THE title of Ed Regis’s What is Life? comes from Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 classic – a book that inspired physicists and other scientists to study biological systems, catalysing the field of molecular biology.
Regis’s book offers an update on the search for a suitable definition of life. On his wild tour of molecular biology and biotechnology, we encounter artificial cells, DNA and RNA, and the origin of life. Much of the material is familiar, but Regis is an entertaining and impressive storyteller: check out his anecdote about a 17th-century physician who studied metabolism by systematically weighing himself, his food and his excrement for more than 30…
