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The Vital Question
The Vital Question: Why is Life the Way it Is? | Nick Lane
10 posts | 7 read | 1 reading | 21 to read
Why is life the way it is? Bacteria evolved into complex life just once in four billion years of life on earth-and all complex life shares many strange properties, from sex to ageing and death. If life evolved on other planets, would it be the same or completely different?In The Vital Question, Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a cogent solution to conundrums that have troubled scientists for decades. The answer, he argues, lies in energy: how all life on Earth lives off a voltage with the strength of a bolt of lightning. In unravelling these scientific enigmas, making sense of life's quirks, Lane's explanation provides a solution to life's vital questions: why are we as we are, and why are we here at all?This is ground-breaking science in an accessible form, in the tradition of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.
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review
MentalFlux
Pickpick

Energy + Structure = Life.

Sometimes you read a book and you know it has changed your life.

Nick is an incredible communicator who will have you on the edge of your seat as he describes how exciting the energy flux of a proton gradient is!!

This book will help you understand inorganics -> organics and why energy and cell structure led to sexual transmission of genes

review
LauraJ
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Pickpick

My book club read this and while most found it difficult material, everyone liked it. Lane explains how a bacterium worked its way into an archaeon and this merging of cells created the internalized ability to make energy, which allowed for larger, more complex cells and much more. Diagrams of cellular and chemical processes would have been beneficial for the average reader, but it's worth the effort if you want to know why life works as it does.

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LauraJ
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Was listening to this audiobook via Echo when I learned that Alexa can meow! Now the kitten is conversing with Alexa in meows. She's also convinced that the meows are coming from outside the apartment.
I'm never going to finish this book. #catsoflitsy

Iamlisa22 😂 7y
emilyhaldi Omg I must try this tomorrow 😹😹 7y
Mariposa_Bookworm Now I totally want one so it will meow at my Oreo. 7y
See All 11 Comments
Mimi28 That's sooooo cute!!! 7y
kspenmoll Was the kitty meowing & Alexa answered or was it in the book?! Dense tonight. 7y
LauraJ @kspenmoll Alexa was answering the kitty. 7y
DebinHawaii That is hilarious! 🤣🐱❤️ 7y
LauraJ @emilyhaldi It's the "Meow!" skill 7y
Reecaspieces 😂😂😂 7y
Wife My first laugh of the day! 😂Thanks 🌹 7y
LauraJ @Wife Always happy to oblige 😺 7y
55 likes11 comments
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LauraJ
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Picked this up on audiobook because A) Amazon has Audible subscriptions for $8.95/mo. and the library doesn't have it B) I need help finishing this before my book club and I read too slowly.
BUT... the narrator keeps mispronouncing words and driving it's me nuts. The word "prion" is pronounced "PREE-on"! Genomics is NOT gee-NOM-ics! I may have to suck it up and back to reading.
#nonfictionchallenge17

Sweettartlaura Wait... Your Audible is only $8.95/mo??? How did you get that deal? 7y
AceOnRoam Woah. I pay 14.95! 7y
LauraJ @Sweettartlaura @AceOnRoam It's a special on Amazon for Prime members. 7y
Sweettartlaura Not for current Audible subscribers 😕 - checked it out earlier. Enjoy - there's a lot of great stuff! 7y
30 likes1 stack add4 comments
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LauraJ
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Pet sitting my neighbor's cat, Diego aka The Walrus. I'm reading about cellular respiration and asking him why the term 'Krebs cycle' isn't used in this book. I think he's at a loss.
#catsoflitsy

Dragon I remember drawing giant charts of the Kreb Cycle and hanging them on my dorm room walls 😂 7y
44 likes1 comment
review
shanaqui
Pickpick

More readable than I feared, though for me that's probably because the basics are already familiar. Very speculative in places, but interesting and mostly testable.

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shanaqui

As I've come to understand this stuff more, I find less room for religious belief, but more room for wonder. I mean... all life on Earth originated from the same point. Our respiration is the same as bacteria. It evolved *once*.

Lane used the words "by lucky chance", and it takes some thought and background to realise how truly lucky and *implausible* we are. I'm a bag of chemical reactions, wondering about what I'm made of and why... Wow.

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shanaqui

Most difficult thing to wrap my head around: the idea that despite their apparent orderliness, living cells increase entropy. I am sure this is opposite to other books I've read.

2 likes1 comment
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shanaqui
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"I challenge you to look at one of your own cells down a microscope and distinguish it from the cells of a mushroom."

... Obviously not intended for someone studying human and cell biology. I was warned this book might be heavy going, but I'm guessing not for me. (Although, just one cell on its own? Hmm. Maybe not... Depends on WHICH human cell, probably. Blood cell? Nooooooo problem.)

Hooked_on_books Neuron would be obvious, too. 8y
5 likes1 comment
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MrBook
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Tonight, I close with a profound question for you all. ....Perhaps the most important question of our time! By the grace of God, may we reach a satisfactory answer to this most momentous of queries. 🤔 #LitsyHumor

Ubookquitous Perfect 8y
LeslieO Mind blown. 8y
KennethTolesJr Several. Maybe even all of them. All he had to say was that he owned the joint and took his entourage with him to everyone of them. Boom. Answered the unanswerable. 8y
See All 8 Comments
Theresa That is worthy of a mic drop! 👏👏👏😂😂😂 8y
SheilaChew It would be low of Rob to rob Lowe's. 8y
booksandsympathy This cracks me up 8y
RealBooks4ever 🤣🤣🤣 8y
LitsyGoesPostal 😊👍🏻 8y
135 likes1 stack add8 comments