Singularities
Landmarks on the Pathways of Life

A fascinating look at the key steps or bottlenecks that constrain the path to the origin and evolution of life.

Christian de Duve (Author)

9780521841955, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 October 2005

274 pages, 15 b/w illus.
23.7 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.576 kg

'… we should always be alert to the great problems, such as understanding the processes leading to the origin of life. Given past experience, such great questions will be solved - not by chance but by the prepared mind. This book is a start to preparing that mind.' Nature

Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? published 60 years ago, influenced much of the development of molecular biology. In this new book Christian De Duve, Nobel Laureate and pioneer of modern cell biology, presents a contemporary response to this classic, providing a sophisticated consideration of the key steps or bottlenecks that constrain the origins and evolution of life. De Duve surveys the entire history of life, including insights into the conditions that may have led to its emergence. He uses 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.

1. Building blocks
2. Homochirality
3. Protometabolism
4. ATP
5. Electrons and protons
6. Thioesters
7. RNA
8. Proteins
9. DNA
10. Membranes
11. Protonmotive force
12. Protometabolism revisited
13. The LUCA
14. The first fork
15. Eukaryotes
16. Oxygen
17. Endosymbionts
18. Multicellular organisms
19. Homo
20. Evolution revisited.

Subject Areas: Molecular biology [PSD], Biochemistry [PSB], Evolution [PSAJ], Biology, life sciences [PS]