What Is Life?
Edited by Stefan Helmreich, professor and Elting E. Morison Chair in MIT Anthropology; Natasha Myers PhD '07; Sophia Roosth PhD '10; and Michael Rossi PhD '11, in association with Katrin Klingan and Nick Houde; includes a chapter by Evelyn Fox Keller, professor emerita of the history and philosophy of science in the Program on Science, Technology, and Society
HKW · 2022
"What is life?" is a question that has haunted the life sciences since Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Gottfried Treviranus independently coined the word "biology" in 1802. The query has titled scores of texts, with Erwin Schrödinger's 1944 book and Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's 1995 volume only the most prominent. In this inventive art-and-science book, the editors curate and comment upon a collection of first pages of publications from 1829-2021 entitled "What Is Life?"
From Summer 2022 recommended reading from MIT (MIT News).
- A Pox on Fools: The True Believers, Grifters, and Cynics Who Convinced Us to Reject Vaccines · Thomas Levenson, 2026 · Summer 2026
- Birds Up Close: An Engineer Explores Their Hidden Wonders · Lorna J. Gibson, 2026 · Summer 2026
- Climate Change, Drinking Water Security, and Public Health: Global Challenges and Solutions · Libby Hsu, 2026 · Summer 2026
- Carbon Removal · Howard J. Herzog, 2025 · Summer 2026
- Phenomenal Moments: Revealing the Hidden Science Around Us · Felice Frankel, 2025 · Summer 2026
- Syntax: A Cognitive Approach · Edward A. F. Gibson, 2025 · Summer 2026
- The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction, and a Search for Relief · Tom Zeller Jr., 2025 · Summer 2026
- The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live · Alan Lightman, 2025 · Summer 2026