The Vital Question

Starred review from July 6, 2015
English biochemist Lane, whose previous book, Life Ascending, won the 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books, combines elegant prose and an enthusiasm for big questions as he attempts to peer into a "black hole at the heart of biology." Scientists "have no idea why cells work the way they do," nor "how the parts evolved," though as Lane points out, eukaryotic cellsâthe building blocks of all multicellular lifeâshare multiple complex structural and functional features. With impeccable logic and current research data, he makes a case for a common ancestor of all multicellular lifeâone created by a singular endosymbiotic event between a bacterial cell and an archaon cell that became the cell-powering mitochondrion. Lane walks readers through the details of how bacteria alone could have become metabolically diverse but not structurally complex. He then shows how the addition of mitochondria to the equation allowed a shift in energy flow through the cell, and how the migration of DNA introns from mitochondria DNA to the cell nucleus provided a wealth of new genetic material on which evolution could operate. The science is both a puzzle and a dance; Lane retains a sense of wonder as he embraces a bold hypothesis and delights in the hard data that gives it weight.

June 1, 2015

Celebrated evolutionary biologist Lane (Life Ascending) outlines what he hopes are the "beginnings of a more predictive biology" that may make it "possible to predict the properties of life anywhere in the universe from the chemical composition of the cosmos." Lane eloquently argues that complex eukaryotic life, as wildly disparate as it seems, is stunningly uniform at base, deriving from a single event in which one bacterium entered another and overcame the constraints that held back other such organisms. This singular endosymbiotic occasion, most evident to us today via our cells' mitochondria (which were once free-floating bacteria), triggered an astonishing series of previously impossible evolutionary actions resulting in billions of animal and plant species that yet share a method of conserving energy: chemiosmosis, or the transfer of protons across a membrane. And according to Lane, "Evolution should continue to play out along similar lines, guided by similar constants, elsewhere in the universe." VERDICT Novel and complex ideas, vibrant prose, and the author's careful repetition of central themes, make this book accessible to scientists and science buffs alike.--Cynthia Fox, Brooklyn

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