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The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids—and the Kids We Have
by Bonnie RochmanA sharp-eyed exploration of the promise and peril of having children in an age of genetic tests and interventionsIs screening for disease in an embryo a humane form of family planning or a slippery slope toward eugenics? Should doctors tell you that your infant daughter is genetically predisposed to breast cancer? If tests revealed that your toddler has a genetic mutation whose significance isn’t clear, would you want to know?In The Gene Machine, the award-winning journalist Bonnie Rochman deftly explores these hot-button questions, guiding us through the new frontier of gene technology and how it is transforming medicine, bioethics, health care, and the factors that shape a family. Rochman tells the stories of scientists working to unlock the secrets of the human genome; genetic counselors and spiritual advisers guiding mothers and fathers through life-changing choices; and, of course, parents (including Rochman herself) grappling with revelations that are sometimes joyous, sometimes heartbreaking, but always profound. She navigates the dizzying and constantly expanding array of prenatal and postnatal tests, from carrier screening to genome sequencing, while considering how access to more tests is altering perceptions of disability and changing the conversation about what sort of life is worth living and who draws the line. Along the way, she highlights the most urgent ethical quandary: Is this technology a triumph of modern medicine or a Pandora’s box of possibilities?Propelled by human narratives and meticulously reported, The Gene Machine is both a scientific road map and a meditation on our power to shape the future. It is a book that gets to the very core of what it means to be human.
The Gene Revolution and Global Food Security: Biotechnology Innovation in Latecomers
by Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka Padmashree Gehl SampathUsing the concept of innovation capacity, this book, using recent field data from countries in Asia and Africa, competently demonstrates how biotechnology can contribute to sustainable economic development. The approach articulates the imperative for developing countries to build up specific capabilities backed up by policies and institutions.
The Gene, the Clinic, and the Family: Diagnosing Dysmorphology, Reviving Medical Dominance (Genetics and Society)
by Joanna LatimerWhile some theorists argue that medicine is caught in a relentless process of ‘geneticization’ and others offer a thesis of biomedicalization, there is still little research that explores how these effects are accomplished in practice. Joanna Latimer, whose groundbreaking ethnography on acute medicine gave us the social science classic The Conduct of Care, moves her focus from the bedside to the clinic in this in-depth study of genetic medicine. Against current thinking that proselytises the rise of laboratory science, Professor Latimer shows how the genetic clinic is at the heart of the revolution in the new genetics. Tracing how work on the abnormal in an embryonic genetic science, dysmorphology, is changing our thinking about the normal, The Gene, the Clinic, and the Family charts new understandings about family, procreation and choice. Far from medicine experiencing the much-proclaimed ‘death of the clinic’, this book shows how medicine is both reasserting its status as a science and revitalising its dominance over society, not only for now but for societies in the future. This book will appeal to students, scholars and professionals interested in medical sociology, science and technology studies, the anthropology of science, medical science and genetics, as well as genetic counselling.
The Gene: From Genetics to Postgenomics
by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger Staffan Müller-Wille Adam BostanciFew concepts played a more important role in twentieth-century life sciences than that of the gene. Yet at this moment, the field of genetics is undergoing radical conceptual transformation, and some scientists are questioning the very usefulness of the concept of the gene, arguing instead for more systemic perspectives. The time could not be better, therefore, for Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Staffan Müller-Wille's magisterial history of the concept of the gene. Though the gene has long been the central organizing theme of biology, both conceptually and as an object of study, Rheinberger and Müller-Wille conclude that we have never even had a universally accepted, stable definition of it. Rather, the concept has been in continual flux—a state that, they contend, is typical of historically important and productive scientific concepts. It is that very openness to change and manipulation, the authors argue, that made it so useful: its very mutability enabled it to be useful while the technologies and approaches used to study and theorize about it changed dramatically.
The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry
by S. Joshua SwamidassThe Genealogical Adam and Evealongsidehumanancestrygeneticgenealogicalgenealogicalgenealogical
The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology
by Abu El-Haj NadiaThe Genealogical Science analyzes the scientific work and social implications of the flourishing field of genetic history. A biological discipline that relies on genetic data in order to reconstruct the geographic origins of contemporary populations--their histories of migration and genealogical connections to other present-day groups--this historical science is garnering ever more credibility and social reach, in large part due to a growing industry in ancestry testing. In this book, Nadia Abu El-Haj examines genetic history's working assumptions about culture and nature, identity and biology, and the individual and the collective. Through the example of the study of Jewish origins, she explores novel cultural and political practices that are emerging as genetic history's claims and "facts" circulate in the public domain and illustrates how this historical science is intrinsically entangled with cultural imaginations and political commitments. Chronicling late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century understandings of race, nature, and culture, she identifies continuities and shifts in scientific claims, institutional contexts, and political worlds in order to show how the meanings of biological difference have changed over time. In so doing she gives an account of how and why it is that genetic history is so socially felicitous today and elucidates the range of understandings of the self, individual and collective, this scientific field is making possible. More specifically, through her focus on the history of projects of Jewish self-fashioning that have taken place on the terrain of the biological sciences, The Genealogical Science analyzes genetic history as the latest iteration of a cultural and political practice now over a century old.
