FREE LIFE ON THE EDGE: THE COMING OF AGE OF QUANTUM BIOLOGY PDF Jim Al-Khalili,Johnjoe McFadden | 464 pages | 24 Sep 2015 | Transworld Publishers Ltd | 9780552778077 | English | London, United Kingdom [PDF] [EPUB] Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology Download T he scent of an orange, a robin on the wing — nothing could be more festive. But if you think such simple delights are born of simple processes, think again. But life, it seems, is different. The theory goes that the eye of a robin contains a chemical that, when it absorbs light of the right energy, can shuffle its electrons around. This shuffling creates a system that exists, thanks to some quantum jiggery-pokery, in two forms at once — each of which leads to a different outcome in the reaction that follows. And it turns out we, too, harness quantum effects. Indeed such phenomena account, among other things, for the ability of our enzymes to speed up chemical reactions that could otherwise take millennia, and might even be behind our olfactory prowess, allowing us Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology recognise the waft of limonene molecules as the scent of an orange. Dig into the science and this book offers fascinating insights — not least that the mirror image of a limonene molecule smells not of oranges, but turpentine. But whether the meatier revelations will elicit the resounding gasp that the authors clearly expect is another matter. But tenacity pays off: the later section exploring how life emerged from the primordial soup will have you gazing at the world in awe. After reading this, the answer seems obvious — weirder than your wildest dreams. Topics Science and nature books The Observer. Biology Physics Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology. Reuse this content. Order by newest oldest recommendations. Show 25 25 50 All. Threads collapsed expanded unthreaded. Loading comments… Trouble loading? Most popular. Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by Johnjoe McFadden Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how does it work? Even in this age of cloning and synthetic biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we missing a vital ingredient in its creation? Like Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Genewhich provided a new perspective on evolution, Life on the Edge alters our understanding of life's dynamics as Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics. Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, they show how photosynthesis relies on subatomic particles existing in many places at once, while inside enzymes, those workhorses of life that make every molecule within our cells, particles vanish from one point in space and instantly materialize in another. How do we really smell the scent of a rose? How do our genes manage to copy themselves with such precision? Guiding the reader through the maze of rapidly unfolding discovery, Al-Khalili and McFadden communicate vividly the excitement of this explosive new field of quantum biology, with its potentially revolutionary applications, and also offer insights into the biggest puzzle of all: what is life? Read more Read less. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology of 1. Previous page. Andrew Marino. Kindle Edition. Paul Davies. Jack Kruse. Nick Lane. The Vital Question: Why is life the way it is? Sayer Ji. Next page. Review "Hugely ambitious Al-Khalili has a genius for illustrating complex ideas via imaginative sidetracks. With great vividness and clarity it shows how our world is tinged, even saturated, with the weirdness of the quantum. The startling discovery that the weirdness of quantum Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology provides the vital spark that ignites life --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. For over a decade, he has specialized in examining tuberculosis and meningitis, inventing the first successful molecular test for the latter. He is a leading theoretical physicist based at the University of Surrey, where he teaches and carries out research in quantum mechanics. Pete has coached for film and theatrical productions, and continues to work with private clients all over the world. Read more. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. Robert O. Ari Whitten. Customer reviews. How are ratings calculated? Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness. Review this product Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Top reviews Most recent Top reviews. Top reviews from Australia. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Verified Purchase. I am enjoying this book. An avid fan of all JIm Alkhalili's documentaries and a long time reader about anything quantum - not saying I understand it all, by any means - but I know that I will have a few 'aha' moments if I persevere. This book is well written, it goes over some background history and uses metaphors and analogies in a clear and entertaining way. Highly recommended if you are into this kind of thing. I have not purchased this book, I am attempting to via the kindle - however, the kindle Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology takes the buyer to another quite different book. Please repair this Amazon. See all reviews. Top reviews from other countries. InJohnjoe McFadden wrote a book, Quantum Evolution, exploring Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology quantum mechanics is directly relevant to biology. At the time, the majority of biologists and physicists would have told you that quantum mechanics was largely irrelevant to biology, which is warm and wet and large scale, rather than the very small-scale or very cold conditions most physicists associate with non-classical behaviour. In those 14 years, quantum biology has progressed from wild speculation to mainstream, due in part to the work of these authors, and it is interesting to compare the two books. Compared with Quantum Consciousness, the chapter on Quantum Genetics has been both tightened up and made more tentative. The proposed mechanism for directed mutation, using the inverse Zeno effect, has been clarified and restricted. There Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology no longer any special appeal to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The authors have rowed back significantly from ideas that quantum mechanics is generally a major driver of mutation, which is a shame as it has the potential to explain some tricky bottlenecks in evolution. Similarly, the chapter on Mind is much more believable. The authors start by discussing Roger Penrose's ideas, such as the ability of the mind to bypass the Goedel theorem by being a quantum computer. Fortunately they do not undermine their own credibility by taking these ideas too seriously, and in fact their analysis is a very clear critique of Penrose's. Their proposed role for quantum mechanics in ion channels seems very plausible. I am not very persuaded by the proposed link between consciousness and electromagnetism. A human has a psychological and social need to be able to explain their own decisions, and this explanation is generally in terms of a sequential narrative. There is no necessity for this narrative to match what actually happens in the brain, except in its inputs and outputs. A brain is a black box to its owner almost as much as to others. Electromagnetism is a possible way for the mind to work in a synchronised way, but whether or not this happens is independent of the nature of consciousness. Moreover, it is not clear how this relates to quantum mechanics, except very indirectly. McFadden's earlier book Quantum Consciousness tries to make the connection, though in a hand-wavy and not very plausible way. I can see why he has dropped this idea, though I think he could have removed all the references to electromagnetic theories of consciousness from this book altogether. They belong in a different book. The chapter on the beginnings of life is greatly clarified compared with similar ideas expressed in Quantum Evolution. The problem with any understanding of the beginnings of life is that there is a period of about million years where somehow, somewhere on the Earth or just maybe, in space life began. Presumably this happened because a self-replicating molecule appeared, which mutated and evolved into a modern eukaryotic cell. Trying to identify the original molecule just by looking at modern cells is difficult or even impossible. Replicating the start of the process might take an ocean of water and million years, which makes it Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology tricky experiment. Until either of these is done, we have no way of knowing what the first self-replicators were or even how complex they had to be. At least, McFadden and Al- Khalili show how the incredible search capabilities of quantum mechanics could help achieve the first step, of constructing the first self-replicating molecule. The overall gist of the book is that life is a consequence of the boundary between quantum mechanics and classical physics, which seems to be key to many of the most important processes in biology, from photosynthesis to respiration and scent.