What Is Life?
Five Great Ideas in Biology
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Narrated by:
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Paul Nurse
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By:
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Paul Nurse
About this listen
The Nobel Prize-winning scientist's elegant explanation of the fundamental ideas in biology and their uses today.
The renowned biologist Paul Nurse has spent his career revealing how living cells work. In What Is Life?, he takes up the challenge of describing what it means to be alive in a way that every listener can understand.
It is a shared journey of discovery; step-by-step Nurse illuminates five great ideas that underpin biology - the Cell, the Gene, Evolution by Natural Selection, Life as Chemistry, and Life as Information. He introduces the scientists who made the most important advances, and, using his personal experiences in and out of the lab, he shares with us the challenges, the lucky breaks, and the thrilling eureka moments of discovery.
Nurse writes with delight at life's richness and with a sense of the urgent role of biology in our time. To survive the challenges that face us all today - climate change, pandemic, loss of biodiversity and food security - it is vital that we all understand what life is.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,047
In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection - a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Enjoyable and Readable
- By Dennis on 08-18-18
By: David Quammen
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A World Beyond Physics
- The Emergence and Evolution of Life
- By: Stuart A. Kauffman
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
Among the estimated 100 billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Bleh!!
- By PS on 11-22-19
What listeners say about What Is Life?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ashok k
- 11-07-23
Excellent
I thoroughly enjoyed the audible. I will listen to this again. The sections are split clearly for a better understanding of the narration.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Luis
- 10-09-24
Fascinating presentation of our current understanding of what life is.
Very accesible and entertaining account of the principles of life. The author craftily uses his own personal experience and research to tell the story of the five dimensions that constitute life.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nury
- 01-27-25
The scientific knowledge
Thank you so much. Beautiful book. Beautiful knowledge. Thank you so much. Gracias. Muchas gracias.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Yvonne Bodin
- 06-12-22
A Stunning Read!
Who we are, how we function and what we can become in the future! I will read
it again and again!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- angela
- 10-06-21
Will listen to this again!
Very informative and presented in a very accessible and engaging manner by the lovely Dr. Nurse himself.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Marcia
- 09-27-21
Wonderful
I greatly enjoyed the information as well as the narration. I enjoyed the personal stories as well.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Humongous
- 01-28-25
Simply fantastic!
Paul Nurse reads his own very interesting book in a gracious and captivating manner. Nurse, a top tier scientist who made key discoveries in his particular field, tells the story of life by presenting unifying principles, and by doing so, creates a clear, concise and amazingly, entertaining tapestry of the evolving living world. I listened to it twice, and I’ll listen again I’m sure. And, such a clear, measured and engaging manner of speaking!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Shin
- 01-10-23
Rich evidence of design but still believe in evolution
I admire the technical details of explaining mechanics of life and glad author mentioned the DNA and amazement of human brain and even creation of computer programs.
However with such great design from physics to chemical to bio to intelligence, the conclusion of the book is greatness of natural selection.
I want to leave an open question here is: what is this selection? Who is selecting?
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1 person found this helpful