Makayla’s Reviews > Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death > Status Update

I understand that authors often feel a need to tackle big problems in their books, like cancer and aging and diet, but I don’t think that this book benefits from the somewhat bold claims Lane is making.
The flux capacitor chapter, and the cancer chapter preceding it, veer a little to much into diet&lifestyle advice for my tastes as a reader. It sets of alarm bells for me.

“If you ever wondered why some diets work well for some people but not for others, this is part of the answer: subtle differences in mitochondrial function”

That is a claim that feels to me like to could be (at least partially) true. And it is substantiated by the prev. page. But I don’t know that it’s on solid enough ground for a general audience book.
General issue I have w/ the past 1.5 chapters.

Cancer cells use aerobic glycolysis because it eschews maximized ATP production for NADPH preservation; NADPH drives growth and biosynthesis (often).

A fall in 13C relative to 12C implies far more carbon is being oxidized (being incorporated into organic tissues) than is being buried from the atmosphere.

Really great explanation of 13C dating in limestone!!

🥺really cute! The bacteria are helping each other! 🥹

After discussing the reversibility of key metabolic reactions in cells:
“Selection has fashioned key regulatory enzymes to work in only one direction, preventing ‘reflux’ in much the same way as a valve…Autotrophic cells fix flux in one direction while heterotrophs fix their main pathways in the opposite direction”.

Really useful insight into why a low oxygen environment is important for life, but also how high modern oxygen concentrations allow for higher trophic levels.

“The deepest requirement for the proton motive force might therefore be CO2 fixation.”
!!!

“First, it means that OH- ions detach easily in acidic environments, but not under alkaline conditions…And second, look what’s being formed overall-water! This is what’s called a dehydration reaction”.