Biology 101

What This Book Covers

1. Chapter One - What Is Life? (And Who Decides?)
2. Chapter Two - The First Taxonomists
3. Chapter Three - Let There Be Microscope
4. Chapter Four - The Cell Theory Revolution
5. Chapter Five - Darwin Drops the Bomb
6. Chapter Six - Mendel’s Peas and Genetic Ghosting
7. Chapter Seven - The War Over Evolution
8. Chapter Eight - The Double Helix
9. Chapter Nine - The Rise of Molecular Biology
10. Chapter Ten - The Human Genome Project
11. Chapter Eleven - CRISPR and the Code-Writers
12. Chapter Twelve - The Future of Life

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE What Is Life? (And Who Decides?) BEFORE WE COULD dissect a frog or peer into a cell, we had to ask the most basic and most maddening question of all: What counts as alive? To a modern mind, it seems obvious. A cat is alive. A rock isn’t. But if you rewind the clock, that line gets blurry fast. Ancient humans didn’t have biology, they had stories. They looked around and saw spirits in trees, demons in diseases, and a life force flowing through all things. This wasn’t primitive, it was logical given what they had. The world was animated by something. They just didn’t know what. Some called it pneuma. Others called it élan vital. The Chinese called it qi. The Hindus, prana. Life...