This Biology Book Blew Me Away

Two biology events (not sure this book covers) that are completely underestimated.

1) evolution of cyanobacteria as a freak merger of green-sulfur and purple photosynthetic bacteria. Well, biological historians DO understand the importance of this, but the reason why the chemistry is important is not well appreciated. Cyanos use water as a reductant - as an electron donor. Normally one does not think of water as a reductant, but as a facilitator oxidation. This is biology's "great umpolung chemistry" moment.

2) The great oxidation catastrophe. Because oxygen, the oxidized poop of the previous process is highly toxic, there was a huge exinction event across pretty much all clades. But some of the emergent chemistry (disulfide bonds e.g.) really enabled structural scaffolding that facilitated higher order cellular structure. Mitochondria went into hiding inside of the reducing environment of an proto-archaeal species and boom - eukaryotes.

3) The size and distance of the earth from the sun. Hydrogen at ambient temperature achieves escape velocity. This means the net chemical trend over billions of years was oxidizing. One wonders if this made the first two chemical processes somewhat inevitable.

I'd also like to point out that thinking parsimoniously about energy from an evolutionary standpoint is not necessarily productive. For example: There's a lot of junk DNA (VNTRs, e.g.) which do not seem to be subject to aggressive optimivation for energy.

"Nick reminds me of writers like Jared Diamond, people who develop a grand theory that explains a lot about the world. He is one of those original thinkers who makes you say: More people should know about this guy’s work."

I have original ideas that explain a lot about the world but no one cares because Bill Gates didn't tell everyone to listen to me.

* Can anyone remind me why we care what Bill Gates thinks about biology? If this was a post about the software business that would be one thing. It's so ubiquitous I don't necessarily expect anyone to understand my point, but this strikes me as a form of worshiping money. Because he has money we care what he thinks about anything and everything. It's a more covert form of the absurdity in reading and caring about what some celebrity likes to eat for breakfast.

Yes, this book and the author's previous books cover exactly those topics among others. Nick Lane is a fucking awesome writer.

Send him a copy of your book.

It's not the events themselves that are underestimated- it's the details.

Do the books specifically address using water as a reductant? My experience is that not even scientists in the field (I worked at reprogramming hydrogen-producing enzymes) have a full appreciation of how bizzare that is.