From Goo to You

What This Book Covers

1. Chapter One - What Is Life, Really?
2. Chapter Two - Chemical Sparks
3. Chapter Three - The First Cells
4. Chapter Four - The Age of Bacteria
5. Chapter Five - The Oxygen Revolution
6. Chapter Six - Eukaryotes: The Upgrade
7. Chapter Seven - The Cambrian Boom
8. Chapter Eight - Plants, Bugs, and Bones
9. Chapter Nine - Brains, Blood, and Warmth
10. Chapter Ten - Sex and Death
11. Chapter Eleven - Biology Gets Ambitious
12. Chapter Twelve - Where It’s All Going

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE What Is Life, Really? LIFE IS ONE of those words everyone uses without really knowing what it means. We say something is “alive” because it moves, or grows, or breathes. But fire does all of those. So do rivers. So does lightning if you squint hard enough. And none of those are alive. So what’s the difference between a living thing and everything else? You could say life reproduces, but viruses can’t reproduce without a host, and they’re still kind of alive. You could say life responds to stimuli, but so does a thermostat. You could say it grows, but crystals grow, and no one’s throwing them birthday parties. So biologists cheat a little. They use a checklist. Life, they say, is...