A "splendid voyage through the world of proteins" (Venki Ramakrishnan)-how they shape life, and their remarkable potential to heal our bodies and our planet.

Each fall, a robin begins the long flight 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 cannot perceive.

The Color of North¿traverses the kingdom of life to uncover the myriad ways that proteins shape us and all organisms on the planet, forging the trajectories of ecosystems. Inside every cell, millions of proteins skillfully contort into unique shapes that give fireflies their ghostly glow, enable the octopus to see predators with its skin, and make humans fall in love. And yet, nature has exploited just a fraction of proteins' immense potential. Shahir Rizk and Maggie Fink show how breakthroughs in bioengineering are expanding on nature's repertoire, introducing proteins that can detect environmental pollutants, capture carbon dioxide, and treat diseases from cancer to COVID-19. Ultimately, we gain a new appreciation for our intimate connections to the world around us and a deeper understanding of ourselves.