"I do like this quote from Simon Conway Morris that if the aliens call then dont pick up the phone. Im not sure Id really like to meet any of them very much. Perhaps... meeting bacteria would be the least scary... [T]he chances of meeting aliens is so remote that I havent really troubled myself very much about it. It would be nice to think that if we did, somehow they would be a superior intelligence... they would have solved a lot of the problems of aggression and whatever else that humans have, but I fear not. I fear that it would be the opposite, that... natural selection has a knack of producing nastiness in intelligence."
Nick Lane is a British biochemist and writer. He is a professor in evolutionary biochemistry at University College London. His books have won several awards.
"[T]he contends that ageing and many of... [its associated] diseases... are caused by... free radicals leaking from mitochondria during normal . ...As they burn up food using oxygen, the free-radical sparks escape to damage adjacent structures ...Many cruel inherited conditions... are linked with mutations caused by free radicals attacking mitochondrial genes."
"This book will explore how the flow of energy and matter structures the evolution of life and even genetic information."
"[L]ife will probably get stuck in a bacterial rut elsewhere in the universe... we might not be alone, but will almost certainly be lonely."
"The possessors of... nuclei, the s, are the most important cells in the world. ...[A]ll plants and animals, all and fungi... essentially everything we can see with the naked eye, is composed of [them]..."
"This membrane, so vanishingly thin, looms large... for bacteria use it for generating their energy."
"According to mitochondrial gene analysis, man didnt interbreed with Homo Sapiens..."