'The Vital Question: Why Is Life the Way It Is?', by Nick Lane

There is a black hole at the heart of biology," says Nick Lane, who is emerging as one of the most imaginative thinkers about the evolution of life on Earth. The hole surrounds the transition around 1.8bn years ago from simple microbes, which had monopolised the planet for the previous 2bn years, to the complex "eukaryotic" cells that went on to become animals, plants, fungi and protozoa. For Lane, a biochemist at University College London, the little discussed origins of cellular complexity are The Vital Question for biologists seeking to understand why life is the way it is.

Yet scientists have paid much more attention to how the first primitive cells originated on the young Earth, when it was some 500m years old. Lane's latest book, following on from his prizewinning Life Ascending (2009), does, in fact, start with the origins of life. Indeed, he puts forward a convincing argument for the first living cells having formed around alkaline hydrothermal vents. Only in this fiercely hot deep-sea environment could the chemical conditions and energy flow promote hydrogen to react with carbon dioxide and form self-replicating organic compounds.

The more interesting developments came later. The first cells soon split into two broad microbial groups, the so-called bacteria and archaea. For a couple of billion years these two single-celled groups, known collectively as prokaryotes, remained in a rut of simplicity without cell nuclei or organelles. While both retained DNA as genetic material and proteins as molecular workhorses, their biochemical processes diverged.

The key moment for the evolution of life on Earth, Lane says, came at some point between 2bn and 1.5bn years ago. Then, in a rare and remarkable act of "endosymbiosis", an archaean absorbed a bacterium - and this combination survived to divide into a rapidly evolving chain of descendants. All eukaryotic creatures, including ourselves, come from this once-in-4bn-years union.

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This internal specialisation enabled eukaryotic cells to generate many thousands of times more energy per gene than prokaryotes. However, a billion more years were to pass - a further intermission that Lane does not really explain - before geochemical conditions enabled eukaryotes to use their energy advantage to spectacular effect: the rapid evolution of complex multicellular animals and plants began less than 600m years ago in the "Cambrian explosion".

Unlike much popular science writing, The Vital Question is more than a readable recapitulation of existing work. "For me the best books in biology, ever since Darwin, have been arguments," Lane says. He has written a scintillating synthesis of a new theory of life, emphasising energy and evolution, which is beginning to win scientific adherents but is still controversial. Many holes and gaps remain. But this book should appeal to anyone who wants to read about important scientific work in progress, from a researcher who is both theorist and practical experimenter.

The Vital Question: Why Is Life the Way It Is?, by Nick Lane, Profile, RRP£25, 352 pages

Clive Cookson is the FT's science editor

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