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Writing is in his genes…

Author:  Carl Zimmer

She Has Her Mother's Laugh coverWe’re all different.  It’s our genes that make us so.  With an equal share contributed by each of our parents, our DNA serves as a blueprint determining many of the details in our lives, like eye color and height, even personality.  Although the structure of the DNA molecule has been known for some 65 years now, it’s become increasingly clear that nothing about genetics is as simple as a double helix.  As with everything in the biological sciences, the details are much messier.  In She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, acclaimed science journalist Carl Zimmer explores the vastly complicated world of heredity.  It’s one remarkably entertaining ride.

Gregor Mendel photo

Friar Mendel

Bravely attacking the topic with gusto, Zimmer takes a look at heredity in the very broadest sense of the word.   Expanding on the very simple approach to heredity that we all learned in high school science – think Mendel’s countless pea experiments – Zimmer takes the matter to remarkable extremes.   The expanse covered is truly breathtaking.  From mosaicism to mitochondria, chimeras to microbiomes.  The topics are both illuminating and incredibly entertaining.

One of the first things Zimmer does is have his own DNA analyzed.   He proceeds to use his – self-described “boring” – DNA as a starting point for numerous wide-ranging discussions.  Height.  Intelligence.  Autosomal recessive disorders.  Royal kinships.  Plant breeding.  Eugenics.  Race.   Epigenetics.  Even cultural evolution.  All serve as launching points for a wide ranging, often interweaving discussion.  He also explores how these decades of accumulated knowledge will impact the future through increasingly powerful genetic engineering.

Fruit fly photo

The mighty fruit fly…

The author has truly remarkable skills as an explainer.  Despite the complexity of the subject matter, his prose is astonishingly painless – more storytelling than science lecture.  While the book is undoubtedly intimidating in size and scope, Zimmer’s energy never flags.  Moreover, he successfully captures the topic’s true vastness of scale.   Somehow, each of the 37 trillion cells in the human body know their task and are able to pass that complicated information on to any cellular offspring they may have, be they liver cell, neuron or melanocyte.  On top of that already mind blowing reality is the fact that an equal number of bacteria share our bodies, each one with its own DNA and unique story of heredity.  Zimmer manages to capture all of this and still keep the whole story down to earth.

Additionally, he uses the last sections of the book to discuss the social implications of these fascinating topics, both in the past and the future.  He makes it clear than the numerous thorny issues brought up by the eugenics movement of the early 20th century are going to seem like child’s play compared to what we’ll face in the future.

Consistently entertaining and repeatedly illuminating, She Has Her Mother’s Laugh is an amazing accomplishment in science writing.  I dare to say that Zimmer’s work is even better than some of the other books on genetics that I’ve read recently.  Which is no trivial claim when comparing his efforts to those of some of my favorite superstar science writers like Sam Kean and Siddhartha Mukherjee .  In the end, I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

— D. Driftless

Fly photo by André Karwath (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Check out some of Dave’s other reviews about genetics:  Endless Forms Most Beautiful   /   The Sports Gene

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