The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning)
by Nadia Abu El-HajThe Genealogical Science analyzes the scientific work and social implications of the flourishing field of genetic history. A biological discipline that relies on genetic data in order to reconstruct the geographic origins of contemporary populations—their histories of migration and genealogical connections to other present-day groups—this historical science is garnering ever more credibility and social reach, in large part due to a growing industry in ancestry testing. In this book, Nadia Abu El-Haj examines genetic history’s working assumptions about culture and nature, identity and biology, and the individual and the collective. Through the example of the study of Jewish origins, she explores novel cultural and political practices that are emerging as genetic history’s claims and “facts” circulate in the public domain and illustrates how this historical science is intrinsically entangled with cultural imaginations and political commitments. Chronicling late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century understandings of race, nature, and culture, she identifies continuities and shifts in scientific claims, institutional contexts, and political worlds in order to show how the meanings of biological difference have changed over time. In so doing she gives an account of how and why it is that genetic history is so socially felicitous today and elucidates the range of understandings of the self, individual and collective, this scientific field is making possible. More specifically, through her focus on the history of projects of Jewish self-fashioning that have taken place on the terrain of the biological sciences, The Genealogical Science analyzes genetic history as the latest iteration of a cultural and political practice now over a century old.
The General Kelvin-Helmholtz Stability Model: With Applications to Sand Wave and Water Wave Generation
by Hermann MoshagenThis book presents a generalized version of the classical Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, a useful tool which allows for new approaches when studying stability problems in fluid mechanics, as well as its important applications. It begins by providing an introduction to hydrodynamic stability and the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability. The author then develops the general KH stability model for a multi-layer flow system, which includes the conventional KH instability as a special case. This book also includes the detailed discussion of two important applications of this model: the generation of sand waves in alluvial channels and the generation of wind waves on water. Additionally, the effects of nonlinearities and the use of computational methods to study KH instability are included. This book serves as a concise and modern treatment of the KH stability model with specific attention paid to hydrodynamic stability analysis. It is ideal for graduate students interested in fluid dynamics as well as scientists and engineers in the fields of oceanography, geophysics, offshore engineering, and more.
The General Principles of Quantum Theory (Routledge Library Editions: 20th Century Science)
by George TemplePublished in 1934, this monograph was one of the first introductory accounts of the principles which form the physical basis of the Quantum Theory, considered as a branch of mathematics. The exposition is restricted to a discussion of general principles and does not attempt detailed application to the wide domain of atomic physics, although a number of special problems are considered in elucidation of the principles. The necessary fundamental mathematical methods – the theory of linear operators and of matrics – are developed in the first chapter so this could introduce anyone to the new theory. This is an interesting snapshot of scientific history.
The General Theory of Relativity
by Andrew Debenedictis Anadijiban DasThe General Theory of Relativity: A Mathematical Exposition will serve readers as a modern mathematical introduction to the general theory of relativity. Throughout the book, examples, worked-out problems, and exercises (with hints and solutions) are furnished. Topics in this book include, but are not limited to: tensor analysis the special theory of relativity the general theory of relativity and Einstein's field equations spherically symmetric solutions and experimental confirmations static and stationary space-time domains black holes cosmological models algebraic classifications and the Newman-Penrose equations the coupled Einstein-Maxwell-Klein-Gordon equations appendices covering mathematical supplements and special topics Mathematical rigor, yet very clear presentation of the topics make this book a unique text for both university students and research scholars. Anadijiban Das has taught courses on Relativity Theory at The University College of Dublin, Ireland, Jadavpur University, India, Carnegie-Mellon University, USA, and Simon Fraser University, Canada. His major areas of research include, among diverse topics, the mathematical aspects of general relativity theory. Andrew DeBenedictis has taught courses in Theoretical Physics at Simon Fraser University, Canada, and is also a member of The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences. His research interests include quantum gravity, classical gravity, and semi-classical gravity.
