Life’s Ratchet
How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
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Narrated by:
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Paul Hodgson
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By:
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Peter M. Hoffman
About this listen
The cells in our bodies consist of molecules, made up of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms found in air and rocks. But molecules, such as water and sugar, are not alive. So how do our cells - assemblies of otherwise "dead" molecules - come to life, and together constitute a living being?
In Life’s Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale. The complex molecules of our cells can rightfully be called "molecular machines", or "nanobots"; these machines, unlike any other, work autonomously to create order out of chaos. Tiny electrical motors turn electrical voltage into motion, tiny factories custom-build other molecular machines, and mechanical machines twist, untwist, separate, and package strands of DNA. The cell is like a city - an unfathomable, complex collection of molecular worker bees working together to create something greater than themselves.
Life, Hoffman argues, emerges from the random motions of atoms filtered through the sophisticated structures of our evolved machinery. We are essentially giant assemblies of interacting nanoscale machines; machines more amazing than can be found in any science fiction novel. Incredibly, the molecular machines in our cells function without a mysterious "life force", nor do they violate any natural laws. Scientists can now prove that life is not supernatural, and that it can be fully understood in the context of science.
Part history, part cutting-edge science, part philosophy, Life’s Ratchet takes us from ancient Greece to the laboratories of modern nanotechnology to tell the story of our quest for the machinery of life.
©2012 Peter M. Hoffman (P)2014 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- The Unofficial Guide to Earth's Stupidest Show
- By: Matt Brady
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Blending biology, chemistry, and physics basics with accessible - and witty-prose, The Science of Rick and Morty equips you with the scientific foundation to thoroughly understand Rick's experiments from the show, such as how we can use dark matter and energy, just what is intelligence hacking, and whether or not you can really control a cockroach's nervous system with your tongue. Perfect for longtime and new fans of the show, this is the ultimate segue into discovering more about our complicated and fascinating universe.
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Some good science in here?
- By Darin Harbert on 02-06-20
By: Matt Brady
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Exoplanets
- Diamond Worlds, Super Earths, Pulsar Planets, and the New Search for Life Beyond Our Solar System
- By: Michael Summers
- Narrated by: Jon Bennett
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its 2009 launch, the Kepler satellite has discovered more than 2,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. More exoplanets are being discovered all the time, remarkable in their variety. Astronomer Michael Summers and physicist James Trefil explore these remarkable recent discoveries: planets revolving around pulsars, planets made of diamond, planets that are mostly water, and numerous rogue planets wandering through the emptiness of space.
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FINALLY, an Attention-Grabbing Planet Book!
- By aaron on 05-11-17
By: Michael Summers
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Paradox
- The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics
- By: Jim Al-Khalili
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, scientists have come up with theories and ideas that just don't seem to make sense. These we call paradoxes. The paradoxes Al-Khalili offers are drawn chiefly from physics and astronomy and represent those that have stumped some of the finest minds. With elegant explanations that bring the listener inside the mind of those who've developed them, Al-Khalili helps us to see that, in fact, paradoxes can be solved if seen from the right angle.
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Almost Useless
- By Michael on 06-19-19
By: Jim Al-Khalili
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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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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The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
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ABSOLUTE MUST READ!
- By serine on 05-12-16
By: Sean Carroll
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Forces of Nature
- By: Professor Brian Cox, Andrew Cohen
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor Brian Cox uncovers some of the most extraordinary natural events on Earth and in the universe and beyond. From the immensity of the universe and the roundness of Earth to the form of every single snowflake, the forces of nature shape everything we see. Pushed to extremes, the results are astonishing. In seeking to understand the everyday world, the colours, structure, behaviour and history of our home, we develop the knowledge and techniques necessary to step beyond the everyday.
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Complicated in its simplicity
- By Philomath on 06-13-17
By: Professor Brian Cox, and others
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Sync
- How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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At once elegant and riveting, Sync tells the story of the dawn of a new science. Steven Strogatz, a leading mathematician in the fields of chaos and complexity theory, explains how enormous systems can synchronize themselves, from the electrons in a superconductor to the pacemaker cells in our hearts. He shows that although these phenomena might seem unrelated on the surface, at a deeper level there is a connection, forged by the unifying power of mathematics.
