What Is Life?

Five Great Ideas in Biology

By: Paul Nurse

Narrated by: Paul Nurse

The Nobel Prize-winning scientist's 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 listener can understand. 

It is a shared journey of discovery; step-by-step Nurse illuminates five great ideas that underpin biology - the 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 life's richness and with a sense of the urgent role of biology in our time. To survive the challenges that face us all today - climate change, pandemic, loss of biodiversity and food security - it is vital that we all understand what life is.

©2020 Paul Nurse (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

The scientific knowledge

Thank you so much. Beautiful book. Beautiful knowledge. Thank you so much. Gracias. Muchas gracias.

Fascinating presentation of our current understanding of what life is.

Very accesible and entertaining account of the principles of life. The author craftily uses his own personal experience and research to tell the story of the five dimensions that constitute life.

A Stunning Read!

Who we are, how we function and what we can become in the future! I will read
it again and again!

Will listen to this again!

Very informative and presented in a very accessible and engaging manner by the lovely Dr. Nurse himself.

Wonderful

I greatly enjoyed the information as well as the narration. I enjoyed the personal stories as well.