Book description
How do we move, think and remember? Why do we get ill, age and die?
Distinguished biologist Lewis Wolpert explains how cells provide the
answers to the fundamental questions about our lives. 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 derive from a single cell - the egg. 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.
Lewis Wolpert is a distinguished developmental biologist and an
accomplished broadcaster. He is Emeritus Professor of Biology as
Applied to Medicine at University College, London, and 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.
