Big Think The 5 core principles of life | Nobel Prize-winner Paul Nurse
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Sep 26, 2025 
In this engaging conversation, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Paul Nurse unpacks the five core principles of life. He starts by defining the cell as the simplest unit of life, explaining its growth and reproduction using yeast as a model. Nurse highlights fascinating connections between yeast and human genes, revealing our shared ancient mechanisms. He delves into Mendel's groundbreaking discovery of genes and examines Darwin's evolutionary theory. The discussion culminates in the importance of chemistry and information flow in sustaining life.
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Cell As The Core Unit Of Life
- The cell is the simplest unit that shows life by growing, dividing, and reproducing.
- All organisms are single cells or ensembles of cooperating cells governed by the same cell-level rules.
Yeast Experiment Revealed Shared Mechanisms
- Paul Nurse describes using yeast as a model and finding a human gene that substitutes for the yeast gene.
- That experiment showed the same reproduction mechanism operated in yeast and humans across deep evolutionary time.
Genes As Hereditary Units
- Mendel showed inheritance behaved like discrete units, which we now call genes.
- Genes act as hereditary units that explain predictable ratios in offspring traits.
