"The question of why an individual would actively kill itself has long been an evolutionary mystery. Pierre Durand's ambitious manuscript answers this question through close inspection of life and death in the earliest cellular life. It turns out that cell death is a fascinating lens through which to examine the interconnectedness, in evolutionary terms, of life and death. It is a truism to note that one does not exist without the other, but just how does this play out in evolutionary history? These two processes have been studied from philosophical, theoretical, experimental, and genomic angles, but no one has yet integrated the information from these various disciplines. In this work, Durand synthesizes cellular studies of life and death looking at the origin of life, and the evolutionary significance of programmed cellular death.The exciting and unexpected outcome of Durand's work is the realization that life and death exhibit features of coevolution. The evolution of more complex cellular life depended on the coadaptation between traits that promote life and those that promote death. In an ironic twist, it becomes clear that, in many circumstances, programmed cell death is essential for sustaining life"--.

• Contents
• Foreword (by Eugene V. Koonin)
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Life and Death
• Part One: The Origin of Life
  • 1. Philosophical considerations and the origin of life
  • 2. The biotic world
  • 3. The theory of life’s origins
  • 4. Life at the very beginning I: the chemistry of the first biomolecules
  • 5. Life at the very beginning II: the emergence of complex RNA molecules
  • 6. The origin of life was an evolutionary transition in individuality
  • 7. A synthesis for the origin of life
• Part Two: The Origin of Death
  • 8. Philosophical considerations and the origin of death
  • 9. Observations of death
  • 10. Mechanisms and measures of programmed cell death in the unicellular world
  • 11. True PCD: when PCD is an adaptation
  • 12. Ersatz PCD: the non-adaptive explanations for PCD
  • 13. Programmed cell death and the levels of selection
  • 14. A synthesis for the origin of programmed cell death
• Part Three: Origins of Life and Death, and Their Coevolution
  • 15. Group selection and the origins of life and death
  • 16. Life and death coevolution, and the emergence of complexity
• Postface
• Additional notes
• Reference list
• Index of names
• Index of subjects