Summary of Carl Zimmer's Life's Edge

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 I felt my own life, as well as the lives of others, as I made my way down the hairpin road. I could feel the steep slope in my legs, and I was aware of the nerves in my skin sensing the humidity and temperature of the air around me.

#2 I visited a laboratory in La Jolla, California, that was studying the kelp neuron. The kelp had the kind of complexity that marks living things, but I couldn’t say whether it was still alive. I couldn’t ask it how its day was going.

#3 The lab where Trujillo worked was led by another scientist from Brazil named Alysson Muotri. He grew neurons from people with a hereditary form of autism called Rett syndrome. The neurons spread their kelp-like branches across petri dishes and made contact with each other.

#4 Scientists were able to grow brain organoids in 2013, and they have been growing them ever since. They are able to see how the organoids develop, and they believe that they are developing more like our own brains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669359494

IRB Media

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Book preview

Insights on Carl Zimmer's Life's Edge

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I felt my own life, as well as the lives of others, as I made my way down the hairpin road. I could feel the steep slope in my legs, and I was aware of the nerves in my skin sensing the humidity and temperature of the air around me.

#2

I visited a laboratory in La Jolla, California, that was studying the kelp neuron. The kelp had the kind of complexity that marks living things, but I couldn’t say whether it was still alive. I couldn’t ask it how its day was going.

#3

The lab where Trujillo worked was led by another scientist from Brazil named Alysson Muotri. He grew neurons from people with a hereditary form of autism called Rett syndrome. The neurons spread their kelp-like branches across petri dishes and made contact with each other.

#4

Scientists were able to grow brain organoids in 2013, and they have been growing them ever since. They are able to see how the organoids develop, and they believe that they are developing more like our own brains.

#5

When the organoids were sent into space, they survived and were able to be observed by the astronauts. They were able to tell the scientists that the organoids were alive and functioning normally in space.

#6

The researchers were able to figure out how Zika viruses wreak havoc in the brain, and created drugs to block them. They were able to grow brain organoids that resembled the brain more and more as they grew.

#7

Scientists have created baby brains in a lab, and they are not even close to being human. They are far too simple to be considered a brain, and yet they are alive. Where do you start to approach that line.

#8

We are still trying to understand what makes brain organoids so different from actual brains, and whether or not they are alive.