Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Elixir of Life and death -- In the beginning: the origins and importance of Oxygen -- Silence of the Aeons: three billion years of microbial evolution -- Fuse to the Cambrian explosion: snowball Earth, environmental change and the first animals -- Bolsover dragonfly: oxygen and the rise of the giants -- Treachery in the air: oxygen poisoning and x-irradiation: a mechanism in common -- Green Planet: radiation and the evolution of photosynthesis -- Looking for LUCA: last ancestor in an age before oxygen -- Portrait of a paradox: vitamin C. and the many faces of an antioxidant -- Antioxidant machine: a hundred and one ways of living with oxygen -- Sex and the art of bodily maintenance: trade-offs in the evolution of ageing -- Eat or you'll live forever: the triangle of food, sex and longevity -- Gender bender: the rate of living and the need for sexes -- Beyond genes and destiny: the double-agent theory of ageing and disease -- Life, death and oxygen: lessons from evolution on the future of ageing.