List of Illustrations Foreword Part 1: Evolution The curse * Why alien fish most probably don't fly * What is true for birds is true for us * An unexpected parcel * The ear that shouldn't exist * On the advantages of being ethereal * Little Green Men signal number 1 * A Tree of Life * What life is Part 2: An Extinction Where digging leads * And you thought you were having a bad day . * Bad things usually come in a series * What to do when all hell breaks loose * If you're still around, well done * A planetary facelift * An ocean made of rocks * How a meteorite can send you to hospital Part 3: The History of the Earth The birth of a cosmic couple * After hell comes hell * The relativity of boredom * An explosion that shouldn't have been * A little summary * A long-gone alien world * Land ho! * Turning green * The time of the giant insects * Two holes in the skull * The day the ground opened up Part 4: A Journey Within The basic building block * Beware of yellow robots * Introducing the yellow robot * There's mystery in your hand * Journey inward * Bubbles up and down * Compartments, everywhere * To see the invisible * Why people consider you to be a CHNOPS * The nucleic acids * The art of making chains * The message from within * The headquarters * The birth of memory * DNA * A universal alphabet * The code of life * A 150,000-year-long journey * From life to life * Humans are waterfalls * The making of you, part one * Power, the female link * The most amazing cycle * Something deep * Sometimes, even dating apps can't help * The making of you, part two: epigenesis Part 5: Domains of Life More than a summary * Three is a magic number, even for a tree * A conundrum * Healthy smokers * What we are a part of * Introducing LUCA * Horizontal gene transfer * Poisons * And now for some whisky * A photo shoot * A parallel world * Genetic engineering Part 6: Looking for an Origin Spontaneous generation * A day in the life of . * Spontaneous generation revisited * Before DNA * Extreme survival * Destinations * Distant encounters of the third kind * Where are they? Epilogue Acknowledgements Sources Index.