The Color of North: The Molecular Language of Proteins and the Future of Life

An awe-inspiring journey into the world of proteins—how they shape life, and their remarkable potential to heal our bodies and our planet.

Each fall, a robin begins the long trek north from Gibraltar to her summer home in Central Europe. Nestled deep in her optic nerve, a tiny protein turns a lone electron into a compass, allowing her to see north in colors we can only dream of perceiving.

Taking us beyond the confines of our own experiences, The Color of North traverses the kingdom of life to uncover the myriad ways that proteins shape us and all organisms on the planet. Inside every cell, a tight-knit community of millions of proteins skillfully contorts into unique shapes to give fireflies their ghostly glow, enable the octopus to see predators with its skin, and make humans fall in love. Collectively, proteins orchestrate the intricate relationships within ecosystems and forge the trajectory of life. And yet, nature has exploited just a fraction of their immense potential. Shahir S. Rizk and Maggie M. Fink show how breathtaking advances in protein engineering are expanding on nature’s repertoire, introducing proteins that can detect environmental pollutants, capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and treat diseases from cancer to COVID-19.

Weaving together themes of memory, migration, and family with cutting-edge research, The Color of North unveils a molecular world in which proteins are the pulsing heart of life. Ultimately, we gain a new appreciation for our intimate connections to the world around us and a deeper understanding of ourselves.