Is life inevitable? Or are we the unbelievable result of an against-all-odds game that has produced a pair of eyeballs capable of unravelling the mysteries of the universe? Nick Lane, Biochemist at the University College London, is torn. On the one hand, life seems like it has no choice but to occur. The biochemistry of metabolism is completely spontaneous, even in the absence of cells. But complexity? That's a whole different ballgame. We talk about why life on Earth is so strange, why a metabolic theory for life is so good, why Panspermia is so unsatisfying, and how some lab results imply our understanding of metabolism isn't as good as we think.