Life Ascending
The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
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Narrated by:
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Graeme Malcolm
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By:
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Nick Lane
About this listen
Where does DNA come from? What is consciousness? How did the eye evolve? Drawing on a treasure trove of new scientific knowledge, Nick Lane expertly reconstructs evolution's history by describing its 10 greatest inventions - from sex and warmth to death - resulting in a stunning account of nature's ingenuity.
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Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason, or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.
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We are for a short time.
- By Anonymous User on 10-14-20
By: Sean B. Carroll
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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Life Unfolding
- How the Human Body Creates Itself
- By: Jamie A. Davies
- Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
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Where did I come from? Why do I have two arms but just one head? How is my left leg the same size as my right one? Why are the fingerprints of identical twins not identical? How did my brain learn to learn? Why must I die? Questions like these remain biology's deepest and most ancient challenges. They force us to confront a fundamental biological problem: How can something as large and complex as a human body organize itself from the simplicity of a fertilized egg?
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Fascinating Biology ; Distracting Narration
- By Tim on 03-01-15
By: Jamie A. Davies
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Origins
- The Scientific Story of Creation
- By: Jim Baggott
- Narrated by: Neil Scott-Barbour
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What is the nature of the material world? How does it work? What is the universe and how was it formed? What is life? Where do we come from and how did we evolve? How and why do we think? What does it mean to be human? How do we know? There are many different versions of our creation story. This book tells the version according to modern science. It is a unique account, starting at the Big Bang and travelling right up to the emergence of humans as conscious intelligent beings, 13.8 billion years later.
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Interesting book, but WOW, the narrator ...
- By UH on 01-10-17
By: Jim Baggott
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13 Things That Don't Make Sense
- The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
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Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Science's best-kept secret is that there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. If history is any precedent, we should look to today's inexplicable results to forecast the future of science. Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet 13 modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow's breakthroughs.
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10 interesting chapters-read epiloge first
- By Stephen on 06-10-09
By: Michael Brooks
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
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E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
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I, Mammal
- By: Liam Drew
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
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A list of the attributes that define a mammal is a ragbag of things - fur, live birth, three bones in the middle ear, a brain whose two halves are robustly joined together.... But this curious collection of features contain the roots of all the biology that makes us what we are: monkeys with massive brains who parent extensively, enjoy sport and think lots. Which is to say, what makes us mammals makes us human.
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Who knew?
- By Fitmen on 04-25-18
By: Liam Drew
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Why Evolution Is True
- By: Jerry A. Coyne
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
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Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design", there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned: the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection.
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As great as everyone says it is
- By Joseph on 12-01-10
By: Jerry A. Coyne
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very interesting
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Thought provoking and rich with insight
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very interesting
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Fascinating
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Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.
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Unscientific and unengaging
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Brilliant. The book was fantastic and level headed. I appreciated also the way he criticized Sinclair.
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Totally inappropriate for audio
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Flawed fundamental assumptions, good function rvw
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Failed to tell a story
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The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.
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Accompanying PDF is Included
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The Dawn of Everything
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A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state", political violence, and social inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
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exactly what I've been looking for
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By: David Graeber, and others
What listeners say about Life Ascending
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Blaine Byrum
- 11-20-23
Captivating
Great depth, wonderful explanation, I quite enjoyed the descriptor level, historical guidance, character sketches, and scientific defense.
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Overall
- Lucas
- 02-17-11
technical but enlightening
The most technical of the many science/biology books I've read to date--not for those who hated biology class.
It was particularly good on the theories origins of life/DNA, photosynthesis, and eukaryotic cells. Not so great on consciousness (I think it's hard to make a case that that is one of the greatest "inventions" of evolution from the overall picture of life) and death (really a chapter about how we can avoid the degenerations/infirmations of old age--SPOILER: eat less).
I thought I had, at last, a science book that doesn't try to persuade us that evolution is true but, alas, in the final chapter the author made his pitch. It was a powerful one, though, so I'll excuse it.
