Free Downloads Genome: The Autobiography Of A Species In 23 Chapters
The genome's been mapped.But what does it mean? Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life.
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1 Reprint edition (May 30, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060894083
ISBN-13: 978-0060894085
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (331 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #11,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #19 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Modern #35 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics > Biology & Life Sciences > Anatomy & Physiology #40 in Books > Science & Math > Evolution
This is the book that I wish Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" was. Matt Ridley unfolds the human genome for us in a crisply written and precise "Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters." OK, I don't know what the Hades that means, but this guy is a good writer, a smart scientist, and a friendly teacher of what is a really cool, but intimidating, branch of learning.Ridley's got a little shtick, which he openly mocks himself, where his 23 chapters each represent one of the 23 human chromosomes. It's kind of an interesting little angle, you want to like this guy, anyway, so the shtick mostly works, although I don't really have a sense that each of our 23 chromosomes is a particular type of chromosome at the end of it.Genome is a lot of good science explained with a clear, well-constructed hand. In an excellent seven-page introduction, Ridley answered for me all sorts of questions that my scientifically-literate yet communication-challenged science friends have been unable to answer, to wit:"Imagine that the genome is a book.There are twenty-three chapters, called Chromosomes.Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called Genes.Each story is made up of paragraphs, called Exons, which are interrupted by advertisements called Introns.Each paragraph is made up of words, called Codons.Each word is written in letters called Bases."Very nicely done, brings it to an understandable level for the literate layperson, and establishes a very solid foundation from which he is able to unfold the rest of this story.He handles the basic science very well, and mostly shys away from the "Believe It or Not!" school of science reporting, though the occasional oddity does pop up. One thing I found fascinating is the existence of "chimeras.
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