the precursors of life, to form. Through a process of coming together in the right way, this results in two great branches of life, archaea and bacteria. The key to all of this, Rutherford argues, is an energy gradient (the continuous interaction of acidic seawater and alkaline rock), and the protective membrane-like pockets in newly formed mantle rocks that allow life-giving chemicals to form. (1) This is “Luca” (the “Last Universal Common Ancestor), the first life forms where “two sets of molecules grow to line the inside of separate rocky chambers that hold this brimming biochemistry. One will lead to bacteria; the second, to every other living thing. The biochemistry that has developed in these cells is shared, but from now on, as they evolve new powers, they build different types of membranes to house themselves, and new ways of maintaining the energetic difference between outside and in. There, stuck to the side of a gassy rock at the bottom of the ancient sea, cellular life begins.”

The single-celled archaea and bacteria were the “two domains of life” that, about two billion years later, evolved into a third domain, eukaryotes, when “an archaea swallowed a bacteria.” This was “the arrival of complex life. Rather than death of one or both, mutual benefit was the result. The consumed ceased being a free-living entity and was permanently annexed into the guts of what would grow to become the third domain of life, the one that you are in.” And replication, mutation, natural selection took it from there.

With this history, Rutherford attempts to show that the basic mechanisms of life – cells, membranes and metabolism, the formation and refinement of code-bearing molecules, and the energy gradient that defines inter-cellular communication – had their origins in this primordial exchange of seawater with newly formed mantle rock. With life’s fundamental uniformity, his overall point is that we are manifestations of life’s Big History.

Rutherford’s discussion of life’s definition, the second issue, struck me as less than on-point. He goes around the topic several times, never landing for sure. In his chapter, “What is Life?” Rutherford writes that “everything pivots in the journey from inanimate matter to living matter,” and his book probably can be described, in part, as a description of this journey. He discusses all of the individual elements without singling out anyone. There’s the transfer of information “from cell to cell and from organism to organism.” Later, he refers more generally to life as “physics, chemistry and biology” and its “vital characteristics: energy, information, reproduction, metabolism and evolution.” Rutherford echoes a prominent Nobel researcher who states, “We just want to understand the process and all the steps. We don’t need to say, ‘Here’s the dividing line: on this side there’s chemistry and on this there’s biology.’ The important thing is the path.” Rutherford more or less drops out of this “what is life” debate when he writes, “When pondering the origin of life, however one tries to define it….” In short, he writes that “At one stage there was chemistry on Earth, and at a later stage there were living things. The route from the first to the second point is inevitably long, tortuous, and messy. The point where we definitely have living things is certainly where things become Darwinian, but not solely….In other words, the boundary between chemistry and biology is arbitrary.”

Yet, interwoven throughout the book the role of energy and its gradient seems key. (2) Rutherford notes the continuity that runs from physics to chemistry to life. (3) Physics is inanimate matter and energy, which is movement; it’s freedom pure and simple, void of purpose, created by energy gradients that move from higher to lower. It’s about the dissipation of power and entropy. With life, this changes. The process that gets to life as Rutherford outlines is long, but once that process moves across that arbitrary line, life formed by chance becomes something quite different. Life now becomes anti-entropic or counter-entropic if there are such words. It imports energy, incorporates it, transforms it into organization and order that defies, for a time, entropy. Life needs energy to support itself until it can survive no more and dies. Through replication, life defies entropy once again, but here, with the chain of life, it defies entropy forever. (4)

The third issue involves a couple of points that are more implicit than explicit in this book. In contrast to much of the discussion about life, which is Newtonian (life, in blind motion, reacts to objects and the environment; the self as a reactor to negative and positive objects), Rutherford is saying that life, from its earliest origins, is purposeful and goal-seeking, i.e., it is more than a passive being waiting to react. Otherwise, why does life “care” about movement (and the freedom to move), acting and reacting to objects of pain and pleasure? Life is both a seeking entity – it needs sustenance-energy from the environment (and all else is supporting cast) and a reacting entity. (5) With the membrane, life establishes a boundary between what it needs from the outside, energy, and what it doesn’t need, which are threats to its capacity to protect what it needs to survive. The cell membrane, the physical entity, is also the metaphor for life as a seeking and defending entity. It’s more than a protective boundary. It protects against incoming threats and harms so that it can retain the capacity to seek what it needs to survive. On another point, with eukaryotes, mutuality is established as a life property to go along with competitive self-interest. Here, mutuality based on utilitarian self-interest is built right into life’s very being. But, interestingly, the conceptual boundary between mutuality and competition is blurred. Mutuality provides a competitive advantage because it makes an organism or multi-organism (groups) stronger (this is a point Darwin makes regarding the origin of our social nature and group-versus-group competition).

(1) Rutherford writes that these vents are “fizzing with the energy of reactions between the mantle of rocks and sea water….The vents emerge from the seafloor as the plates of the earth shift and split, revealing fresh hot virgin rock drawn up form the mantle. Once exposed, they react with seawater, splitting it apart into oxygen and hydrogen and a host of other gasses that are equally brimming with energetic potential, eager to react. In so doing, these gasses percolate through the rocks, driving a honeycomb into them as they cool in the surrounding seawater, a process called serpentinization.” The pockets function something like a cell, with membranes and metabolism (a “most elemental metabolism….It relies simply upon there being more protons on one side of a membrane than the other”). The continuous exchange between the “rocks and sea form natural proton gradients [“electrically charged hydrogen atoms”] in the swirls around the honeycombed rocks.” “Protons,” he goes on to say, “stream around the pockets in the rocks, to be concentrated into the alkaline interior away from the acid sea.” And, he adds, “The acid sea and the alkali interior of the vent rocks provide a natural proton gradient for the flow of power that incepts a basic form of metabolism, and it is continuous for as long as the vent is active. Simple biochemical reactions that we observe in modern cells begin to occur in this energetic mix, and we start to see amino acids being forged in this tumult. Next come other foundation biomolecules, such as sugars, purine, and pyramidine rings, and other molecules that we see in metabolic cycles. Purine and pyramidine go on to fuse, becoming bases—the letters of genetic code….”

