What are living bodies made of and what does carbon have to do with it? What is the genetic code, who are viruses, how does the evolutionary tree work, and why did the Cambrian explosion happen? This book provides up-to-date answers to these and many other questions. The “focus” of the story is the evolution of life on Earth: the author believes that only from this angle can a variety of biological problems acquire a single meaning. The book consists of four parts, the topics of which are successively expanded: “The Chemistry of Life”, “The Mechanism of Life”, “The Tree of Life” and “The History of Life”. It is recommended to a wide range of readers seriously interested in modern biology.

The book is published in the Primus series with the support of the Evolution Foundation and the Dmitry Zimin Book Projects program.