Over the past 150 years the acknowledged dates for the formation of the Earth and the origin of Life have been pushed steadily back into the remote past. As these timescales have lengthened however, the interval between the two dates has reduced so much so that it has left us with a serious conundrum: the interval between the formation of the Earth (or at least a surface capable of supporting life) and the appearance of life is simply too short for life to have come into existence from scratch.

The key questions thrown up by this problem of timing are addressed for the first time in The Feathered Onion. Is the Earth older than we think? Could life on Earth really have developed incredibly rapidly? Did life originate elsewhere and then find its way to our planet? Clive Trotman explores the science and potential of these theories with explanations of the latest scientific techniques and their implications for our current understanding of where we came from.