(2) Elsewhere Rutherford writes that “Life is a process of harvesting energy from the environment.” And “life-forms are first and foremost a sophisticated collection of chemical behaviors underwritten by the need for energy….In our cells there are two parts of metabolism: the first is the digestion of molecules to release energy, and the second is using that fuel to make life-sustaining molecules, including DNA and proteins.” And, regarding the two branches of life, Rutherford illustrates in a nutshell energy’s central role by writing that, in “the way animal cells can take in oxygen, extract energy, and pump out carbon dioxide; the way plan cells can take in carbon dioxide, extract energy, and pump out oxygen,” energy is fundamental.

(3) “Biological behavior is determined by chemical behavior, which is determined by atomic forces, and these are the realm of physics….Physics, by its nature, tends toward the fundamental, and Schrodinger’s conclusions derive from one of the absolute and most nonnegotiable universal rules: the second law of thermodynamics. This is the principle that dictates with total authority that over a period of time, energy will always flow from a higher state to a lower state and never the other direction.”

(4) Rutherford’s focus is on waste on each living system as the counter to entropy, but does this sidestep the more fundamental process that is involved with open systems? “To be alive is to struggle against entropy,” he states. “Life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics….In death we all submit to the will of physics, and our atoms accept their universal fate: to decompose and to be recycled, ultimately into less energetic states….Life has evolved to extract energy from our surroundings and use it to maintain our vital information against the universal slide toward equilibrium by swapping and pumping protons from one side of a membrane to another inside a cell.” And, “while order is increased and maintained during any life span within the living thing itself,” he writes, “this seeming contradiction of the second law is more than compensated for by an overall increase in entropy beyond the confines of that organism: that is, your waste, the entropy of the amount of waste you have generated in your life is overwhelmingly more than the reduced entropy your body maintains by being ordered.” The part that confuses me about this is Rutherford observation is that entropy applies to closed systems, which life is not. Life as an open system brings in energy and uses it for self-organization and order. The import of energy in an open system seems to be the central point, not the waste that is expelled.

(5) The energy of life is fundamentally different than the energy of physics. The latter is movement and freedom pure and simple. The former is purposeful energy and free movement now is dependent on objects.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most books on this incredibly interesting topic are too difficult to follow fully or too facile to add to my knowledge base. The author nicely hits the sweet spot between the two extremes.

Most of the recently issued popular science books I listened to on audible, I end up thinking I've already listened to the topic better presented in another book, not this time. The author is very good at laying out the narrative and taking my knowledge base one step further toward understanding our place in the universe by covering the topic in such clear terms but never talking down to the listener.

The first part of the book covers what is life and how can it arrive through natural processes. He discusses the three great biological theories from the 19th century, Cell, Evolution and DNA Theory. The second part delves into what does the future hold for further research in these fields.

Not much to not rave about in this short and highly listenable book. The writer is very good (I only wish he wrote a longer book), and the narrator, Walter Dixon, feels like an old friend since I've listened to and liked many of his other books.

Even if you are like me and have read many of the other fine books available on audible on this topic, I would still recommend this fine short book.

[Book Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creation: How Science is Reinventing Life Itself by Adam Rutherford

“Creation: How Science is Reinventing Life Itself” is a fascinating journey from the origins of all life and the origins of new artificial life. Science writer, Adam Rutherford takes the reader through the golden age of biology and explores the pathways to life on Earth and how to re-create it. What sets this book apart is the author's innate ability to make complex topics accessible, enlightening and entertaining. This excellent 288 page-book is composed of two halves: the first half covers the origin of life, while the second half covers how scientists are designing, engineering and building new life-forms for a purpose.

Positives:
1. A well-written, engaging, entertaining and accessible book on modern biology.
2. A fascinating topic in the hands of an author with great communication skills.
3. What a wonderful way to learn about the history of biology.
4. The origin of cells. Cell theory. "Our understanding of the origin of new cells can be largely attributed to Robert Remak—a lost hero of biology, and a victim of politics and race."
5. The grand theory of evolution. An excellent explanation of what a theory constitutes in science.
6. This book stands out in making complex biological topics accessible; a positive worth repeating. "There are no life-forms we know of that do not employ and entirely depend upon it: DNA, made of four letters, translates into proteins, made of twenty amino acids. It is known as the central dogma: DNA makes RNA makes protein. The fact that all known life is utterly dependent on this system makes it seem almost inconceivable that it is not related by a single, common origin."
7. Fascinating facts abound, "For reasons we don’t fully understand, proteins only use left-handed amino acids."
8. A dose of cosmology. "Theia's glancing blow may be what shifted the earth's axis from vertical to its off-kilter stance of 23.5 degrees." How cool is that?
9. Describing life. Great use of converging sciences like physics and chemistry to describe biology.
10. The origin of the code, "Evolution has given us a comprehensive description of how the wild spectrum of species has arisen from this simple code, but very little about how it came to be."
11. Understanding ribozymes.
12. Interesting theories on origin-of-life. The author does a wonderful job of differentiating between degrees of probability.
13. Many interesting science experiments including Nick Lane's bioreactor.
14. Understanding of proteins.
15. The future of biology, synthetic biology. Fascinating look! "What Craig Venter and his team did was to re-create a life-form synthetically. That is undoubtedly a huge achievement in itself. It’s another incremental step on the pathway to having total control over DNA, and our ability to manipulate life."
16. Some truly remarkable studies underway in synthetic biology.
17. Electrical engineering and how it relates to synthetic biology.
18. A discussion on the challenges of bringing synthetic biology into society.
19. Touches upon issues like genetically modified food, and viruses.
20. Annotated bibliography.


