Notes Of A Biology Watcher:The Lives Of A Cell

Some stories are timeless...

Comments by Lloyd I Sederer MD

How could a cell have given life, eons ago, to the vast variety of creatures inhabiting our air, sea, land, and bodies? A cell that, with time, happened to spawn we homo sapiens, capable of communication, creativity, and consciousnesses. That has, when we pause to reflect leave us breathless?

Enter Lewis Thomas...

Who was Lewis Thomas, MD? He was President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and formerly Dean of The New York University-Bellevue Medical Center, Dean of Yale Medical Center, and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Yet these prestigious professional posts do not reveal Dr. Thomas’ genius for explaining many of the most puzzling scientific truths of our age – in language that eschews jargon and the unfathomable words, sentences, and paragraphs that kill the joy of reading science.

Lewis Thomas was, as well, a great naturalist, scientist, and author. Thomas demonstrated that an author could captivate readers about any subject they have a passion for: bowling, the bassoon, the Canary Islands, UFOs, opium, truffles, cats and dogs, evil and good, or cells!

Backstory: I came upon The Lives Of A Cell when scouting, as a younger man, the science section of The New York Public Library, on 5^th Avenue and 42^nd Street in Manhattan. As a medical student, I was reading Grey’s Anatomy and other such riveting books, wondering what happened to the prose I knew existed from college. Studying medicine, science in general, was enlightening, though it had done a job trampling my reading pleasure.

I was assured it was still present by Thomas’ clear, lively, and ultimately wise prose. His text was absent of jargon and written with an economy of wonderfully descriptive nouns and lively verbs, delivered with a cadence that made reading his work a bit like listening to music.

What entranced me most about Thomas’ writing was his awe for his subject, a single cell. Thomas, an accomplished storyteller, portrays how a cell has stood center stage in building a vast and stunning array of life forms, from the (not so simple) unicellular organisms to the extraordinary collections of cells that have become creatures of the seas, sky, and land.

Thomas starts his book by marveling about cells. Vivid imagination, not labor, carries him to subjects like insects, music, language, computers, and medicine.After all, they are interconnected, including us.

Which means you (or I) need only start with a subject that stirs our wonder or worry or simply holds meaning for us. We don’t need to hunt for something to write about, it is right in front of my eyes.

Soon into this book, Thomas remarks, “It is an illusion to think there is anything fragile about the life of the earth.” Which is not to say humans are not fragile. “We are the delicate part, transient and vulnerable... yet our genomes are catalogues of instructions...filed for all kinds of contingencies.” Just like Thomas to lead us to the brink then bring our nature to the rescue. Paradox does not faze him; it only spurs his scientific curiosity, which, in turn, enlivens his hope.

Thomas notes that a universe of improbability has given forth the wonder of the Earth and its abundance of life forms, remarking that we are not more surprised than we are. It is his endless surprise and inquiry into the voids of our ignorance that renders him a scientific explorer and keen reporter to we puzzled humans looking for meaning. 

He forecasts that greater illumination is to come, that we are at the outset of our evolution as a species. Makes sense, given how far we have come in what is still the relatively brief time of the galaxies, no less the universe. Of course, notwithstanding the total destruction of another ice age, or the mindlessness of man.

Thomas invites us, as he closes, to marvel at the sky above. “We should credit it for...{its} sheer size and perfection of function...the grandest product of collaboration in all of nature”. I won’t be able to look skyward again without hearing his words invite a precious experience of awe. 

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Dr. Lloyd Sederer is a psychiatrist, public health doctor, and non-fiction writer.

You can find a great deal more of his writings on his website:www.askdrlloyd.com