The Air

The Air Contents I. The Air is Made of Life II. What the Air Is Now III. The Ocean of Air, and Its Weight IV. The Great Heat Engine V. The Air and You VI. Cross-Links Temperature, weather, air currents, and pressure, and how the atmosphere itself was made by life.   Of all the […]

Evolution & Genetics

Evolution & Genetics Contents I. How Evolution Seems to Work II. What a Gene Does III. Sex, and Why It Is Worth the Trouble IV. The Evolution of Cooperation V. What Is an Organism, and What Is Behaviour? VI. The Major Transitions VII. Where This Leads VIII. What We Do Not Know IX. The Impartial […]

LUCA & the Energy Bubbles

LUCA & the Energy Bubbles Contents I. What Life Is II. The Ingredients III. The Competing Hypotheses IV. The Alkaline Hydrothermal Vent Theory V. Replication First, or Metabolism First? VI. LUCA: The Last Universal Common Ancestor VII. The First Glimmer of Sensing VIII. What We Do Not Know IX. The Impartial Observer’s Takeaway X. Cross-Links […]

Energy Factories

Energy Factories Contents I. The Deal of a Lifetime II. Why Energy Was the Bottleneck III. How Energy Gets Made IV. Mitochondria as Entropy Engines V. The Maternal Line VI. What We Do Not Know VII. The Impartial Observer’s Takeaway VIII. Cross-Links Mitochondria, chloroplasts, and the deal of a lifetime. The previous page named the […]

The Life Origin Rabbit Hole

The Life Origin Rabbit Hole Contents I. What Is Life, Really? The Definition Problem II. Viruses: The Edge Case That Breaks the Categories III. The Abiogenesis Hypotheses, Pushed Further IV. Predictive Life: The Free Energy Principle Revisited V. Dissipation-Driven Adaptation Revisited VI. Inevitable, or a Fluke? VII. The Great Filter and Are We Alone VIII. […]

Origin Terminology Cheat Sheet

Origin Terminology Cheat Sheet Contents I. The Origin of Life II. The Cell III. The Machinery of Genetics IV. How Evolution Works V. The Major Transitions VI. The Body Plans of Animals VII. The Progression of Life: A Map VIII. Cross-Links Definitions and summaries of the ideas found in this section, plus a map of […]

Emergence & Complexity

Emergence & Complexity Contents I. What Emergence Is II. Simple Rules, Staggering Complexity III. Self-Organisation IV. The Levels of Reality V. Weak and Strong Emergence VI. Complexity Theory and Feedback VII. Tensegrity: The Body as Emergent Structure VIII. The Free Energy Principle IX. Emergence and You X. What We Do Not Know XI. The Impartial […]

Entropy

Entropy Contents I. What Is Entropy? II. The Second Law and the Arrow of Time III. The Part Almost Everyone Gets Backwards IV. Life as a Dissipative Structure V. The Entropy Accelerator VI. The Dissipation-Driven Adaptation VII. The Micro Example: Your Metabolism VIII. Why Growth and Decay Are the Same Process IX. The Arrow of […]

The Forces

The Forces Contents I. What a “force” is II. Gravity III. Electromagnetism IV. The Strong Nuclear Force V. The Weak Nuclear Force VI. The Standard Model VII. The Unification Story VIII. The Forces and You IX. What We Don’t Know X. The Takeaway XI. Cross-links Gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces.   […]

The Big Bang

The Big Bang Contents I. Deep History II. What “The Big Bang” Actually Means III. The First Moments IV. Inflation V. The Light Elements VI. Recombination and the First Light VII. The Dark Sector VIII. From First Light to First Life IX. What We Do Not Know X. The Takeaway XI. Cross-Links The proposed birth […]