Negatives:
1. No explicit mention of epigenetics.
2. Mentions that one magazine puts Venter as the fourteenth-most influential person on Earth, sandwiched between David Cameron and Sarah Palin. Really??
3. No use of graphs or illustrations that could have added value.

In summary, I really enjoyed this book. It's a fresh and interesting look at modern biology. Adam Rutherford has provided an enlightening gift for the public. It provides a fascinating look at the history of life and its future through synthetic biology. Don't miss this one, I highly recommend it!

Further suggestions: "Wonders of Life" by Brian Cox, "The Making of the Fittest" by Sean B. Carroll, "Before the Dawn" by Nicholas Wade, "The Universe Within" by Neil Shubin, "Zoobiquity" by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, "Life Ascending" by Nick Lane, "The Emperor of All Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee, "The 10,000 Year Explosion" by Gregory Cochran, "Why Evolution Is True" by Jerry A. Coyne, "Relics of Eden" by Daniel J. Fairbanks, "The Great Show On Earth" by Richard Dawkins, "Written in Stone" by Brian Switek, "Molecular & Cell Biology for Dummies" by Rene Fester Kratz, "Evolution for Dummies" by Greg Krukonis, "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters" by Donald R. Prothero, "The Universe Inside You" by Brian Clegg, "The Violinist's Thumb" by Sam Kean.

[John Gribbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was slightly taken aback by the title of Adam Rutherford’s book. He is a respected, and respectable, science writer with the journal Nature; surely he couldn’t be espousing Young Earth Creationism? But no. The title of Chapter One, “Begotten, Not Created”, is much more reassuring, and much truer to the theme of the book. In fact, there are two themes. In the first part of the book, he discusses the origin of life on Earth, while in the second part he looks to the future in the light of the possibilities opened up by human interference in the processes of life. As he puts it, “the great theories of biology are now being tested with groundbreaking experimentation”.
The familiarity of the first part of the story to anyone with an interest in the story of life on Earth might have made it tedious in the hands of a less expert storyteller; but Mr Rutherford is a skilled expositor who is a joy to read and who sheds new light on familiar tales. The main point of the first part of his book is certainly one that cannot over-emphasised or repeated too often. All life is made of cells. All cells operate on the same principles, based on the same genetic code incorporated into DNA. There is overwhelming evidence that all cells on Earth -- meaning all life on Earth -- descends from a single ancestor, perhaps not the first cell, but the only one to leave descendants around today. Indeed, life on Earth may have arisen only once, in the equivalent of what Charles Darwin called a “warm little pond”, way back when our planet was young. This Last Universal Common Ancestor, or Luca, was around some four billion years ago -- or four million millennia ago, as the author puts it.
In telling the story of Luca, Mr Rutherford covers the history of the cell idea from the pioneering studies of Isaac Newton’s contemporary Robert Hooke right up to date, via the discovery of the nature of DNA and the cracking of the genetic code. Her then goes back to the beginning, to offer a smorgasbord of theories concerning the origin of the first cell, conjuring up graphic images of the primordial Earth bombarded from space with comets carrying many of the chemical precursors to life, and of volcanic vents deep beneath the surface of the oceans where heat energy can stimulate chemical reactions. And always behind the story lies the knowledge that although the probability of a single living cell emerging may be small, it only had to happen once.
Cells, it also turns out, are very easy to make (although living cells may be harder). The molecules that make up the balloon-like skin of a cell have a head and tail structure, like a miniature tadpole. If the head “likes” water and the tail “hates” water, as collection of these molecules floating in water naturally curl themselves up into tiny bubbles with their tail pointing inwards. And many experiments have now shown that other kinds of molecules that would have been around in the oceans of the young Earth do naturally form more complex compounds, on the edge of life, if there is an energy supply.
The last step, from non-life to life itself, has not yet been completed in the laboratory. But just about everything else in the way of tinkering with life has, and this is the theme of the second part of the book.
“If the biological twentieth century was concerned with taking cells apart to understand how they work,” writes Mr Rutherford, the twentyfirst century has “given us the ability to put them back together again” in new designs for specific purposes. His examples range from a goat whose milk contains strands of silk which can be extracted and spun into thread, potentially offering a way to produce “natural” material to repair damaged ligaments or to make puncture-proof tyres, to the “Minimal Genome Project”, an effort to make the simplest possible living cell. He makes a fascinating, and clear, comparison between the workings of a cell and the way a computer is programmed and controlled using logic gates, and draws an analogy between genetic engineering, cutting and pasting stretches of DNA, and word processing, cutting and pasting stretches of text. One breathtaking achievement (still far from being used in laboratory animals, let alone humans) is the development of a “terminator” virus that can enter a living cell, determine if the cell is cancerous, and if so kill it. If not, the cell is not interfered with.
But for me the highlight of the book comes near the end, where Mr Rutherford takes an informed stand against the unthinking opponents of genetic engineering, and especially of genetically modified (GM) foods. His arguments are clear and compelling, but not to be briefly summarised. I cannot resist, though, repeating one of his comments. The British newspaper the Daily Mail, he notes, once ran a headline saying “Scientist accused of playing God after creating artificial life by making designer microbe from scratch -- but could it wipe out humanity?” “The very straightforward answer,” says Mr Rutherford, “is no, as is inevitably the case when newspaper science headlines end with a question mark.” To find out why, read the book. And bear the aphorism in mind when reading newspapers!
So why call the book Creation? Because “in the next few years, for only the second time in four billion years, a living thing, probably something akin to a cell, will be born in the laboratory without coming from an existing cell”. We are the creators.