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Engaging, but maybe better suited for non-audio
- By Ryan on 05-26-12
By: Steven Strogatz
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The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics
- A Math-Free Exploration of the Science That Made Our World
- By: James Kakalios
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics, James Kakalios uses examples from comics and magazines to explain how breakthroughs in quantum mechanics led to such technologies as the World Wide Web, pocket-sized computers, mobile phones, and MRI machines.....
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The exhibits are missing from Audible
- By David on 12-13-10
By: James Kakalios
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Our Mathematical Universe
- My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: Max Tegmark
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy, and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist.
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Wow!
- By Michael on 02-02-14
By: Max Tegmark
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Beyond Biocentrism
- Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death
- By: Robert Lanza, Bob Berman
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Beyond Biocentrism, acclaimed biologist Robert Lanza and astronomer Bob Berman take the listener on an intellectual thrill ride as they reexamine everything we thought we knew about life, death, the universe, and the nature of reality itself. The first step is acknowledging that our existing model of reality is looking increasingly creaky in the face of recent scientific discoveries.
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Here's the thing
- By Mikal on 11-09-18
By: Robert Lanza, and others
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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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Great and informative but with prior knowledge
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Begins Accessible, Then Becomes Too Technical
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is there nothing really interesting to talk about in higher-dimensional physics?
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When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
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Mycology for Everyone
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Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine
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In Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine, naturopathic doctor Lee Know tells the epic story of mitochondria - the widely misunderstood and often-overlooked powerhouses of our cells. The legendary saga began over two billion years ago, when one bacterium entered another without being digested, which would evolve to create the first mitochondrion. Since then, for life to exist beyond single-celled bacteria, it's the mitochondria that have been responsible for this life-giving energy.
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Fascinating
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The Fabric of Reality
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Author of the New York Times best seller The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch, explores the four most fundamental strands of human knowledge: quantum physics, and the theories of knowledge, computation, and evolution - and their unexpected connections. Taken together, these four strands reveal a deeply integrated, rational, and optimistic worldview. It describes a unified fabric of reality that is objective and comprehensible, in which human action and thought are central.
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Such a disappointment
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The Beginning of Infinity
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Worthwhile if you have the patience
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What listeners say about Life’s Ratchet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sean Frank
- 05-24-17
This book blew my mind, aka my brain!
I am going to listen to this one again there was a lot to unpack. Great book!
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- Mutant Daddy
- 11-06-19
From molecular storm to chance and necessity
Fascinating explanation of some of life’s mysteries— for lay readers like me — at the nanometer scale. This gets interwoven with a recap of important discoveries as scientists have groped and grappled along the way to discovery.
Minor quibbles:
1) The author evidently felt compelled to repeat
himself at times to ensure readers stayed with him;
2) For this reader it would have been helpful to hear more about how energy gets transformed to do so many important things at the molecular level. Does ATP, for example, serve as the cell’s energy currency always and everywhere by releasing vibrational energy? Perhaps the author has more to share with us in the future...
All in all, quibbles aside, a rich way to spend eight hours listening!
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- Klaas Deforche
- 09-15-16
Very good book
Very interesting to read. Highly recommended! I learned a lot, the book goes into detail but is easy to follow.
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- Phil Virgo
- 01-25-15
a great book
The first chapters are a review of western thinking about science and life from ancient Greece forward, which did not excite me. Eventually the book delves into current understanding of the components of life at the level of molecular machines and how they survive and make use of the incredibly powerful frenzied chaos of Brownian motion. A well written explanation of the amazing complexity of a living cell. The conclusion turns back to philosophical ideas about the life,universe,and everything, which I enjoyed as it was based on a much deeper understanding of what is happening than the ancients, or anyone until very recently could have any clue.
