A beautiful journey

My Beautiful Genome

By Lone Frank

Although scientists have been studying genes for decades, the consumer genomics industry is only just finding its feet. A rash of companies have rushed into the market over recent years. They offer all sorts of genome services, from tracing your ancestors through to your likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s and even genetic-match dating.

The outstanding book about Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By Rebecca Skloot

Some books contain knowledge, others thrills. Skloot has managed to fill her book with both. The story of Henrietta Lacks was on the edge of history until Skloot took up the challenge of dragging it back to the centre. Lacks would have been all but forgotten had it not been for the investigative skills of this impressive young journalist. And yet the great impact Lacks has made on modern science continues to reverberate today. How could she have been forgotten? Well, lots of reasons (as Skloot outlines), but perhaps the most sensible explanation is that she herself did not do anything directly. It was cells from her cervix that enabled the acceleration of research 10 times faster than would have been possible without her.

This book is filled with mistakes

Mutants: on the form, varieties and errors of the human body

by Armand Marie Leroi

Leroi may have spent over five years researching and writing this book, but it is so easy to read and so enticing that the stories it contains could have been plucked direct from history. Leroi has pulled off one of those great feats of effortlessness in combining folklore and legend with science – including cutting-edge understanding. Mutants is a thrilling description of how the human body takes many forms, how these come to be and how people have responded to them over time.

The author tackles a number of mutations over the course of this book, each contained within its own chapter. There’s one chapter on limb deformaties, one on short and tall people, one on hermaphroditism, and so on. Through each of these, Leroi weaves historical accounts of people who had such mutations, and even delves into legend. The brief history of cyclopiea is particularly well drawn. We learn about how the Greeks came to deify that condition and then hear how genetic mutations cause it by failing to produce enough of the curious hormone known as ‘sonic hedgehog’. I was also moved by the accounts of ‘cleppies’, or people with hands and fingers that resemble crab claws. The story of the two seventeenth-century political dissenters, their warning to their executioner and his wife’s subsequent delivery of clawed babies is the stuff of horror movies and nightmares. And yet it is incredibly believeable and so realistic, thanks to Leroi.

That realism is perfect for Mutants. Long seen as outcasts or freaks, mutants are of course part of humanity. In Leroi’s sensitive analysis, they are readmitted into humanity. Anyone who thinks of them as outside of society are, it is clear upon reading this book, ignorant. Educating us about the great diversity of human form is an admirable project indeed, and one successfully executed by the author.

Eye-opening at the tiniest scale

The Selfish Gene

By Richard Dawkins

Sometimes it’s just good fun to read a book by a writer with such a distinctive and strident voice that it appears to drown out all opponents. As a scientist, Dawkins is probably sensible enough to listen to others in his field. But the great joy of this book is the singular vision he offers. Dawkins pushes through the crowd of a generation of scientists in order to clamber up to the soapbox and scream his thrilling theory. His view of the gene as a competitive, political molecule worthy of Ancient Rome is enticingly reflected in his own audacious approach. While Darwin dithered, Dawkins dives in.

And then there is the theory itself. Pick your superlative: influential, controversial, profound. History has shown that it is all these things and more. To the layman, the concept behind The Selfish Gene is exciting. To the scientist, it must have been downright shocking. Dawkins’ central thesis rests on the very plausible assumption that until his book, science has viewed genes upside down. He argues that because we have studied bodies for centuries, upon the discovery of genes, we formulated theories about how genes code for different aspects of our biology and why. The selfish gene theory posits that bodies are merely survival machines produced by the genes themselves in order for them to continue replicating. It’s a huge idea of the kind that does not come around very often.

And Dawkins is the writer to do it justice. His prose is clear, crisp and not technical in the slightest. He uses brilliant examples that open the reader’s eyes to the natural world. Above all else, his rhetoric is deeply attractive.

The origin of sense

On the Origin of Species

By Charles Darwin

Such is the power of this book that most people in the developed world understand its basic concepts unconsciously. That said, the book itself remains very important.

