From the veteran science writer who brought us Genomes, Browsers and Databases (2008) comes a compendium for laypeople on the breakthroughs of molecular biology.
With backgrounds in education and physics (among other disciplines), Schattner has intended this volume to help curious and intelligent readers explore the world of molecular biology. He uses six sections to illuminate a vast array of topics, beginning with “Proteins and Genes: The Constituents of Life,” which builds a scaffolding to more complex areas of knowledge. Throughout, stories about real people help ground the detailed science. In the section “DNA: Our Link to the Past and the Future,” we learn how family histories can be traced through genetic testing (using Jewish and African-American ancestries as examples) and how glimpses of prenatal DNA may help parents prepare for their child’s arrival by detecting potential diseases (like Huntington’s) early. Sections III (about gene regulation) and IV (epigenetics) showcase the workings of phenomena like sleep, kindness, love and memory (frequently citing animal studies) by explaining how these phenomena can malfunction at the molecular level. Next is the “Nature and Nurture” discussion, covering how genes affect human longevity, athleticism, intelligence and language. The final part focuses on gender, behaviors (like aggression) and emotions (pleasure and fear) as seen through the lens of molecular biology. In this thoroughgoing work, author Schattner writes crisply, offering lucid definitions to technical terms. For example, the double helix refers to “two strands of the DNA molecule...bound together in a very specific manner in which certain bases are always matched.” He also lets us know, thankfully, that there is an ethical line he’d rather not cross with regard to animal testing: “[T]he moral implications of changing monkey DNA make many people (including me) uncomfortable.” Schatter occasionally seasons with a dry wit that will keep readers from being overwhelmed by so much information; e.g., he warns of “logistical challenges” if a Great Dane and a Chihuahua were to mate. Further volumes would be most welcome.
A marvelous entrance for those ready to plunge into popular science.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0991422517
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Olingo Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.
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Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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