Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

Lane makes every topic readable and information-packed. Most people who have taken the dreaded biochemistry course haven't learned half as much about the Krebs Cycle as is in this book, and most of them dreaded the course partly because they found it so hard to learn. But of course you wouldn't just look at a car and how some of the parts (wheels, belts) go around that it uses fuel. you would look at how the parts relate to each other and what each one does. That is what Lane does for the Krebs Cycle.Lane takes the cycle in small steps shows what each one does and how it is essential to the life that runs on oxygen, and by running in reverse, makes oxygen by breaking off from other chemicals. He shows how it can be adapted by its chemical environment to produce other necessary chemicals along the way. His stories of discovery are partly from his own research of deep-sea life. The Krebs cycle is independent of life (I hadn't known this) but can just chug along producing components that can be used by living things as they emerge and become capable of reproducing.Every book I have read by Lane has been fascinating. I started with Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life and they were all great.

For anyone, who has "suffered" through memorizing the Krebs/citric acid cycle as presented in biochemistry, this is the rest of the story. For the conventional dogma is so narrow and incomplete that in maybe only a few exceptional courses, does one get an idea of just how much more there is and how that fits in with the whole picture of metabolism.Well, this book helps to bring one along to see just how marvelous and intricate all of this is, whether the cycle runs forward as taught or (gasp) backward, when there is but a slight change in conditions. You learn all sorts of connecting and informative information about the greater scheme of things as the story unfolds. Lane gives the reader plenty of perspectives as to the history and personalities of those who were pioneers in developing and sorting out this most basic of cellular chemistry.The book is not overly technical, but it helps if the reader already has some idea of the cycle, even if it was studied a long time ago, for he will bring you up to date and take you way, way beyond as you progress through the various chapters on how life may have begun, what life is, issues around aging (not what you might first think), a metabolic view of cancer, the interplay between metabolic energy and gene expression, dissonance between mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, and even how this basic biochemistry and the electric fields associated with charge imbalance across membranes may be at the root of thought and self awareness itself.

I am a big Nick Lane fan, and this book was ultimately very rewarding. However, at least for someone with a limited background in chemistry, this book was a slog, and required too frequent use of the internet to supplement; I have included helpful material on glycosis at the end of this review. It would also have helped to separate more of the detailed chemistry from the rest: Lane’s notes are sometimes more readable than the basic text.While mutations may cause cancer, particularly in young people, most mutations found in people with cancer arise once the process is underway. The major problem is the decline in respiration efficiency with age; damage may be “caused by protein unfolding or cross-linking, oxidation by ROS or glycation (the tendency of sugars such as glucose to react with proteins and lipids).” ROS stands for reactive oxygen species, free radicals. The ROS signals the cell to slow down respiration to control the ROS. The Krebs cycle intermediate succinate accumulates causing epigenetic changes (so gene activity follows faulty metabolism rather than causing it) and the Krebs cycle sometimes flows in reverse, creating biosynthesis (this was the original direction of the Krebs cycle). The cellular environment now “shouts grow”.As in earlier books, the theory on the origin of life centers around hydrothermal vents: not the deep-water vents around now, but reactions caused by the direct contact between ocean water and the earth’s mantle, in the absence of the earth’s crust which basically did not then exist.Some interesting observations: the Cambrian explosion was when the Krebs cycle was first used primarily to generate energy not biosynthesis, taking advantage of the increased oxygen available. Rubisco in plants is considered inefficient as it does not adequately distinguish oxygen from carbon dioxide, but this may be necessary to prevent oxidative damage. People with type II diabetes have double the risk of Alzheimer’s, which is increasingly looking like a metabolic disease to Lane and others.GLycosis.Converting Carbohydrates into Pyruvic acid uses a total of 10 chemical reactions. However, on finishing Glycosis the cell then decides which process to carry out. If Oxygen is present then the cell uses aerobic respiration (with oxygen) and then continues on to Krebs Cycle. The Pyruvic acid produced during Glycolysis enters the mitochondria and immediately converts to Acetyl Coenzyme A. Some living systems use an inorganic molecule other than O2 such as sulfate. Fermentation pathways, in the absence of oxygen, consist of glycolysis with some extra reactions tacked on at the end. In yeast, the extra reactions make alcohol, while in your muscles, they make lactic acid.

So much to learn. Clearly presented insights into origin of life.

I appreciate this book very much for it's pursuit to reveal the relation between the very basics of the biochemistry are the origin of life and death. The knowledge described in this book helps me a lot in the formation of consistent and non-contradictory world-view.

Great content, Nick Lane is yet again proving that he can write interesting book about seemingly boring subject.

Tellement intriquée et complexe la fonction cellulaire que cela vous donne des frissons de plaisir sachant que tout ceci se passe à une vitesse incroyable en ce moment même à l'intérieur de vous et de chacune de vos minuscules et fragiles cellules. Raison de plus de faire attention à nous en toute moment selon des percepts très anciens..si vous n'avez pas assez de notions de chimie et biochimie les quelques pages de réactions chimiques (passionnantes d'ailleurs car bien conservées par l'évolution depuis de millions d'années dans toute les organismes et cellules vivantes ) peuvent être zappés.

tiny margins and poor quality print.