We fly in aeroplanes and put on jumpers instead of sweaters. Experiments work “first go,” not first try. Lane is British and makes no concessions to American English.

And it imagines consciousness as the humming electrical fields of cell membranes.

It replaces the buildup of genetic mutations as the cause of aging and cancer with the slowing of cellular activity. It challenges the accepted theory of life on Earth emerging from a “primordial soup” on the planet’s surface and instead shifts the genesis to undersea thermal vents. Lane has come to believe that the structure of cells is less important than what goes on within them, an idea with both theoretical and practical implications. He refers to “bad-ass oxygen” and confers on parts of molecular diagrams names like “Mad-Eye Moody.” When discussing the role of chance in the creation of the earliest life, the author channels Clint Eastwood to remind us “you can’t always be lucky, punk” slips into Star Wars speak to explain that a certain process structure “brings balance to the force, Padawan” and answers four rhetorical questions, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” 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 nick lane