Understanding The Tree of Life

For decades, biology has been dominated by information—the power of genes. Yet there is no difference between a living cell and one that died a moment ago in terms of information. What really animates cells and sets them apart from non-living matter? This question goes back to the flawed geniuses and heroic origins of modern biology. The answer could turn our picture of life on Earth upside down.

Where are the edges of a tree? What makes arms different from daughters? What have corals got in common with Necker cubes? Biological individuality has become a dizzying area since researchers began, at the turn of the millennium, to see new connections between group selection and the evolution of multicellularity and to realize that it isn't feasible to go on taking organisms for granted as basic particles of the living world.

How to Heal the Body with the Mind