First appeared in Wall St Journal, in a slightly different form.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in Rutherford's characteristic accessible, engaging style, it mostly made sense while I was reading it - some of the chemistry elements were a bit beyond me - but there's no chance in the world I could explain any of it now.

The Kindle formatting is really irritating - I couldn't figure out a way of reading the notes and then getting back to the place I was on without using go to> page location which requires me to remember to look at the page location and remember it while I am trying to read the note and that was a bit much of a challenge. Other books manage it much better.

[Jente Ottenburghs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book about the development of synthetic biology. The book is split into two parts: the first one on the origin of life, and the second one on synthetic biology. The first part was not that exciting, because it contained little new information for me. However, it was a nice mix of history and biological concepts. For more in-depth reading, I can recommend the books of Nick Lane (who he mentions in the acknowledgements). The second part was more innovative and gave a good introduction into the development and possibilities of synthetic biology. It also provided a nice rebuttal to the weak arguments of opponents of genetically modified organisms. All in all, a great read.

[D.L. Morrese · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is life? It's an old question and one humans are just beginning to be able to answer. It's all a matter of extremely complex chemistry, but as we learn how it works, we are also learning how it can be shaped to cure or prevent diseases, feed our growing population, slow our degradation of our environment, and more. Interesting times lie ahead as life becomes subject to intelligent design.

Great advancements are rapidly being made in biochemistry. I think it will be one of the driving forces of change in this century, and I found this book an informative and interesting overview of the subject.

[Stephen Dawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and accessible book in two halves, the first looking at our current knowledge and some of the theories about where life on earth originated. I think this was the better half, perhaps just because that is the part of the tale that is easier to turn into a coherent story to tell the reader.

The author steers clear of a definite view on ultimate origins, which is sensible given our current lack of knowledge, but nevertheless focuses on deep-sea hydrothermal vents as the place of origin without much time spent on possible alternatives.

The second half looks at our first exciting forays into synthetic biology and synthetic genetics. This should be equally fascinating, but somehow the various strands aren't fully drawn together and it is somewhat disjointed. The provision of an Afterword after the last chapter somewhat remedies this by rounding off the book, but perhaps also is a hint that either the author or his editor realised that all wasn't as good as it could be, but didn't have the time or determination fully to address those concerns.

The second half was also somewhat marred by some unnecessarily loose language, such as the following:

"...as with all life forms, the parasite wants to continue to live, and it does so by evolving. [New strains of the parasite] spread across the world in a bid to ensure its own survival in the face of man-made extinction."

This is nonsense - only life forms with advanced brains can be really said to "want" anything, and the species of parasite doesn't want anything, nor does it choose to evolve. (Many species haven't evolved much for millions of years and do very well, thank you.) The reasons for evolution are many, but don't include choice. At a biochemical level the occasional errors in DNA copying (among other things) allow evolution, and it may be that organisms that evolve DNA copying that is too accurate could tend to die out because of their reduced capacity for evolution. But there's no choice in the matter. (At least, not until humans get involved in conscious changes to DNA.)

And the idea that the new resistant strain decides to spread around the world is palpably silly - if it does spread then that is also as a result of many factors, perhaps including the selection pressures that humans apply by use of our therapeutic agents.

There are other similar examples. Of course I presume the author as an educated biologist doesn't really mean what he says, and is trying to make the language accessible for the more general reader, but there are easy ways of doing so while remaining accurate.

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The first half of the book is an overview of research into the origin of life, of which our understanding has progressed immensely in recent years. The second half of the book is an ode to synthetic biology: the use of biological systems as engineering tools to design new forms of life as tools to benefit humanity. Thus, "Creation" describes life bookended by two creators: nature and man. I felt like the two halves were written as distinct units; they don't refer to each other much, and there is some overlap in background between the two without acknowledgment that some of this information has already been conveyed. Still, I enjoyed the dichotomy of research into life's initial origin and the origin of new life.

One thing I really liked about this book is that it went beyond the superficial science and actually explained what is being researched to better illustrate what the hype is about. Too often popular science books are afraid of scratching the surface for fear of alienating readers. This book does violate a personal biological peeve of mine: it frequently anthropomorphizes nature and natural processes as rational agents. While useful for simplicity, this perpetuates a common misunderstanding about how biology works (/rant). I think one other potential shortcoming of this book is that synthetic biology is still at the base of the hype curve: there is a great deal of promise, but we aren't yet at the point where it has made an obvious impact on society. Without the 'oomph' of a huge success story, it's still just prospective heralding. It's unclear whether synthetic biology's transformational potential will be reached in 5, 15 or 50 years. Still, Rutherford is candid and honest, devoting substantial real estate to these caveats.

