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Books : Science & Nature : Popular Science : Human Biology : Genetics : General AAS
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In The Seven Daughters of Eve Bryan Sykes has produced a highly readable scientific autobiography depicting the major events in his career as a human geneticist. He was the first to extract DNA from the bones of the 5,000-year-old Iceman, and he solved the problem of the colonisation of Polynesia by tracing modern Polynesians' genetic ancestry. The high point of his work so far is the creation of a genetic map of Western Europe, showing that over 95% of native Europeans can trace their ancestry back to one of seven individual women. To trace this lineage Sykes and his team used mitochondria, tiny structures within each cell, which are passed on purely down the maternal line. Because they do not engage in recombination like chromosomes, mitochondria are easy to trace, changing only as a result of slow mutation. The mutation rate acts as a clock indicating how long different populations have been separated. The science is clearly explained and Sykes gives a good flavour of the life of a working scientist in a series of well-chosen anecdotes, all written in a warm, engaging style. The seven daughters themselves, whom he has named Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine and Jasmine, are brought to life in rather whimsical little stories describing how their lives might have been before and during the last great Ice Age. All in all, this is an excellent piece of popular-science writing, unveiling a fascinating story about human inter-relatedness. It deserves to be widely read. --Elizabeth Sourbut
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Science writer Matt Ridley's Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters is an elegant reflection on the significance of being able, for the first time in history, to read our own genes. The book is loosely organised around the stories of one gene per chromosome, rather than the whole genome. This enables Ridley to take in most of the usual topics associated with genes--our relations with other species, the nature of intelligence, the origins of behaviour--and add some new ones. Ridley is a fine writer and explains his selection of genetic stories exceptionally well. This is especially helpful when he is dealing with the intricacies of evolutionary theory or the tangled webs of genes influencing biochemistry influencing behaviour, influencing biochemistry influencing genes. His libertarian-right politics (state intervention bad, individual choice good) cut through many traditional worries about screening, testing and eugenics. The generally even tone only deserts him in a rather bad- tempered discussion of BSE (which starts with the gene for the protein implicated in the disease) and public attitudes to beef-eating. Otherwise, he is almost always persuasive, always interesting. By the time they finish cataloguing all our DNA, there look like being as many books on the subject as there are human genes. This is one of the ones worth having. --John Turney
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"Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders," writes James Watson in The Double Helix, his account of his codiscovery (along with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA. Watson and Crick won Nobel Prizes for their work, and their names are memorised by biology students around the world. But as in all of history, the real story behind the deceptively simple outcome was messy, intense, and sometimes truly hilarious. To preserve the "real" story for the world, James Watson attempted to record his first impressions as soon after the events of 1951-1953 as possible, with all their unpleasant realities and "spirit of adventure" intact.Watson holds nothing back when revealing the petty sniping and backbiting among his colleagues, while acknowledging that he himself was a willing participant in the melodrama. In particular, Watson reveals his mixed feelings about his famous colleague in discovery, Francis Crick, who many thought of as an arrogant man who talked too much, and whose brilliance was appreciated by few. This is the joy of The Double Helix--instead of a chronicle of stainless-steel heroes toiling away in their sparkling labs, Watson's chronicle gives readers an idea of what living science is like, warts and all. The Double Helix is a startling window into the scientific method, full of insight and wit, and packed with the kind of science anecdotes that are told and retold in the halls of universities and laboratories everywhere. It's the stuff of legends.--Therese Littleton
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