Excerpt: Seed of Life

It is a lab like so many others. Beakers and flasks have multicolored fluids of origins and purposes unknown to the uninitiated. Arcane equipment vaguely reminiscent of mediocre science fiction films of half a century ago is scattered about on lab benches. During much of the day, lab-coated men and women mix solutions, swab agar plates, and peer through microscopes, as in so many other labs. But the scientist in charge of this lab is driven to crack life’s code, to find the right combination of primordial ooze and electromagnetic energy to stimulate new life from dead compounds. It has been his life’s work, and now, thanks to his determination and the generosity of yet-to-be-born taxpayers of the United States, he is confident the goal is in sight.