What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology in Science and Inquiry

Aug 04, 2021 Charlene rated it really liked it

Shelves: origins-of-life, evolution, politics, ecology, climate, biology

In the 1940s Erwin Schrodinger asked, "What is Life?". Since then, many scientists have tried to give a more complete answer. Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel Prize for the co-discovery of molecules that control cell division in the cell cycle, has taken his lifetime in biology to try to answer this question as well.

Before answering, Nurse provided a summary of cells, genes, evolution as well as life as chemistry and life as information. I was not sure where he was going with the summaries. They In the 1940s Erwin Schrodinger asked, "What is Life?". Since then, many scientists have tried to give a more complete answer. Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel Prize for the co-discovery of molecules that control cell division in the cell cycle, has taken his lifetime in biology to try to answer this question as well.

Before answering, Nurse provided a summary of cells, genes, evolution as well as life as chemistry and life as information. I was not sure where he was going with the summaries. They were thorough, but if you already took Bio 101, and intermediate boichem, there would not be much new information. I kept hoping he would sprinkle in a hint of how he was putting all of this old information together, "in a new way," but I had to wait until the end of the book.

Nurse's discussion of enzymes was something to behold. Much of the book read like a textbook, but this section on enzymes read like a mystery filled story in which the reader got to think deeply about all of the incredible things happening inside the tiny cell. Precision enzymes that recognize, perfectly, their substrate, and how they cleave it at exact sites, to make a new product that, in turn, becomes the substrate for the next enzyme. I always loved this (and basically all cell signaling) when I was in college and love to revisit it when an author comes along and can dive in and take me for what feels like a Magic School Bus ride through the cell. I really loved that section and read it two times. Nurse had the same engaging style when writing about ribosomes. I highly recommend not skipping that section, even if you are familiar with all the biochem in this book. It was very well written and immensely enjoyable.

At the very end of the book, Nurse outlined his 3 principles for defining life and they are as follows:

1) Just like Herman Mueller stated, life has to have the ability to evolve and reproduce. Life is subjected to heredity, variability, mutation, and selection.

2) There is a physicality to life in which each form of life is a bounded entity, separated from its environment. This means cultures and computer programs are excluded.

3) (Which is really the "new way of putting it together")

Living entities are chemical, physical, and informational machines. They construct their own metabolism and use it to maintain their life, grow, and reproduce. These living machines are coordinated and regulated by managing information, with the effect that living entities operate as purposeful wholes.

One issue I had with "purposeful wholes" is that Nurse wrote about gravitational waves and rivers as examples of non purposeful entities and used cells and animal bodies as examples of purposeful entities. He should have at least talked about stars, Earth (with its active core), or some other entity that better resisted entropy. Comparing cells or animal bodies to gravitational waves and rivers is not a very good comparison. It would have been better to compare rivers and gravitational waves to downstream cell signaling of the cell and not the cell itself. I feel like Eric Smith (Origin of Life) would have a lively debate with Nurse about this 3rd section of his criteria for life. That said, I think most scientists are on board and excited about life as chemical, physical, and informational machines. It would have been nice to expand on this a bit since it was, by far, the most exciting part of the book. But, Nurse's descriptions of information were very basic and very brief. There was nothing in depth like there was in the Life as Chemistry section. There was no elaboration on this 3rd criteria for life.

Nurse also glossed over his own work on cell division in the cell cycle. I would have liked to have read more about that time in his life, but I guess that is for another book (hopefully).

I noticed that in some reviews, people didn't love that this was two books in one. I agree that it was, because Nurse was focused on the definition of life in the first and 3rd part of the book, but in the middle he shared lots of opinions about the anti-vaxxer crowd, the anti-GMO movement, and climate change deniers. I think every scientist should weigh in on such issues. We are in a post Trump world, in which facts are attacked. My own mother, who is 77 and who almost always tries to make her decisions based on evidence, asked me, "How many scientists do you think believe in climate change?" I was so shocked, because I know she understands it enough to know it's very real, but she is being swayed by politicians and their followers who deliberately obfuscate the discussion surrounding climate change and try to pretend there are "facts" on "both sides." There is only the side of truth and the side of lies. There are not two valid sides. I informed her that all reputable scientists recognize that climate change is caused by natural causes (CO2 gases spewing out of volcanoes and cyclic CO2 levels) and is hastened by human actions (factories, farming, human caused change in Earth's surface and oceans). But she still seems confused because she lives in Pittsburg and, in her part of that area, is surrounded by conservative people who actually believe the lies Trump and other climate change deniers keep feeding the public. So, it is incredibly important that all scientists address these important issues anytime they have a platform to do so. our intellectual integrity as a people depends on it. Our health and environmental policies depend on it. ...more

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Aug 09, 2021 Jim rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical, 2non-fiction, 1audio, science

I recently read a book about trees where a dendrochronologist said that all tree trunk cells were dead save in the cambium layer & I guess they are for her purposes. Others say not, although the cells aren't typically active nor do they reproduce. I've also read about arguments of where to place viruses on the tree of life &/or whether they even belong there. It makes me wonder if we have a good definition of life & death, so I'm hoping this book will tell me the current thinking & give me a bet ...more

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