The theme of Darwin’s book that is most striking is its tacit argument for sense. Darwin spent decades observing nature and noting down what he saw. This extensive research enabled him to draw the conclusions that came to shape our view of the natural world, but it is his practices that are the most influential. In this book, Darwin details his observations and how anyone can use them to interpret nature. It is as simple as that. Interbreed pigeon varieties for decades, he seems to say, and you too will come to the same conclusion as I: that their unique variations exist for a reason and have diversified from those of a common ancestor.

Darwin’s logic is so sound, that he hints at things he didn’t even know about. Although Mendelian genetics was under way while Darwin was working on his theory, he was not aware of the practice. So it is with surprising confidence that Darwin states, “community of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking,” speaking in part of genetics. “And not some unknown plan of creation,” he adds.

The question of creation occurs time and again in this book, almost always as a counterpoint to one of Darwin’s observations. He ponders why, for example, there are no frogs native to New Zealand and then shows that it is because that country is an island and frogs wouldn’t emigrate there because they cannot survive the sea water that would block their route. “Why, on the theory of creation, they should not have been created there, it would be very difficult to explain,” he says.

Perhaps the single most surprising thing about this book is in many ways how little Darwin knew. Creation theory must have held back naturalists for so long before Darwin dared to delve. The modern reader will be shocked by how his own basic, 20th-century understanding of genetics fills in a great many gaps in Darwin’s theory. Usually in this book, where Darwin says, ‘that’s the way it is, but I don’t know why,’ the reader can answer him with genetics. How this book would have been different, if only Darwin had read Mendel!

In many ways, that makes this book a more thrilling read today than it would have been when it was published in 1859. We know so much more now; nothing can hold us back in the thirst for knowledge.

Good things come of books with good titles

Power, Sex, Suicide

By Nick Lane

Popular science books work better when they have an enticing title. It is the unique selling point of the genre – over, say, journals. The reason why it is important is not only because we all judge books by their covers, but because it gives the author a touchstone. A good science author establishes a strong title and keeps it in his head while he writes his book, knowing that his reader will need something to cling on to in order to grasp the full implications of the book.

Such is the case with Power, Sex, Suicide. In a heartbeat, this excellent title elevates mitochondria from ordinary organelles responsible for energy production to dynamic and fascinating little characters with big boots. The real joy of this book is Lane’s enthusiasm. His writing may not be as fun as Matt Ridley’s, but his grasp of the importance of mitochondria in our past, present and future is unsurpassable. His book provides what has to be the most comprehensive study of mitochondria for the common reader. There are some complex theories here – and I certainly cannot claim to have understood the intricacies of every biochemical process outlined – but Lane is smart enough to keep the bigger picture in mind. His story always returns to the implications of the microbiology: what this oxidation means for the age process, or how modern humans are linked in history to bacteria, or even why there are two sexes.

Power, Sex, Suicide is the kind of book that makes you think while you read that you may not look at a book as important as it for some time. That’s a fallacy of course – it is just the achievement of a skilled writer – but it makes for an absorbing read nonetheless.

Life in code

Genome

By Matt Ridley

The genome is a treasure trove. Full of both mystery and truth, it has to be one of the most fascinating artefacts of nature. The complexity of the genome makes it a difficult subject to tackle, but Ridley is brave and smart enough to give it a shot. In this book, he hits the nail on the head.

Genome is already over a decade old, and you can hear Ridley’s acceptance that very soon after his book is to be published, the science will have moved on. And that is indeed the case: gone is the excitement around Dolly the sheep and the hysterical response to CJD. These are but two examples of how times have changed, but Ridley’s book is still deeply useful. It is a historical account of the all the major discoveries to do with the genome and, what makes this book very special, the alarming interplay between genes, culture and behaviour.

You would be forgiven for picking up this popular science book and expecting just genetics. But Ridley’s far too brilliant for that – he acknowledges that people are more interested in the influence of genes on our behaviour, and vice versa. That’s the real story of the genome. So every chapter here reveals yet another secret of the genome’s science, but also its impact on our cultural development. Ridley leaves no stone unturned as he pulls together science with psychology, evolution and sociology.

Ridley takes his reader on an extraordinary journey into the very heart of what it means to be human – that is no overstatement.