What is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes Biology (Oxford Landmark Science)

by Addy Pross

Nature, if anything, pushes systems toward equilibrium, toward disorder and chaos, not toward order and function. Or does it?

‘Organisms are resilient patterns in a turbulent flow—patterns in an energy flow.’

Even the slightest structural change to that organized complexity may have dramatic consequences.

even a single change in a human’s DNA sequence, one out of 3 billion units, may potentially lead to thousands of genetic diseases, such as sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis, and Huntington’s disease. Small changes to life’s complex structure may well undermine the viability of that living system, and in extreme cases the living system may be living no longer.