"This book will explore how the flow of energy and matter structures the evolution of life and even genetic information."
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."
"According to mitochondrial gene analysis, man didnt interbreed with Homo Sapiens..."
"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."
"The information encoded in DNA spells out the molecular structure of s. This, said Crick, is the central dogma of all biology: genes code for proteins."
"[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."