SPRING BOOKS NATURE|Vol 452|10 April 2008

G8 nations, despite their having bodies from elements whose supplies were only 12% of the world’s popu- restricted. In contrast, to maintain our lation. The poorest quarter present high level of energy trans- of humanity consumes less formation in society, we increase than 3%. For them, even the inputs of many elements, modest increases in per mostly by mining them from capita energy con- finite reserves in Earth’s crust. sumption significantly We thus perturb global reduce infant mortal- biogeochemical cycles. ity and increase life A wiser strategy in the expectancy. Above long term would be to about 60 gigajoules increase the recycling per capita (the amount of materials that used, for example, by accompany the citizens of the French capture and use city of Lyon in 1960) of energy. these benefits level off, I would like to indicating that profligate encourage Smil energy use bears little on quality to strengthen of life. Consequently, Smil advo- this link between energy cates that rich people should reduce processing and material their energy consumption to allow cycling in the next edition of his poorer people to increase theirs. book, and to address whether the com- Today’s high-technology societies mostly If we are to have a long and happy future bination of solar power and recycling might rely on fossil fuels. These concentrated reserves on this planet, we need to follow life’s exam- allow energy transformation by humans and the of stored ancient sunlight — the remnants of ple and find more efficient ways of extracting biosphere to grow again. For now, the energy past organisms — are finite, and the products free energy from sunlight. But energy isn’t required to read this comprehensive and schol- of their combustion have undesirable conse- everything. The successful major transi- arly tome is extremely well spent. ■ quences, from respiratory problems to climate tions between past biospheres also required Tim Lenton is professor of Earth system science change. Smil argues that we should stop the increases in material recycling, because in the School of Environmental Sciences, seemingly endless growth of energy consump- the organisms capturing energy built their University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK. tion while we switch to cleaner and more sustainable sources of power. In the long term, Smil’s solution is solar power, because the total supply of sunlight at Earth’s surface exceeds current global fossil- Biology from the bottom up fuel consumption by more than a thousand times. Until then, he supports a careful tran- What Is Life? Investigating the Nature of ‘genetic engineering’ or ‘recombinant DNA sition away from fossil fuels and points out Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology technology’. By altering the genes, the organ- that carbon capture and storage have lim- by Ed Regis isms act in new ways. ited capacity. He dismisses most renewable Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 2008. 208 pp. $22 At the time, Szybalski’s synthetic biology energy sources because their power densities prompted fear. The city of Cambridge, Massa- are too low to supply the needs of the present Steven Benner chusetts, banned genetic engineering entirely. global population, let alone future ones. This Book titles should display ambition, and Ed A conference was convened in Asilomar, Cali- includes first-generation biofuels, where their Regis’ latest certainly does that. Implicit is fornia, to decide how to manage the new ability poor energy returns could ultimately mean progress between two areas of biology. What Is to create artificial organisms. feeding cars in place of people. In Energy in Life? recalls Erwin Schrödinger’s famous book Three decades of experience have shown Nature and Society, Smil contends that power of the same name that encouraged many phys- the risks to be negligible but the rewards from nuclear fission would become limited icists to begin working in molecular biology in enormous. Today, the field of synthetic by uranium supply until a viable commercial the 1940s; synthetic biology is the fast-moving biology is expanding, spawning fast-breeder reactor is available, and fusion area today. new university departments, power is too far from commercial deploy- The term synthetic biology was coined such as the one that hosts Jay ment. All of which implies a difficult trans- in 1974 by Waclaw Szybalski to describe the Kiesling’s laboratory at the Uni- ition period involving substantial carbon modification of organisms by adding and sub- versity of California at Berkeley dioxide emissions and climate change. tracting genes. In those days it was known as in which bacteria are created to produce

Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes by Matt Ridley (Harper Perennial, £7.99) by Denis Noble (Oxford Univ. Press, £7.99) The story of Francis Crick extends beyond the Instead of taking a blinkered view based on genes discovery of DNA. Matt Ridley’s biography details and genomes, Denis Noble argues, we must realize how he came to study biology, sets in context his that life is a process. To see its workings, we should controversial ideas and gives a glimpse into the look at interactions on every level — genes, cells, character of one of the most famous scientists of the the body, systems and the environment. twentieth century.