Overall this is an impressive communication of the nascent field of synthetic biology. It should be accessible for any scientifically inclined reader open to diving a little deeper into the biology. In the coming decade, it will be interesting to see if this book's timing was premature or right on target. What is clear is that the promise of synthetic biology is real, and Rutherford does an excellent job describing that it's impact is not a matter of if, but when.

My personal rating system is pretty strict, so my three stars are given with gusto. A good read for anyone looking to pick up a book about the cutting edge in biological research.

[Venus Smurf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I post my thoughts on this book, I probably ought to point out that I'm an English major. Science usually makes my brain hurt. I picked this up only because genetics is one of the few areas of science that actually interests me, even if I don't always understand it. In spite of that, I still thought I'd get only a few pages in and then give up, either out of lack of comprehension or lack of interest.

That never happened. I didn't want to put this one down, because, put simply, it was fascinating. There's a point where the author literally describes a paper cut, and it was one of the most interesting things I've ever read. Even if I hadn't already been at least a little interested in the subject matter, I think I still would have enjoyed this one. The writing is smooth, the descriptions clear, and the author himself frequently funny but always intelligent. He made everything seem so obvious and so compelling that I was hooked from the start.

I'm going to pass this book on to my biology major brother and see what he thinks. He might have a different perspective, but this is definitely one I'd recommend to anyone.

[Eric Wurm · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for an introductory primer on origin of life sciences and synthetic biology, this book is one of the best choices. It covers the full gamut of topics including the discovery of the DNA molecule configuration, abiogenesis, human genome project, J. Craig Venter's invention of the first synthetic bacterial genome, Jack Zhostak's work on protocells, and even recent work such as Jason Chin's reprogramming of the codon system to incorporate synthetic amino acids.

I have read many of books on the topic being a synthetic biology student. This book is not highly technical and is appropriate for the science novice as well as professionals looking to research the topic. The information is rather basic. If you are looking for a highly detailed book, there are others that would be more suitable. Those with experience in the field may enjoy the book, but peer-reviewed research would be a better choice.

If you are looking for a great story on where biology started and where it will take us, start here!

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Objectively a five out of five, subjectively closer to a three, I would nevertheless recommend this to readers with a basic understanding of biology who are interested in learning more about cell biology, genetics and the future of biotechnology.

My main reasons for only moderately enjoying this were that, as a life sciences graduate and professional myself, much of this was too simplistic for me and merely reiterated what I already knew at some length. Yes, I appreciate that this is my fault for buying a book on a subject I already am pretty familiar with, the trap of being drawn to subjects you have an interest in (which, as you are interested in them, you already know a fair amount about), but in such a thin book of only ~200 pages it felt a little lacking in depth/novelty from my viewpoint. The second ‘half’ on the future of genetics was more interesting than the ‘A-Level to Fresher biology textbook’ first half, I would have felt more satisfied had the book had twice the depth.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are excellent reviews on this book already. Many agree that this is one of the best introductory overviews of the history of the evolution of life on earth and the promise of new bioengineering technologies. I read many books on similar topics and this is the one I would recommend for a reader without a science background but with an interest in these topics . Rutherford is a clear and engaging writer with a strong molecular and cell biology background. He also is an editor for Nature scientific Journal. I strongly recommend this book.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information on where we are at with bioengineering and a nice summary of our current understanding of genetic reproduction and its origins.

[Science and Fiction · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astrophysics is my main interest in science, but I like to keep reasonably well-informed in other areas. Kudos to Rutherford for making this deep dive into biology, genetics and life-origin highly engaging. In that regard I found this much better written and much more interesting to those of us who are not experts in biology than Nick Lane’s The Vital Question. No, we’re not talking Bill Bryson level of entertainment, but the way the story is told is highly interesting, and of course Rutherford has a PhD in genetics, so he speaks from an authoritative position.

As I read this I thought it was more recently written than it is (2013), mostly because all of the information is new to me. I learned about cutting edge genetic research such as assassin circuits which are encoded with a five-point safety mechanism before targeting rogue cancer cells, and a new self-regulating genetic adaptation to stabilize insulin for diabetic sufferers. But before we get to all that the first chapters lay out the basics of how DNA is structured, in groups of four sets of three with a hard stop between the next code, and how this is the perfect system to allow occasional random mutations without debilitating the entire system. In other words, custom made for slow evolutionary progression. The big question is how such a complex system came to be.

This question is not completely answered, because there is no existing evidence from that far back to observe. Rutherford puts forth a few ideas regarding the evolution from RNA to DNA, but why the simpler orgasms would have developed into this complex system remains a mystery. So don’t expect to be armed with easily digestible sound-bites when arguing with your theist friends. Even so, plenty of fascinating material, beginning with how Craig Venter created life from previously non-existing life. In other words, not simply tinkering with existing lifeforms, but actually creating new life. At this point the book is hard to put down because it is quite the amazing story about the emergence of life and sentience.

I learned a lot and am keeping the book handy to do further armchair research to see how some of these cutting-edge ideas have played out in the intervening years. For the quality of writing, and the wealth of information: Highly Recommended.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece, first published in 2013 and thus probably quite outdated, especially The Future of Life half of the book which explores the rapidly developing fields of synthetic biology and synthetic genetics. I just wish that Rutherford could give us an annual update on the latest experiments and applications in these fields as they are quite mind-boggling in their scope and potential for real-life application. Absolutely fascinating.

