The question of where the first life came from is one of the seven Welträtsel described by Emil du Bois-Reymond in 1880. Werner Ahrendt substantiates his assumption that the first forms of life originated on the seabed.

All living organisms on Earth use the same genetic code to translate genetic information into proteins. Werner Ahrendt presents a hypothesis as to how this code may have evolved over the course of natural history.

How what we call consciousness arises in the brain is undoubtedly one of the world's great unsolved mysteries. Emil du Bois-Reymond posed this question in his famous lecture, "The Seven Mysteries of the World," given at the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1880: "Where does conscious sensation come from in the unconscious nerves?"

Human beings are capable of greater intellectual achievements than any other living creature on earth. How did this happen? The answer may shed some dark light on our ancestors.