692 NATURE|Vol 452|10 April 2008 SPRING BOOKS pharmaceutical intermediates. Craig Venter, field of genetic engineering sporting a a map of how its atoms of carbon, oxygen, a driver of innovation in contemporary catchier trademark? hydrogen, nitrogen and phosphorus are genomics, and whose personal genome can There is one disappointment. The book only arranged. be found on the Internet, is going further by incompletely conveys why efforts to rebuild Even if the analytical strategy applied to proposing reorganization of the natural parts life from the ground up (‘synthesis’) offer new biology is ever completed, biology will remain of natural genomes. Some of these restruc- avenues for discovery that those dissecting life hollow. Living systems cannot be explained tured microbes are so scrambled that they from the top down (‘analysis’) do not. solely as a series of molecular structures, even deserve to be viewed as new species. The analytical approach to biology was when their interactions are described math- The remit of synthetic biology has widened born a few centuries ago, when those wish- ematically (as attempted in systems biology). as other researchers have adopted the label. ing to answer the question, ‘what is life?’, real- Reflecting this, microbiologist Carl Woese In 2000, Eric Kool of Stanford University, ized that observation alone was insufficient. wrote that the “strange claim by some of the California, used it to describe the construc- Their investigations began by killing some world’s leading molecular biologists that the tion by chemists of unnatural molecules that unfortunate organism. After dissecting the human genome is the holy grail of biology is can operate within natural living systems. spilled guts, tissues were named, maps were a stunning example of a biology that has no To Drew Endy and others at the Massachu- drawn and parts were catalogued. Much was genuine guiding vision”. setts Institute of Technology, it means the learned; much of it practical. But the essence Synthesis offers a different strategy. The delib- pro cess of creating, mostly by modifying of ‘life’ did not emerge. With the invention of erate creation of new forms of matter from the existing biomolecules, units that can serve microscopes, the dissection went further, to bottom up, rather than the top down, gives us as interchangeable parts in larger assemblies. cells. This time a new theory (cell theory) did new ways to test nature. Chemists today use Stephen Wolfram and others view “artificial emerge. As Regis’ book emphasizes, cells are synthesis routinely. Having benefited from life” as a computer program that yields output even today viewed as a defining attribute of being first to gain the tools, they tested structure behaviour that is analogous to the behaviour life. theory by building molecules with structures of living systems. The so-called ‘age of biology’ came not designed to target predictions of the relation- What is Life? captures these differing per- from biologists but from chemists, who car- ship between molecular structure and behav- spectives well. As expected from a science ried the dissection of living matter further. iour. In a virtuous circle, they simultaneously writer with Regis’ record, the book is an Karl William Scheele, in the late eighteenth built up their molecular toolkit and improved easily readable review of the development century, crystallized the first organic mol- structure theory, further empowering synthesis. of contemporary biology, including the ecule (barium lactate) from sour milk, and Chemists know that if one truly understands a first-generation model for DNA structure, realized that the molecular parts of liv- phenomenon, one should be able to synthesize the foundation of metabolism, and the elu- ing organisms could be analysed. This led another, different system that generates that cidation of the genetic code. Furthermore, to structure theory, which holds that the phenomenon. it captures interactions between scientists arrangement of atoms in constituent mol- Because building something requires a who approach synthetic biology differently, ecules determines the behaviour of all matter. deep understanding of its parts, synthesis providing a brief and entertaining glimpse Biological chemists spent the next 150 years also stops scientists from fooling themselves. into the competitive aspects of modern sci- figuring out atomic arrangements in every Data are rarely collected neutrally during ence. For example, one experimenter (Nor- biomolecule they could get their hands on, analyses by researchers, who may discard man Packard of Protolife, based in Venice, even DNA. some, believing the data to be wrong if they Italy), trying to get a real cell made out of real An unbroken line runs from Scheele to the do not meet their expectations. Synthe- chemicals to work in a real laboratory, sets human genome. It involves great technologi- sis helps manage this problem. Failures in these activities above trying to write compu- cal innovation, but no conceptual innovation understanding mean that the synthesis fails, ter programs that simulate parts of biologi- that can be thought revolutionary. Even Ven- forcing discovery and paradigm change in cal chemistry. Another (Francis Collins, who ter’s personal genome is nothing more than ways that analysis does not. heads the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland) is quoted asking, in essence: what’s new? Isn’t this just the 30-year-old

Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life Journeys by Richard A. L. Jones (Oxford Univ. Press, £9.99) by Kate Fletcher (Earthscan, $48.95, £24.95) The principles of nanotechnology may have more in Fashion is ephemeral by nature, but Kate Fletcher common with biology than engineering, argues Richard describes how clothing manufacture could be turned Jones. He describes the science of the minuscule, and into a sustainable industry. Her detailed book assesses explains how the demands of working at this scale may systems as well as products, examining possible shape nanotechnology into something more organic. solutions from raw material to final design.

