De Duve. Singularities : landmarks on the pathways of life

Title

De Duve. Singularities : landmarks on the pathways of life

Files

Description

Christian de Duve. Singularities: landmarks on the pathways of life

This brief but deep book presents a sophisticated consideration of the key steps or bottlenecks that constrain the path to the origin and evolution of life. Christian de Duve, a pioneer of modern cell biology and Nobel laureate, gives in this book a contemporary response to Erwin Schr¨odinger’s tremendously influential What Is Life? which 60 years ago influenced many of the pioneers of molecular biology. Christian de Duve offers shrewd insights on the conditions that may have first called forth life and surveys the entire history of life, using as landmarks the many remarkable singularities along the way, such as the single ancestry of all living beings, the universal genetic code, and the monophyletic origin of eukaryotes. The book offers a brief guided tour of biochemistry and phylogeny, from the basic molecular building blocks to the origin of humans. Each successive singularity is introduced in a sequence paralleling the hypothetical development of features and conditions on the primitive earth, explaining how and why each transition to greater complexity occurred. --Cambridge University Press


ISBN

052184195X

Publication Date

2005

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

City

Cambridge, New York

Keywords

biogenesis, exobiology, evolution, origin of life

Comments

The Rockefeller University Library Level B QH 325 D299 2005

The Rockefeller University Library President's Office OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

The Rockefeller University Library 3rd Floor Special Collections OH 325 D299 2005

De Duve. Singularities : landmarks on the pathways of life

Share

COinS