Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Oxygen summary
Nick Lane
The Molecule That Made the World
Listen to the first key idea
Key idea 1 of 8
4.4 (25 ratings)
16 mins
8 key ideas
Audio & text
What is Oxygen about?
Oxygen (2002) is a guide to the element that is so essential to our very existence that we sometimes forget it even exists. These blinks explain how oxygen enables and boosts life on earth while simultaneously threatening it.
About the Author
Dr. Nick Lane studied biochemistry at Imperial College London and is an Honorary Reader at University College London. He is the author of Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life and Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution.
Table of Contents
Key idea 1 of 8
Oxygen is essential to life on earth, but it’s also a deadly toxin.
Everyone knows how important oxygen is. After all, without it, we’d all be dead in a matter of minutes. But oxygen serves important functions beyond just respiration.
While oxygen has played an essential role in sustaining life on earth for millennia, it hasn't always been such a ubiquitous element. For instance, about four billion years ago, the planet’s atmosphere contained barely any oxygen at all. But today, our air is about 21 percent oxygen.
So where did it all come from?
The answer is photosynthesis, the process through which plants use sunlight to split water into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen. While solar energy can also break apart water molecules, doing so without photosynthesis was actually a threat to the early life forms that developed in the oceans.
How so? Well, while hydrogen is a light gas that can escape the planet’s gravity, oxygen is much heavier and remains in the atmosphere. So, without hydrogen to bond with, these free oxygen molecules bonded with iron and entered the oceans instead of staying in the atmosphere. The result was a net loss of water as hydrogen left the atmosphere, offering fewer chances for oxygen and hydrogen to combine and become water.
But that all changed with photosynthesis. This process produced oxygen in such abundance it accumulated in the atmosphere where it bonded with hydrogen, forming more water. Essentially, atmospheric oxygen halted the planet’s rapid water depletion, helping ocean life evolve.
However, oxygen also threatened life on earth. While it is the essence of life for humans, for the tiny organisms that preceded us, oxygen was a lethal gas. In fact, most organisms alive today can only tolerate oxygen because they have antioxidants. These chemicals prevent the cell-damaging process of oxidation, wherein oxygen breaks electrons away from organic molecules, causing them to disintegrate. Since early life forms didn’t have antioxidants, oxygen was a death sentence for them.
Want to see all full key ideas from Oxygen?
Key ideas in Oxygen
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
Who should read Oxygen
- Anybody fascinated by the evolution of life on Earth
- Anyone interested in biology, chemistry or physics
Categories with Oxygen
Books like Oxygen
What our members say
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
Start growing with Blinkist now
25 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers