What Sustains Life?: Consilient Mechanisms for Protein-Based Machines and Materials

What Sustains Life? How can something so seemingly improbable and fragile as life exist in such hardy and resilient forms? The question has inspired intrigue among curious humans, from physicists to theologians, for centuries. Fascinated by this question, Dr Dan W. Urry, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, St Paul, begins his investigation into the sustenance of life through an examination of the fundamental design of elastic-contractile model proteins. What does an understanding of these mechanisms lend to the comprehension of life itself? Encapsulating three decades of Dr. Urry’s collaborative research and analysis, his initial investigation into the basis of life expands include an increasingly complex and diverse story that is part science, part personal memoir and wholly fascinating.