The reader's pronouncements are distracting, not sure if he speaks a dialect correctly or was unfamiliar with the vocabulary, but once you get used to that, the reading is very good.
a very great book!
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4 people found this helpful
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- Ben Chen
- 03-15-17
What makes something "alive"?
Great story overall. Is obviously a subject the author has thought about a lot, cares about, and on which is a technical expert. Can get a little too technical sometimes, but otherwise a good mix of philosophy, science, and storytelling.
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- M. Briscoe
- 12-30-23
Comprehensive approach to a complex subject.
Some repetition but it was needed and useful for those of us who had a long absence from the classroom! Overall an enjoyable and stimulating listen.
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- A Synthetic Biologist
- 09-04-14
For biologists to learn single molecule biophysics
I loved this book. I wish I could give it more than 5 stars. I was trained as a molecular biologist, and I am very well versed in the theory of how the processes of life work. DNA to RNA to protein, all about cell biology, which proteins are important for what, etc. However, molecular biophysics, quantitative and single molecule approaches have always interested me, but been to far out of my comfort zone for me to engage to closely with. This book did an excellent job at helping me bridge that gap in my knowledge, and I now feel comfortable understanding how a protein can use the energy of an ATP molecule to perform an energetically unfavorable reaction, for instance. The history of the scientific understanding of vital forces and what animates life was also illuminating.
However, I suspect that this book might not appeal to very many people. The history section, the nanoscale physics section, and the section on how specific motor proteins work were all interesting to me, but I can't imagine very many people have both a sufficient biological background to understand the later chapters in the book, and an insufficient knowledge of physics to appreciate the earlier chapters, lucky for me, I fit the bill. I also have an strong interest in the history of science, so the history of vital forces was also interesting.
This book also had a great section on Maxwell's Demon, or using information to break the second law of thermodynamics, which I had always wanted a more satisfying answer to.
My two main criticisms are:
1 - The jumps between the different sections - molecular noise, history of vital forces, molecular motors - seemed almost like the author has learned a lot about each subject and wanted to include it all in his book. It seemed a little disjointed; I liked it but I suspect others might find it a bit scattered.
2 - The narrator is pretty good, but mispronounces a TON of words. At first I thought maybe the Brits just pronounce many many words differently than in the US, but many words were definitely wrong, and some seemed to change over the course of the book. I wish the narrator had taken a break when he didn't know a word to look it up, because it takes you out of the book. The most egregious example was calling the 5' and 3' ends of DNA the 5 inch and 3 inch ends, instead of 5 prime and 3 prime ends. I don't know how he could have made this mistake, because even if he was completely clueless, ' means foot, not inch.
This book is about the nanoscale, but he mispronounced nanometer. He pronounced Feynman as Faneman. These are but of few of the many many mistakes. But his narration was pretty good.
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51 people found this helpful
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- RSZ
- 06-12-14
How order arises from molecular chaos
This is an excellent explanation of how the molecular machines of life (the DNA replicators, the ribosomes, the membrane pumps, etc) arose from the random molecular storm. Mr. Hoffman does a great job in explaining the role of chance and physics in this process. I also enjoyed his recount of the history of man's struggle with uncovering these discoveries.
I think those readers without any science background might find the later chapters a challenge.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Gravaman
- 10-08-20
A wonderful science book
A lot of in-depth thinking required. Simply mind-boggling. Protein motors! Ten million ribosomes in each of the 30 trillion human cells!
All of this starts with two cells at conception—all self-generating. Walking myosins, When you don't understand something, go to Khan Academy - AP/College Biology. I will listen over and over. The human body is more complicated than the universe :) But the universe contains billions of human bodies!
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- Karen
- 07-24-18
Excellent convergence biology, physics and chemistry to describe life systems
While many books and articles pertain only to one aspect of the systems and components of living beings, this book brings together multiple disciplines each of which have made enormous contributions to our current understandings of the workings of living beings. It is only by collaboration that we will be able to efficiently and effectively continue to evolve our insights.
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