Part two of the Biology brief in The Economist is Cells and how to run them: All life is made of cells, and cells depend on membranes
A few of the main ideas are the following. Cells are either prokaryotic (bacterium) or eukaryotic (animals). Cell membranes are made of lipids that spontaneously form structures due to an interplay between hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions. The boundary of prokaryotic cells is the membrane. Eukaryotic cells are more complex, containing many organelles (mitochondria), whose boundary are membranes.
The electron transfer chains are driven either by respiration or photosynthesis.
Energy for processes in the cell is provided by breaking ATP down to ADP. The reverse process is driven by the kinetic energy of rotation (at about 6000 rpm) of the part of the ATP synthase protein. ATP is Adenosine triphosphate.
To me the amazing/awesome/cool/miraculous thing is what the hardware can do. These are nanoscale chemical machines and factories. The video below shows a simulation of the ATP synthase protein that is located within cell membranes. It acts as a proton pump to maintain the concentration imbalance between the outside and inside of the cell and to convert ADP to ATP.
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