Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane W.W. Norton HK$136
Billions of years ago, the third planet from the sun probably had that Mars look - reddish, dusty and devoid of life. Today it's our blue and green home, teeming with creatures.
How did this astonishing change come about?
That daunting question is the subject of Nick Lane's latest book, Life Ascending - The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. A British biochemist and writer, Lane has already proven himself a talented and fearless populariser of science: his first two books (on oxygen and mitochondria) were named book of the year by The Sunday Times and The Economist, respectively.
'[We] marvel and wonder at how we came to be here,' he writes in Life Ascending. 'For the first time in the history of our planet, we know.'
With a clear warning that much of our knowledge is still provisional, Lane plunges into the 10 key stages of the development of life - from its first stirrings in the sea to its profusion and division into the multitude of forms that live, and have lived, here.
His top 10 begins with the origin of life in undersea geothermal vents, and moves on to the workings of DNA, then the way photosynthesis turned our dusty red world blue and green, and the development of the complex cell. The others are sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness and, finally, death, which keeps the wheels turning.
