Product Description

Cells are the basis of all life in the universe. Our bodies are made up of billions of them: an incredibly complex society that governs everything, from movement to memory and imagination. When we age, it is because our cells slow down; when we get ill, it is because our cells mutate or stop working. In "How We Live and Why we Die", Wolpert provides a clear explanation of the science that underpins our lives. He explains how our bodies function and how we derived from a single cell - the embryo. He examines the science behind the topics that are much discussed but rarely understood - stem-cell research, cloning, DNA - and explains how all life evolved from just one cell. Lively and passionate, "How We Live and Why we Die" is an accessible guide to understanding the human body and, essentially, life itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19407 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

About the Author
Lewis Wolpert is a distinguished developmental biologist, and is Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine at University College, London. He has devoted much of his research to the study of how cells in the embryo know their position - and give rise to patterns like the limb. Also an accomplished broadcaster, he has taken part in numerous radio programmes, particularly interviews with other scientists. A CBE and a Fellow of the Royal Society, he was chairman of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science for four years. He is the author of, among others, The Unnatural Nature of Science and Malignant Sadness, which was described by Anthony Storr as 'the most objective short account of all the various approaches to depression'. His most recent book, Six Impossible Things before Breakfast, was called 'a brilliant and persuasive search for the source of our need to believe' in the Sunday Times.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful Building Blocks of Existence
I saw this book reviewed by Robin McKie in the Guardian Weekly - reprinted from The Observer. I am not a graduate scientist, just fascinated by Life. Wolpert is easy to read and precise in his detail. He does not talk down to the reader, and uses the scientific names when appropriate, but sprinkles his descriptions of these subtle and invisible processes with easily understood metaphor.
I only had one quibble: he often writes of the hundreds of thousands of different protiens as "engines" taking their fuel from ATP. For me this was one metaphor too far, and remains a mystery.
The book has a useful glossary and index, and opens with an interesting account of the progress of research over the centuries.

Fascinating Cells!
This was an amazing book. I have read lewis Wolpert's work before and his style suits me and I find it easy to read. If you like knowing about how we work as organisms this is the book for you. I'm a scientist and some material was not new to me but lots of it updated me. I could not put the book down. I am going to use it as a text book for the students I teach because I think it is very accessible.
However it will do for the curious general reader too - everything is well and simply explained - never before was cell biology so transparent and easy to understand.

Cells: for anyone with an interest in biology
Lewis Wolpert is an eminent biologist. I only studied biology to O-level GCE (equivalent GCSE standard) and always wished I'd gone further. It is therefore wonderful when a scientist at the top of his or her tree writes for a layperson like me.

Lewis Wolpert uses a simple style to explain the very complex life of cells, the building blocks of life. If he'd opted for a more poetic style I think the concepts he's describing would have been incomprehensible to anyone relatively new to the field.

48 pages into this book, I know this one is going to be my study for the year, to be taken slowly and digested thoroughly. I already appreciate that cells are of crucial importance and that this book will be fascinating. On a practical level, I'll be taking more care over diet, exercise and sleep in future because these astounding little things, the myriad cells which make up my body, are worth it!

One tiny gripe, the odd diagram would have been nice.