num_pages: 160
description: The Nobel Prizewinning scientists 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 reader can understand. It is a shared journey of discovery; step-by-step Nurse illuminates five great ideas that underpin biologythe 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 lifes richness and with a sense of the urgent role of biology in our time. To survive the challenges that face us all todayclimate change pandemic loss of biodiversity and food securityit is vital that we all understand what life is.
language: English
title: What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company