Complete What is Life? Test Bank by Christian De Duve

A Contemporary Response to a Classic

Christian De Duve, Nobel Laureate and pioneer of modern cell biology, presents a sophisticated consideration of the key steps or bottlenecks that constrain the origins and evolution of life.

A Survey of the History of Life

De Duve surveys the entire history of life, including insights into the conditions that may have led to its emergence.

The Many Singularities Along the Way

He uses as landmarks the many remarkable singularities along the way, such as the single ancestry of all living beings, the universal genetic code, and the monophyletic origin of eukaryotes.

A Brief Guided Tour of Biochemistry and Phylogeny

The book offers a brief guided tour of biochemistry and phylogeny, from the basic molecular building blocks to the origin of humans.

Each successive singularity is introduced in a sequence paralleling the hypothetical development of features and conditions on the primitive earth, explaining how and why each transition to greater complexity occurred.