The 5 core principles of life | Nobel Prize-winner Paul Nurse

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Nurse defines the 5 core principles of life.

Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ►

/ @bigthink
Up next, You can slow down aging with zero weird tricks ►

• You can slow down aging with zero wei...

What is the essence of being alive? This is the question that geneticist and cell biologist Paul Nurse dissects in his book What Is Life? At the core of life is the cell — an entity that can grow, divide, and reproduce.

Using yeast as a model organism, Nurse discovered a similarity in cell reproduction mechanisms between yeast and humans, hinting at a shared ancestral origin for all life. This commonality extends to genes, the units of inheritance, first recognized in pea plants by Gregor Mendel. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection proposes that life adapts and evolves, favoring traits — and the genes that encode them — that are advantageous for survival.

The essence of life, therefore, is a complex orchestration of chemistry and information management that allows organisms to adapt and persist through inheritance.

0:00 The big question of biology
0:57 1. The Cell
2:41 2. The Gene
3:28 3. Evolution by natural selection
4:20 4. Chemistry
5:20 5. Information
6:27 What is life?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Paul Nurse:
Paul Nurse, Ph.D, is a British biochemist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Leland H. Hartwell and R. Timothy Hunt for their discoveries regarding cell cycle regulation by cyclin and cyclin dependent kinases. He became Rockefeller University's ninth president in 2003.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read more of our stories biology:
Biology’s unsolved chicken-or-egg problem: Where did life come from?
► https://bigthink.com/the-well/biology...
What does it look like to “turn on” a gene?
► https://bigthink.com/health/turn-on-g...
“Spooky” quantum biology might cause your DNA to mutate
► https://bigthink.com/hard-science/qua...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Big Think | Smarter Faster™
► Big Think
Our mission is to make you smarter, faster. Watch interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers on science, philosophy, business, and more.
► Big Think+
Looking to ignite a learning culture at your company? Prepare your workforce for the future with educational courses from the world’s biggest thinkers.