The first half of Creation finally resolved for me a question that I had never really understood the answer to despite having read quite a bit about the history of life on our planet. That is, how did life actually start? Rutherford explains this simply to non-scientists, taking us through the cross-over point from chemistry (i.e. interactions between the chemical elements that make up the Earth) to biology (i.e. the ability of a "living" organism to replicate itself and to evolve, to pass on imperfections), and how that transition probably occurred about 4 billion years ago. Also, how every cell in our bodies, every cell in a flower, every cell in a boiling Icelandic mud pool traces its ancestry back and back to the same place, to one single entity, the "Last Universal Common Ancestor", or Luca as it is known. The third piece of the answer to my puzzle, which I had never fully realised, is that DNA is the same in all species: the letters of the code, the encryption in the code, even the molecular orientation are the same in a bacteria as they are in a blue whale. As Rutherford says, "only a system with a single root could display such conservation".

The other end of the book is rich in examples of how man is experimenting with cellular life via the new capabilities of synthetic biology which has the potential to transform our ability to improve health, manufacture products more efficiently, produce energy synthetically and to implement a host of other applications. It's as yet very early days, of course, and there are also ethical and security issues to be resolved, but already some of the experimental achievements are staggering.

A wonderful book, which I already feel I need to read again.

[Tulpesh Patel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The continuum from chemistry to life is now being stretched into technology. Adam Rutherford’s ‘two-books-in-one’, Creation, explores how life might have started and just what the future of life might be, with the advent of synthetic biology and increasingly cheaper, easier and democratic genetic engineering technologies putting us on the cusp of a revolutionary new age.

In The Origin of Life, with care, just the right amount of detail and cheerful wit, and using the stories and biographies of modern and historical chemists, Rutherford explains the science and scientific discoveries that are helping us figure out what life is and just how life on earth began.

Life may have originated on earth many times, but we know for certain that it only succeeded once. We know this, not just because all species on the planet same the basic genetic code, but because the proteins that the genes code for are all ‘right-handed’. I like to see this as though all the books in the library of life were not just written in the same language but also in the same font. If there wasn’t a single origin, we’d see left-handed proteins.

Stanley Miller’s seminal 1953 paper ‘A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions’, proposed the idea that life began in a ‘primordial soup’, and idea that has held sway for a long time, but newer theories propose that life actually started in porous rocks. British scientists like Nick Lane are trying to recreate conditions that resemble the earliest on earth to see just how chemicals can become life. The aim is not to reproduce the conditions exactly for the origin of life as they happened, that is pretty much impossible as much of what we know about that time has been lost in the tumult of the earth’s turbulent geological history; creating one plausible way it could have happened is enough.

MRS GREN: movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, nutrition, is what every school kid learns as something like the definition of life, but MRS GREN are the seven things that living things do; it is not a definition of what life is. There’s quite a bit of chemistry to get your head around as Rutherford explains the inadequacies of the MRS GREN definition and we move from molecules to cells to organisms made of trillions of cells, but this is no bad thing because of the engaging way it is presented; A writer that can explain the intricacies of the Krebs cycle without calling it the Krebs cycle deserves a huge deal of credit, and by the end of it you’ll have a pretty good idea of the ideas that lie behind newer ideas which define life as ‘energy capture that locally fights the second law of thermodynamics’, and the role of chemiosmosis in the origin of life.

The Future of Life is about where our increasingly sophisticated technological mastery of biology will take us, moving on from the chemistry lesson of the first 'book' and into exciting, speculative territory, centring around the nascent field of ‘synthetic biology’ and the ever-blurring line between biology and engineering.

We’ll learn of possibilities of modern transgenetic techniques which have led to the Freckles the goat, who has DNA from the golden weave spider spliced into her genome, allowing her to produce spider silk in her milk, and through the neat metaphor of early hip hop, we’ll learn how the BioBrix initiative is taking the tradition of open-source programming and democratising the science of gene manipulation, taking it out of the hands of the moneyed elite and putting it into the hand of any enthusiastic biology or engineering student who wants to build circuits outs of cellular machinery. I'd recommenced listening to the excellent Guardian Science Weekly podcast on the 6th International Meeting on Synthetic Biology, held at the Imperial College London in July for more details about the exciting projects and ideas currently in the works.

The latter part of The Future of Life moves away from the nitty-gritty of the genetics and discusses the revolution afforded by new biological techniques in the context of some of the ethical dilemmas that come to the fore as we grapple with new ways of understanding and controlling nature. There’s a fair and robust defence of GM crops, and a discussion of the tension between the possibilities afforded to us by new genetic engineering techniques and the public’s (general lack of) understanding of the science and the resistance of vociferous interests groups, that serve to outline some of the problems, which whilst certainly not new, will come increasingly to the fore as we search for ways to meet ever-growing global food – and fuel – demands.

As biology becomes engineering, commodification, ownership and patents become increasingly significant. One issue, that of patenting genes, has come nearer to resolution in the few months since the publication of Creation. The BRAC1 gene, which repairs DNA in breasts tissue and is associated with increased risk of breasts cancer when faulty, came into the wider public’s conscience after it was revealed that Anglie Jolie had a preventative double masectomy after screening positive for a mutated version of it. Myriad Genetics, wished to hold patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA 2 and be the only producer of tests to detect mutations in these genes, something which an anthema to the open source ethos of BioBrix and the like. Ben Goldacre wrote about the absurdity of patenting genes, and to the relief of researchers all over the world, the US Supreme Court ruled that "A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated", invalidating Myriad's patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but, crucially, leaving room open for patents on gene products that had been manipulated to create something not found in nature. Legal and ethical battles rage on and will have much to say about the direction and speed of progress in genetics.

