The 5 core principles of life | Nobel Prize-winner Paul Nurse

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Nurse defines the 5 core principles of life.

What is the essence of being alive? This is the question that geneticist and cell biologist Paul Nurse dissects in his book What Is Life? At the core of life is the cell — an entity that can grow, divide, and reproduce. 

Using yeast as a model organism, Nurse discovered a similarity in cell reproduction mechanisms between yeast and humans, hinting at a shared ancestral origin for all life. This commonality extends to genes, the units of inheritance, first recognized in pea plants by Gregor Mendel. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection proposes that life adapts and evolves, favoring traits — and the genes that encode them — that are advantageous for survival. 

The essence of life, therefore, is a complex orchestration of chemistry and information management that allows organisms to adapt and persist through inheritance.

0:00 The big question of biology
0:57 1. The Cell
2:41 2. The Gene
3:28 3. Evolution by natural selection
4:20 4. Chemistry
5:20 5. Information
6:27 What is life?

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About Paul Nurse:
Paul Nurse, Ph.D, is a British biochemist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Leland H. Hartwell and R. Timothy Hunt for their discoveries regarding cell cycle regulation by cyclin and cyclin dependent kinases. He became Rockefeller University's ninth president in 2003.

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Read more of our stories biology:
Biology’s unsolved chicken-or-egg problem: Where did life come from?
What does it look like to “turn on” a gene?
“Spooky” quantum biology might cause your DNA to mutate

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[bigthink]

What do you think of this definition of life?

[bijucheriyakavilmathew]

Prof Paul Nurse is not just a great scientist, but a very humble person that elevates his status. As a Professor of Biochemistry working in India I sent him an e mail about a book on immunology that I planned to write and wanted his blessings. Within a week I got his reply wishing me the best. A Nobel Laureate could have easily ignored my letter, but his prompt reply taught me the great lesson that those truly great are very humble. Having read of his personal life made my respect towards him grow much more.May the Almighty God bless dear Paul. Regards, Dr Biju C Mathew

[starlord]

I am from the same discipline as he is and I am just telling you that he summarised all of the cell biology in 5 minutes. That's incredible and it shows the depth of his understanding of the subject.

[dbreardon]

As a grad student in the early 90's I attended a 3 day meeting of about 20 people at a small research center in Texas. Paul Nurse was the invited guest. Nurse was both hilarious and brilliant. A down to earth guy who engaged with all of us grad students. I can still see him one night while we were having a social get together, Nurse holding a drink and wearing a cowboy hat. Great meeting!

[xrtvvictoria]

"A living thing can acquire a purpose. Purpose to better itself." Beautiful.

[theconstantchange]

“Living thing can acquire a purpose. Purpose to better itself.” Greatest quote.

[anastasiadeck]

I met him in Paris last year when he gave a conference and he really inspired me to continue my studies in biology! 🧬

[salvadorvizcarra]

So, "Life" is an exchange of chemical reactions: "Life, is chemicals and molecules." Chemistry is responsible for Life. The point that I don't understand here is, how does the dead matter of chemicals become Life? We are all made up of molecules and atoms of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur, etc. But, these chemicals are dead. How do they come to life?

[damn]

What is life?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more...

[conradmphiri]

This is always a great topic to hear. Although I still think we underdefine life. We define life based off of how far we can perceive life. We didn't know that cells and other microorganisms existed before someone could make us perceive them. What if life exists at a smaller level than what we can currently perceive? More interestingly, what if life exists at a level greater than a level which we can perceive? A level at which our senses can't allow us to perceive it. For example, the cells in our bodies are examples of life. But then because they lack brains with ears, eyes, noses and other senses, they can't perceive our world the way we do. What if we lack the sense organs to perceive life at a scale larger than ours?

[catherine]

I've often wondered about what makes us alive. At the molecular level, the elements that make up living beings are no different than those of inanimate objects. For example, I imagine that you could stack up all the element that make up a human body, like the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., and I think each molecule inside us would be no different from the elements in a stone or in the air. Once you go small enough, we are composed of strictly non-living things, yet we are living. What a miracle.

Thank you for a great video that helps me think about what life really is.

[cienciabit]

Great video. Only one thing: what appears at 1:18 is not an insect but a crustacean, woodlouse (Oniscidea)

[TuckerStoller]

All the complexity can be summed up neatly in your talk, thank you for your great work!

[agracian]

A asked several LLM chatbots the same question (excluding Bard, as I am currently in France and don't have access).
Cohere seemed to give by far the clearest & briefest answer:

"Life is a characteristic of organisms that distinguishes them from non-living things. It is the ability to grow, reproduce, respond to stimuli, maintain homeostasis, and perform other functions that are necessary for the survival of the organism."

[ImissSaganCarl]

What an excellent video. The narrative/presentation is so clear, articulate and well presented. My compliments.

[nbgjgve]

I appreciate your effort for delivering such a wonderful video. I really enjoyed this video and after watching this i got more excitement about the life. When answering the question of what is life, talking about life is everyone have different opinion but in this video sharing a common view point but we didn't noticed before. In this video taught the a good view point about our life and i think everything has connected to chemistry. I recommending this video do you really want to know more about perspective of life and how everything has connecting our self however its very a very good video and its didn't bore any of the area.

[zantigar]

Thank you to Big Think and Paul Nurse for making this video a sincere encapsulation of these principles in 7 1/2 mins. without pitching your book - I'm now more inclined to order it on account of your immense spirit!

[rkdlvgc]

This is a wonderful summary and explanation of such a complex thing. It got me wondering something: What happens when life reaches a such a level of complex information management that it can and does start to speculate about what it is itself? We are living, and now we are asking what it is and what it means to be living. What is the purpose of existing, if there even is one? I don’t have an answer, but I think the question is well worth pondering.

[kurtdobson]

It's great to see 1.6 million views on an interesting topic versus the very low views on all the 'media' news outlets spewing politics, corruption and propaganda. Keep up the good work!

[nds]

Systems that have the pleasure of the uncertainty to certainty governed by certain principles-the awesome magic of the reality of life---Incredible journey!!!