RSE Gifford Seminar: Why is life the way it is? | Online

Join as experts and our audience unpack key themes from biochemist Professor Nick Lane’s upcoming Gifford Lecture at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Lane explores the question: Why did complex life emerge the way it did? His lecture centres around all complex life being composed of the same type of cell, which arose just once in the four-billion-year history of life. The barrier to complexity was probably not genetic, but energetic.

With the Gifford Lecture approaching, this discussion at the RSE offers a look at its central ideas and questions. If you’re curious about life’s origins, you're invited to join this conversation.

Audience questions and contributions are encouraged as we explore what Nick Lane’s arguments mean for philosophy, the origins of life, and the possibility of life beyond Earth.

This booking page is to view this event online. To book to attend in-person please click here.

Speaker: Professor Nick Lane
Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry and Director of the Centre for Life’s Origins and Evolution (CLOE) at University College London.

Professor Lane's research focuses on how energy flow has shaped evolution from the origin of life to the evolution of complex eukaryotic cells and the emergence of traits such as sex, ageing and consciousness.

Nick has published more than 130 papers in leading journals including Nature, Cell and Science, and written five award-winning books. These have been translated into 30 languages and recognized by the Royal Society Science Book Prize (2010), the Biochemical Society Award (2015) and the Royal Society Faraday Prize (2016). Bill Gates called The Vital Question “an amazing inquiry into the origins of life”.

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