AP Bio: Genome Chromosome 1: Life

In "Life," the first chapter of Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley, the author describes life as "a slippery thing to define, but it consists of two very different skills: the ability to replicate, and the ability to create order" (12).  He talks about how information is the key to these two conditions of life, and that DNA is that information, "written in a code of chemicals" (13).  He also talks about how life began: Chromosome I, the largest chromosome, is called the "ur-gene" (18) and was a "combined replicater-catalyst" which may have caused the chemicals around it to replicate itself.  He compares about the genes being a language of itself in a book.




Source:
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley
picture of Genome book from: http://vanlagerstatten.blogspot.com/