Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

“why did nature do things in a certain way, and not in another one?” Why 20 amino acids, and not 15, or 55? Why do nucleic acids contain ribose instead of glucose? Must mammalian hemoglobin be constituted by four chains, why not six or twelve? Why didn’t nature make much simpler cells?

life; they are also critical for energizing chemical syntheses whose accomplishments help to form our surroundings as well as to expand the opportunities for feeding and healing ourselves.

Arguably it is here that we begin to see how life is not a mechanical process that transmits information and organization steadily and predictably along linear pathways from genes to ever increasing scales. Instead it is a cascade of processes, each with a distinct integrity and autonomy, the logic of which has no parallel outside the living world.