#14 in Anatomy books
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Reddit mentions of The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
Sentiment score: 2
Reddit mentions: 3
We found 3 Reddit mentions of The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life. Here are the top ones.
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W W Norton Company
Specs:
| Height | 9.6 Inches |
| Length | 6.5 Inches |
| Number of items | 1 |
| Release date | July 2015 |
| Weight | 1.45 Pounds |
| Width | 1.2 Inches |
There's a couple books I think you would like, seeing as I always see you talking about the evolution of information and biochemistry.
The first one is Arrival of the Fittest by Andreas Wagner. This guy is a researcher who studied things like proteins and gene mutations and uploaded all kinds of information about it into these sophisticated computer programs to create maps of how genes, proteins, metabolisms, and other things like this are related to each other and how their evolution actually occurs and produces useful novelty. This book blew my mind like nothing I've ever read on the subject. It's really fascinating and has some really unexpected stuff.
Then the other one is The Vital Question by biochemist Nick Lane. This dude is a really novel thinker and really goes far in depth into the possible original biochemistry, how it achieved an energetic level high enough to produce complex life, and more.
Both books can get kind of complex. They went over my head many many times, especially the Nick Lane book because he goes deep into the nitty gritty particulars of the biochemistry. But even so, you can get through them without too much difficulty, and both authors have a real gift for describing this stuff. Ultimately both completely blew open my understanding of the subject and made it all so much more interesting.
Edit: also, you can read some of Nick Lane's stuff for free here, especially under the publications tab. Also, he did a really cool study showing that the genome complexity seen in Eukaryotes could not have evolved without the energetic input of mitochondria, and this is one of the main themes of his book. That study is here, and has some really interesting implications for astrobiology, which he talks about in the book too.
If you want a great technical book the subject I encourage you to check out this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Vital-Question-Evolution-Origins-Complex/dp/0393088812
He explains the "metabolism first" hypothesis of the origin of life
Have you read the Vital Question by Nick Lane? What are your thoughts on its thesis?