That’s right: When he’s not spouting indecipherable technical language in support of his thesis, Lane is quite cozy with the reader. In fact, at one point, Lane breathlessly announces a certain experiment “was so beautiful I have to tell you about it.” You endure it because the emotion is gripping and you can tell she really needs to share. For me, reading it was like listening to a friend excitedly unspool a story you can’t really follow. Because of the author’s obvious enthusiasm, the writing is never dry, despite all the long words and formulas. Yet Transformer is being marketed to laypeople, so it’s appropriate to get a non-chemist’s take.

I’ve given chemistry a wide berth ever since.

If that’s as clear to your ears as a morning hello, have I got a book for you! Unfortunately, it’s not to me: The tour of the chem lab during my high-school orientation included an eyewash station to save your sight from an errant spray of acid and a furled blanket with which you could smother yourself in case you caught fire. “acteria capable of anoxygenic photosynthesis have a single photosystem, which is capable of either ATP synthesis (via a cyclic flow of electrons from chlorophyll back to chlorophyll, with the electrons energized by light) or CO2 fixation, by transferring electrons from a donor such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) onto ferredoxin.” Here is a typical passage, taken from a page opened at random: My assertions are tentative because most of the book is unintelligible to me. He’s apparently offering a revolutionary theory on the origin of life and consciousness. This seems to be the gist of the argument biochemist Nick Lane makes in his dense Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death. Form follows function action precedes object.

Transformer book nick lane