The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

Very stylish discussions of a range of topics.

This book consists of 29 stand-alone essays, beautifully written and previously published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" during the early seventies.From the first chapter: "The viruses, instead of being single-minded agents of disease and death, now begin to look more like mobile genes...We live in a dancing matrix of viruses; they dart, rather like bees, from organism to organism, from plant to insect to mammal to me and back again, and into the sea, tugging along pieces of this genome, strings of genes from that, transplanting grafts of DNA, passing around heredity as though at a great party."Although there is no continuity from chapter to chapter, there are consistent threads of thought as the author free associates:1.There is a joyful attitude about science and discovery and abundant tidbits about the goings on of living things.2.There is constant reference to the interaction, symbiosis, and co-operative living arrangements amongst the different species.3.There are numerous references to the mindless activities of ants, bees, and termites, whose activities create sophisticated, developed projects without any evidence of central control. These examples are repeatedly compared to humans and their social activities, with the human emphasis being on language.4.The cell is the unit of life, complete with all its intricate inner workings. The cell membrane (cell wall in plants) is the protective layer that makes this unit of life possible.In the first chapter and frequently throughout, the author wants to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but he can't make it work - too big, too complex, too many working parts without visible connections. Then in the last chapter, a better analogy emerges. The earth is like a huge cell and the protective atmosphere that shields us from meteors and cosmic rays is our cell membrane.This fine book is a precursor to books from the likes of Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Stephen Jay Gould. Reading the chapters randomly is not a bad idea - each one is only four to six pages long and each gives the reader plenty to think about. Amazingly, after 30 years, there is a little - but not much - in this book that is out of date. If you are a little rusty on biology, have your "Oxford Dictionary of Science" handy. First Class.

I selected this book from the Modern Library list of Top 100 Non-Fiction books with the trepidation of a non technical person with only moderate interest in science. Mr. Thomas, however, immediately disarms the non technical mind and proceeds to fascinate as he presents the very familiar in totally new perspectives. His description of our bodies as a system of mitochondria pursuing their own interests with total disinterest of our consciousness as an entity is startling while, at the same time, it becomes immediately obvious. A discussion of disease as a "biologic misinterpretation of borders" by microscopic entities also causes the reader to see the well known in new ways.There is enough author left overto leave us with some straight-forward observations: "The great secret known to internists...is that most things get better by themselves." Or: "If an idea cannot move on its own , pushing it doesn't help; best to let it lie there."Thomas' last 2 sections leave both the secular and non-secular with a strong affirmation of the unliklihood of the miracle of life. Overall, this is a brief (150 page) book that deserves a wide readership.

Written with a passion for science and for life. Will get you thinking about your place in the world.

I spent two afternoons -- and the early mornings which followed -- reading this book. Truly I could not put it down. It is in many ways a thriller, and it is much more than that. It is rather like calling Eric Ambler's masterpiece, Coffin for Demetrios, a thriller. Ms. Franklin creates marvelous characters and uses them to show us the last days of the Weimar Republic and the period during which Hitler rose to power. Along the way we learn how insidious the process was; that it did not happen overnight as an all too casual for Hitler's timeline may lead us to think. And in the midst of all this we have the mystery of Ekaterinburg's House of Special Purpose in which the Romanovs were imprisoned and subsequently murdered. Did the Grand Duchess Anastasia survive that slaughter?

Unique collection of essays that examine our world from the lenses of ecology, medicine, and more. Each essay is brief, and some are better than others, but the overall collection had many unforgettable lines.

Ever think of comparing termite society to the language system of humans? Or comparing the composition of bacteria to a mystical beast? This book is brilliant at how informational it is, and the most outstanding part is that it makes connections between biological facts and from those connections elicit the lessons of life. Though it is a book published thirty years ago, I still feel enlightened by the wisdom that this book reveals.

I remember reading this book when I first began my undergraduate career in biochemistry (2008). As a current PhD student (2012), I look back on this book with fondness. It is written well and was an easy read for a young scientist. I actually had the chance to re-read this book earlier this year and surprisingly I was still intellectually stimulated by it's content. Overall, the book is well written and would be appreciated by anybody who has at least a general interest in biology. I probably would recommend this to the average student who remembers bio class as "that tortuous hour three times a week" but I would suggest it to anyone interesting in or studying science.

Escrito d'una manera muy planera pero a la vez muy poetica

Many a times this book is recommended by Anand Gandhi.

Para la escuela

Il libro era in buone condizioni, l'autore ha scritto un saggio che apre la mente a riflessioni stimolanti anche morali sullo studio delle cellule

Lewis Thomas ponders the uncanny relationships between the trillions of cells that make us, and the emergent person, society and speciesThomas reverts back to the individual cell itself as a metaphor: where individual cell components give no hint what properties will emerge in synergy as they interact.The author distances himself from the everyday perspective: achieving a distance from the internal rationale of human affairs whilst retaining an incisive and revealing trans-human rationality.A thought provoking read; both in making you think to appreciate his ideas, and beyond this, opening up a still largely unexplored landscape that perhaps later 'Gaia Theory' albeit uncredited by Lovelock, developed in one particular direction.It is a mosaic of reflections that map out an unfamiliar landscape worthy of exploration.