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Title: Genome by Matt Ridley ISBN: 0-06-093290-2 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.37 (142 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Clear, clever writing. Very sensible approach.
Comment: A review from the author of DREAMING YOUR REAL SELF: A PERSONAL APPROACH TO DREAM INTERPRETATION; and DREAM BACK YOUR LIFE: Transforming Dream Messages into Life Action--A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DREAMS, DAYDREAMS, AND FANTASIES.
When Carl Sagan passed away, I wished other scientists would step in to bring science to the public in an engaging, readable way and with Sagan's enthusiasm and hope. Matt Ridley's GENOME is a great read, taking an optimistic view of genetic research and its benefits to us all. While we worry about cloning and interfering with DNA, Ridley tells us what such research can mean to help us lead healthier lives while working within the limitations of the genes we have. I especially enjoyed his explanation that we have choices and are not determined solely by our genes. By knowing whatever genetic shortcomings we have, we are able to alter our diets, exercise, and education to compensate for them. I've read Ridley's other books as well-THE RED QUEEN and THE ORIGINS OF VIRTUE-and was intrigued by these evolutionary concepts and what they mean in our everyday lives. This is LIFE science indeed! Thank you.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ain't nothin' like the real thing
Comment: Until now human genes have been almost a complete mystery. However, because of the human genome project we will be the first humans to penetrate that mystery, which will in turn give us great new answers along with even greater new questions. We will be the first generation since "the beginning" - 4 billion years ago (?) - to read this book that is the genome, a book which will tell us more about our origins, our evolution, our nature and our minds than all the other efforts of science to date.
We've now discovered that the complete set of human genes (the human genome) can be found in our chromosomes, 23 separate pairs of them. Of the 100 trillion cells in the body each has a set of chromosomes making up a genome pair or set, one from mom and one from dad. These genes, an arbitrary collection of genes on the chromosomes inside the cell nuclei, are each composed of DNA which hold the information (the recipes for life) to create proteins which will determine how we as an organism look, behave, fight infection, metabolize food, and do virtually everything else.
This book relates the story of the human genome by using a gene from each chromosome to chronicle the story of our lives. By constructing the book in this manner the author represents the basic themes of human nature thru genetics. Thus, the genome is an autobiography of our species, recording the most important events in our history as they've occurred.
There are probably 60,000-80,000 genes in our human genome of which the great majority are merely tedious biochemical middle managers. All of these genes have not been found, but their story continues to unfold almost daily.
Each chromosome includes several thousand stories called genes. Each gene has paragraphs (exons), advertisements (introns), words (codons) and letters (bases). Genomes are like a book, but they don't all read just left to right, they sometimes read both ways.
While books are written in words of varying lengths genomes are written in 3 letter words which always use the same 4 letters. These letters are written in long chains of sugar and phosphate called DNA molecules to which the letters (called bases) are attached.
Each chromosome is one pair of very long DNA molecules. Through a process of the DNA being transmitted by RNA to produce proteins, which have themselves been formed by amino acids, we begin to see how the proteins switch genes on and off. When genes are replicated mistakes are sometimes made, usually referred to as mutations. Human beings accumulate about 100 mutations per generation and if they occur in the wrong place they can be fatal. This is an oversimplification and there are many exceptions to these rules, so you'll just have to read the book for the details. Believe me it's worth it!
For each of the 23 chromosomes Ridley explores the following human instincts, traits and abilities: ...life, species, history, fate, environment, intelligence, instinct, conflict, self-interest, disease, stress, personality, self-assembly, pre-history, immortality, sex, memory, death, cures, prevention, politics, eugenics and free will. Within these discussions you'll find more cocktail party ammunition than you'll ever need to know. Plus, it will open up a whole new world of understanding of "the whys and wherefores" of human nature.
The study of the genome compares with, though greatly exceeds, one of the greatest technological advancements in human history, one which took us from the age of faith to the age of reason: the microscope. Why, you might ask? Because it allowed man to come to grips with and understand the germ theory of disease. The notion that one contracted illness from some sort of heresy was pushed aside by the scientifically induced realism that illness is caused by microbes, bad ones, that endangered the health of the human body; sometimes fatally. This helped to change the balance of political power just as surely as the crossbow, the stirrup or the trireme. Suffice it to say it was a "big deal".
Matt Ridley has written a terrific book within which he avers that we, today, are living through the greatest intellectual moment in the history of man. Indeed, he has done us all a service by reducing this complex subject, one with a mind numbing array of details, to an understandable, easy to grasp format. It will leave the more intellectually inclined of us gasping for more. Don't miss it!
Rating: 3
Summary: fun to read
Comment: this was a great book to read because it is a compilation of vignettes. it's easy to read one or two in a sitting and then let it rest for a day, a week or a month. i wouldn't say that this book was a favorite of mine, but i'm glad i read it.
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Title: Nature Via Nurture : Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human by Matt Ridley ISBN: 0060006781 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley ISBN: 0140245480 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: DNA : The Secret of Life by JAMES D. WATSON, ANDREW BERRY ISBN: 0375415467 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins ISBN: 0192860925 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation by Matt Ridley ISBN: 0140264450 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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