Whilst Creation is, on the whole, a great, fun and informative read, splitting it into two ostensibly separate books, having the book flip over as we move from the origin of life to its future, quite literally marking the turning point turning for the discipline of biology, for me, just doesn’t really work. I doubt there are many people who will start with The Future of Life, without having read The Origin of Life first. Treating them as independent books means that much of the beginning of Future chapter peppered with re-treads of what was already written or Origins, or footnotes pointing to where it was covered in more detail. Just as with evolution, the future is built on the past and Creation would have been much the better for it if it had embraced this continuum; a minor criticism of what is an excellent book.

[Aaron Thibeault · Rating 4 out of 5]

*A full executive summary of this book is available at http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/07/10....

As the blueprint of all that lives, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) may be said to be the key to understanding life itself. It is incredible to think, then, that the structure of DNA was only discovered some 60 years ago (thanks especially to the work of James Watson and Francis Crick). Since that time, many significant advances in genetics have been made—including the deciphering of the genomes of numerous species (including our own); and, even more impressively, the successful manipulation of the genetic code to introduce the features of one species to another (for example, having a goat produce spider’s silk out of its milk).

As impressive as these feats are, though, they are but the beginning of what promises to come from the study of genetics. Indeed, compared with other sciences, such as physics and chemistry, genetics is still in its infancy, and we can be assured that the most significant discoveries and applications are yet to come. Even now, geneticists are making significant progress in uncovering the origin of life—meaning answering the question of just how life may have sprung out of lifeless chemistry—and are also making advancements in turning genetic manipulation into a standardized engineering science that is capable of churning out technological solutions in everything from food production to energy to medicine (a field that has been dubbed ‘synthetic biology’). It is these recent advances in genetics that are the main topic of Creation: How Science is Reinventing Life Itself by science writer Adam Rutherford.

Rutherford begins by giving us a refresher in basic biology, by way of running through the 3 ideas that stand at the heart of biology: 1) cell theory; 2) Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection; and 3) the structure and operation of DNA. Each of these ideas leads us to the conclusion that life began at a single point, but does not address the question of how life began in the first place. Now, though, this question is being addressed, and Rutherford updates us on the progress.

A living organism requires both a structure that can be replicated, and some energy to carry out this replication; thus the question of the origin of life comes down to the question of how this structure originally came to be organized, and where the energy came from to allow for the replication. With regards to the first part of this question, scientists have been able to trace out the likely original constituents of the first organism, and have also established that many of these original constituents readily self-organize into the form that they take when the right molecules and conditions are present—thus while the question of the original structure of life has not yet been solved entirely, geneticists are hot on the trail of doing just this.

Second, with regards to the energy problem, it has been established that, originally, the energy needed for replication could well have come from outside of the biological structure itself—the most likely candidate at this point being the energy from hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. Experiments are currently underway that recreate the physical and chemical conditions at the bottom of the ocean near hydrothermal vents—but the hit and miss nature of this procedure means that there are no guarantees these experiments will be successful in procuring life.

When it comes to creating life from scratch, the better bet might be that this will come from synthesizing the basic biological parts and manipulating them into the organization that is needed for them to carry on into perpetuity. This is the domain of a new science called synthetic biology. Of this domain we learn that geneticists have already been able to synthesize many biological structures—and have even synthesized DNA and introduced it into a cell where it functions normally, like any other DNA.

While creating life form scratch is one goal of synthetic biology, it is subordinate to a much larger goal, which is to take full control of genetic information in order that it may be used for any number of purposes, from incapacitating viruses, to creating synthetic biofuel, to fabricating food stuffs that carry any biological feature we may want. Scientists have in fact already made considerable progress in these areas. However, they have also run into some significant barriers along the way—largely having to do with the sheer complexity of biological systems. Still there is hope that this complexity will ultimately be tamed.

One part of this taming effort comes from the endeavor to create standardized genetic components that are capable of carrying out a specific function. The spirit of this enterprise is captured in the iGEM competition—an international competition that brings together teams of university students from every corner of the planet with one goal: to demonstrate a unique biological function using standard genetic parts, called ‘BioBricks’ (drawn from a library of these BioBricks that the students are themselves encouraged to add to in the course of their projects). The iGEM competition has already churned out some very impressive applications, and the speed of progress is very encouraging.

Rutherford does a very good job of covering some of the most significant recent advances in genetics, and of explaining the science behind it. The author also does well to capture the promise of the recent advances, while at the same time acknowledging the significant obstacles that stand in the way of future progress. The offering is certainly more readable than George Church's latest book Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves--to which this book will no doubt be compared. However, Rutherford (despite having a solid background in biology himself) does not have quite the insider's perspective that someone like Church does, which is the only drawback I see here. All in all a very good popular science book on a very important topic. A full executive summary of the book is available at http://newbooksinbrief.com/2013/07/10... a podcast discussion of the book will be available soon.