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Now that genetic engineering is available, with Schrödinger’s book, Regis’ text will not a Gutmensch — a do-gooder. From his perch biologists are benefiting. By attempting to be the last word. It is, however, a good place in lucky Sweden, he observes the world with a create synthetic genetic systems, we will learn for a lay reader to start, one who welcomes the benign smile and gently seeks to teach other more about how natural genetic systems work; ambition of its title. ■ benighted people how to improve it. One may by attempting to create synthetic metabolisms, Steven Benner is a distinguished fellow at the certainly respect this position. On the other we learn about how natural metabolisms work; Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution hand, it is neither the only one possible nor by attempting to create synthetic regulatory and the Westheimer Institute for Science and necessarily the one best suited for dealing with circuits, we learn about how natural regula- Technology, Gainesville, Florida 32601, USA, future nuclear-armed Adolf Hitlers, Joseph Sta- tory circuits work. and co-author of The Limits of Organic Life in lins, and, yes, Saddam Husseins as well. Will we ever understand what life is? Just as Planetary Systems. To put it bluntly, Blix is no strategist. As he himself comes very close to saying at the beginning of this book, he thinks in terms of morality and well-being, not of power. Not once does he mention deterrence. In Bottling the nuclear demon other words, the fact that, had it not been for nuclear-weapons proliferation, World War demon back into the bottle from which it had Three might very well have broken out long Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters by Hans Blix escaped. He does nothing of the kind. First, ago and perhaps obliterated both his native MIT Press: 2008. 97 pp. $14.95, £9.95 contrary to his promise, he does not focus country and himself. on nuclear weapons alone but widens the A much younger man than Blix, Michael discussion — and, to my mind, weakens his Levi is almost unknown. The cover of his book On Nuclear Terrorism case — by including chemical and biological merely says that he is “Fellow for Science and by Michael Levi ones too. Second, part of the book has little to Technology at the Council on Foreign Rela- Harvard University Press: 2007. 210 pp. do with nuclear disarmament but constitutes tions, New York”. From an Internet search, we $24.95, £16.95 a polemic against the Bush administration’s learn that he is an academic who has worked attempt to develop a national strategy based here and there and published this and that. on pre-emption. Given how slim the volume Yet anyone who reads his work cannot but Martin van Creveld is — in reality, it is just a brochure — this be impressed by his deep understanding of Right or wrong, nuclear proliferation is much leaves little room for a serious discussion of nuclear terrorism and the possibilities of deal- in the news. These two works tackle the prob- nuclear disarmament, why it matters and ing with it. lem head on. The first is a somewhat emotional what steps towards its realization should be Levi’s work is written in a calm, unemo- call to prevent proliferation from proceeding taken next. tional and somewhat dry manner. Those further and, if possible, to reverse it. The sec- Furthermore, Blix is what the Germans call looking for hair-raising accounts of how ond deals with some of the problems to which it may give rise. To the readers of Nature, as well as anybody who is familiar with the origins of the second Iraq War, Hans Blix needs no introduction. In 2002–04, the elderly, genial Swedish diplo- mat, former foreign minister and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, found himself at the head of the UN Monitor- ing, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), charged with finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Announcing that he had failed to discover any and that they almost certainly did not exist, he had to con- front the full wrath of the Bush administra- tion — a story that throws an ugly light on that administration while showing Blix himself in a very positive one. A reader looking at the title of Blix’s new work might be forgiven for thinking that he provides a retrospective account of several decades-worth of effort to put the nuclear

Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do Dream of the Superweapon and Why It Matters by P. D. Smith (Allen Lane, £8.99) by Diane Coyle (Princeton Univ. Press, $19.95) In the 1950s, humans became capable of destroying life. Economics is not a dry science but a human one, says Smith describes the first weapons of mass destruction Coyle. By incorporating psychology, evolution and and how the doomsday bomb became a symbol of complexity, economists are in the best position to science’s destructive power. “The book is as much a model human society. Frances Cairncross wrote: “To history of modern science as of modern weaponry”, understand how the big ideas of the past half-century wrote Gregg Herken (Nature 448, 868; 2007). fit together ... read this book” (Nature 447, 1057; 2007).

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