Definitely moments where I started to drift off but, overall, this is a good read for those who love biology.
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6 people found this helpful
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- ES
- 02-16-16
excellent
Any additional comments?
Lane provides an excellent and enjoyable narrative. It contains interesting and informative facts on evolution and genes in an easily understood manner.
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- Origin and Insertion
- 01-31-19
Excellent treatment of life's drivers
Lane does a great job organizing and discussing important events in life's history. If you love biology, then you will find this to be a great synthesis of big ideas.
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- nyquistJack
- 08-29-19
Absolutely Amazing
I loved this book. After nearly 2 decades of Physics being my science learning of choice I needed a change. After a particularly interesting Mindscape podcast episode with a physicist turned biologist, biology is what called out to me.
Before this book my only biology knowledge came from HS and a few YouTube videos here and there. I wanted a book that got into the details on a variety of biological topics as a starting off point. And on that this books seriously delivered.
Make no mistake, this book is dense. I had to listen to a chapter or even part of a chapter and then go watch YouTube videos and read articles to better understand what I just learned. But that is what I wanted. Biology is an enormous discipline and having this book gave me various grounding points so I could get started which is exactly what I needed.
I feel in the last month I’ve gone from a total biology noob to a biology novice. I cannot wait to learn more. As soon as I am done with this review I plan on listening to the entire book again, this time armed with considerable more knowledge before but undoubtedly i will find more detail that will send me on many more learning adventures.
As for the narration, once I bumped it to 1.25x speed it was perfect. I swear they slowed it down .25 as nobody talks THAT slow.
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- R. David Mintz
- 08-25-16
Remarkable book!
This is a truly remarkable piece of nonfiction. It is beautifully written, very well researched,and extremely well narrated. A truly fascinating read from start to finish.
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- Tristan
- 04-16-17
Brilliant writing + lapses of impenetrable writing
In its best moments, this book is beautiful and actually quite funny, delivered just right by Graeme Malcolm's wizardly British accent. It felt like hanging out with Newton in his study, listening to him reveal the secrets of the world.
And then, in moments, Lane seems to give up on any pretence of speaking to a wider audience, using terminology few outside of biology will follow. I found it baffling, because elsewhere, he takes such care to explain things in terms anyone could grasp. It's unclear to me whether he truly didn't realize what concepts others wouldn't know, or whether he just got lazy in places. From reading reviews of his other books, this seems to be an ongoing problem he has.
Unfortunately, these moments are most common in the earlier chapters, when he's discussing metabolism, the origin of life and photosynthesis. My advice? Just let the tangled bits glide past you, because there is a TON of fascinating material throughout the book, and the latter chapters offer few hiccups.
I do absolutely recommend this book, despite the caveats. Learning about the origin of life alone was worth the price, and the chapter on eyes is brilliant. The section on consciousness is also a nice speculative bonus.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rakkhi
- 08-23-19
Well worth the listen
I enjoyed his next book on the more detailed look at the origin of life more but this is a great overview of that and other interesting developments in evolution including muscle, hot blood, consciousness and death. Well worth your time
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- Tibor
- 10-15-21
Great book !
Enjoyed this book a lot. Gave me a glimpse of how life may have originated, the good and bad part of having warm blood, and the advantages of sex and why we do not live forever. Highly recommended.
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- ZebraBear
- 10-06-20
Life Began As a Porous Rock
Nick Lane has become one of my favorite science writers. Graeme Malcolm is a fantastic narrator.
Here's a bit from my favorite passage:
"Life must have evolved a surprising degree of sophistication in its rocky hatchery. This paints an extraordinary portrait of the last common ancestor of all life on earth. If [William] Martin and [Michael] Russell are right, and I think they are, she was not a free living cell, but a rocky labyrinth of mineral cells lined with catalytic walls composed of iron, sulfur, and nickel, and energized by natural proton gradients. The first life was a porous rock that generated complex molecules and energy right up to the formation of proteins and DNA itself."
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