[Grrlscientist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever been so captivated by a book that when it ended, you were jolted back into reality — and that reality was a weak imitation of the rich and exciting world captured on the page? That happens to many people when they read fiction, but has it ever happened to you when reading a work of non-fiction? If this prospect appeals to you, then you simply must read Adam Rutherford’s new book, Creation: The Origin of Life & The Future of Life [Viking/Penguin, 2013]. Written by a geneticist for the general public and shortlisted for the 2014 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, Creation is a fascinating exploration of the origin and the future of life on Earth.

The book is divided into two halves that are bound — inverted — to each other. The first half of the book (130 pages), “The Origin of Life”, reviews Earth’s formative years, exploring how the planet’s tumultuous creation and youth gave rise to its unique geology, which of course influences biology.

Adam Rutherford (no relation to Ernest Rutherford) discusses how life may have come from non-life or basically, how chemistry gave rise to biology — a distinction that lacks a clear boundary. He starts the discussion by examining Charles Darwin’s idea that life originated in a “warm little pond” — a hypothesis that inspired a number of scientists to expand upon the idea. Perhaps the most famous was Stanley Miller’s widely acclaimed experiment that created lightning in a bottle containing essential prebiotic ingredients of a primordial soup.

But how might we identify that moment when mere chemicals become life? Although Rutherford reviews the basic qualities that all living things must possess, he proposes that life is something more than just completing a checklist, that living things can evolve and show consistent behaviours or responses to the environment — which sounds rather like another listicle to me, but um, whatevs.

Of course, life could have come from elsewhere — a nearby planet, a runaway comet or “outer space” — instead of originating here on Earth. Rutherford considers this hypothesis at length before (mostly) rejecting it. But in doing so, he presents the history of genetics, explaining how RNA and DNA work, and argues that the universally left-handed nature of proteins found in all living things on Earth is powerful evidence that “life is of a single origin.”

The second half of the book (125 pages), “The Future of Life”, discusses genetic engineering and synthetic biology. In this part, we meet Freckles the goat who produces spider silk in her milk, rice that is enriched with vitamins it normally lacks (encoded by genes obtained from daffodils) and yeast that manufacture a relatively clean diesel fuel. These organisms’ newly-acquired talents result from moving specific genes from one organism into the genome of another. This so-called “intelligent design” of transgenic organisms is conceived and carried out with molecular precision by scientists who identify the gene or genes that encode specific desired characters and copy-and-paste them into the genomes of livestock or pets, into crop plants or into single-celled organisms, such as bacteria or yeast.

This second part kept me awake into the wee hours, fascinated and unable to stop reading until I finished the book. (I did skim over the discussion of intellectual property matters because, well, that’s a complex book topic in itself!) The biological, medical and health benefits are seemingly endless, limited only by the imagination of the creators — us. For example, some of the body’s cells might be programmed to specifically destroy cancerous cells, leaving normal cells untouched, or a “synthetic cellular circuit” may turn on production of insulin when needed by diabetics. Other possibilities — such as using DNA as a digital information storage medium — are just as exciting, whereas others — the manufacture of biological weapons and the advent of bioterrorism — are the stuff of nightmares.

And this is where I part company from the author’s optimistic view of humans’ ability to shuffle genes to suit our purposes. True, scientists are using intelligence to redesign life for specific purposes, but no one, not even Darwin, can peer into a crystal ball and see what the future consequences of such progress might be. Even scientific geniuses are imperfect. Governments are agenda-driven political entities. Corporations are consumed by the pursuit of monetary gains, so long-term consequences of genetic tinkering — even if they can be accurately predicted — are highly unlikely to change their short-term behaviours. Further, as the world learned once again in the aftermath of 9/11, not all people are altruists. Although Rutherford recognises that genetic engineering and synthetic biologists should be subject to regulation and oversight, he is less cautious than I am.

Although the two halves of the book are promoted as readable in either order, and some readers may be tempted to skip straight to the controversial ideas in the second half, I think this would be a mistake: the first half is where Rutherford presents the necessary context and history and sets up his later arguments. For these reasons, most readers will learn something new — I did, and I taught freshman biology! As an added bonus, Rutherford’s agile writing is clear, informative and witty (especially in the footnotes).

My only complaint — and it’s minor — is that I did not like the two halves of the book published upside down to each other. This book is good enough that it certainly doesn’t need any gimmicks to attract attention. Why not publish the book as two parts instead?

As with any book, a few errors did slip past the fact-checkers. For example, I was surprised to read that the science-fiction thriller, The Andromeda Strain, “tapped into post-Watergate insecurity” even though this film was released before the Watergate break-in even occurred. More amusing was the author’s dedication of the first half of his book to David Rutherford, “from whose cells I came”, suggesting (to me at least) that the author is a clone.

Fascinating, engaging and thought-provoking, this overview of biology is a fast read that will be enjoyed by biologists as well as by scientists in other fields, by students and by all thinking adults.


NOTE: Originally published at The Guardian on 23 April 2014.

[Jenell Bakey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I read Adam Rutherford's other book, "A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived" and loved it. This one, however, was just okay. The first half was a lot of biology review (if you took even basic biology in high school) and the second half got into synthetic biology and the various controversies and triumphs that surround the science. Rutherford's position on the subject is made very clear, and I always appreciate his footnotes and dry sense of humor, but I often found my mind wandering while reading this book because it included so many technical details that weren't always necessary (i.e. should the Afterword really introduce new concepts? Probably not.). He still does a good job making it accessible for the most part, but I wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about and entertained by this book as I was with his other one. I also felt like he could have spent less time on the review/setup and more time on the fascinating subject of synthetic biology and it's uses.