The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer ? The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb
by James KunetkaTwo ambitious men. One historic mission. With a blinding flash in the New Mexico desert in the summer of 1945, the world was changed forever. The bomb that ushered in the atomic age was the product of one of history's most improbable partnerships. The General and the Genius reveals how two extraordinary men pulled off the greatest scientific feat of the twentieth century. Leslie Richard Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers, who had made his name by building the Pentagon in record time and under budget, was made overlord of the impossibly vast scientific enterprise known as the Manhattan Project. His mission: to beat the Nazis to the atomic bomb. So he turned to the nation's preeminent theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer--the chain-smoking, martini-quaffing son of wealthy Jewish immigrants, whose background was riddled with communist associations--Groves's opposite in nearly every respect. In their three-year collaboration, the iron-willed general and the visionary scientist led a brilliant team in a secret mountaintop lab and built the fearsome weapons that ended the war but introduced the human race to unimaginable new terrors. And at the heart of this most momentous work of World War II is the story of two extraordinary men--the general and the genius.
The Generalized Fourier Series Method: Bending of Elastic Plates (Developments in Mathematics #65)
by Christian Constanda Dale DotyThis book explains in detail the generalized Fourier series technique for the approximate solution of a mathematical model governed by a linear elliptic partial differential equation or system with constant coefficients. The power, sophistication, and adaptability of the method are illustrated in application to the theory of plates with transverse shear deformation, chosen because of its complexity and special features. In a clear and accessible style, the authors show how the building blocks of the method are developed, and comment on the advantages of this procedure over other numerical approaches. An extensive discussion of the computational algorithms is presented, which encompasses their structure, operation, and accuracy in relation to several appropriately selected examples of classical boundary value problems in both finite and infinite domains. The systematic description of the technique, complemented by explanations of the use of the underlying software, will help the readers create their own codes to find approximate solutions to other similar models. The work is aimed at a diverse readership, including advanced undergraduates, graduate students, general scientific researchers, and engineers.The book strikes a good balance between the theoretical results and the use of appropriate numerical applications. The first chapter gives a detailed presentation of the differential equations of the mathematical model, and of the associated boundary value problems with Dirichlet, Neumann, and Robin conditions. The second chapter presents the fundamentals of generalized Fourier series, and some appropriate techniques for orthonormalizing a complete set of functions in a Hilbert space. Each of the remaining six chapters deals with one of the combinations of domain-type (interior or exterior) and nature of the prescribed conditions on the boundary. The appendices are designed to give insight into some of the computational issues that arise from the use of the numerical methods described in the book.Readers may also want to reference the authors’ other books Mathematical Methods for Elastic Plates, ISBN: 978-1-4471-6433-3 and Boundary Integral Equation Methods and Numerical Solutions: Thin Plates on an Elastic Foundation, ISBN: 978-3-319-26307-6.
The Generalized Multipole Technique for Light Scattering: Recent Developments (Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics #99)
by Thomas Wriedt Yuri EreminThis book presents the Generalized Multipole Technique as a fast and powerful theoretical and computation tool to simulate light scattering by nonspherical particles. It also demonstrates the considerable potential of the method. In recent years, the concept has been applied in new fields, such as simulation of electron energy loss spectroscopy and has been used to extend other methods, like the null-field method, making it more widely applicable. The authors discuss particular implementations of the GMT methods, such as the Discrete Sources Method (DSM), Multiple Multipole Program (MMP), the Method of Auxiliary Sources (MAS), the Filamentary Current Method (FCM), the Method of Fictitious Sources (MFS) and the Null-Field Method with Discrete Sources (NFM-DS). The Generalized Multipole Technique is a surface-based method to find the solution of a boundary-value problem for a given differential equation by expanding the fields in terms of fundamental or other singular solutions of this equation. The amplitudes of these fundamental solutions are determined from the boundary condition at the particle surface. Electromagnetic and light scattering by particles or systems of particles has been the subject of intense research in various scientific and engineering fields, including astronomy, optics, meteorology, remote sensing, optical particle sizing and electromagnetics, which has led to the development of a large number of modelling methods based on the Generalized Multipole Technique for quantitative evaluation of electromagnetic scattering by particles of various shapes and compositions. The book describes these methods in detail.
The Genesis Enigma
by Andrew ParkerDoes modern science - while agreeing with Darwinian evolution, the big bang theory and the complexity and deep age of the universe - prove the order of creation as described in the Bible to be true? It takes just one page in the Bible to describe the creation of the universe, the Earth, the sky, the seas and all life on the planet. But a close reading will reveal that it is written in a very odd order. Light is mentioned twice - in 'let there be light' and secondly in 'let there be lights . . . to divide the day from night'. Whales appear before birds. Vegetation appears after 'let there be light' but before day is separated from night. In The Genesis Enigma Andrew Parker argues that the reason the Genesis account is strangely ordered is, amazingly, that it precisely reflects the order of events as we now understand them. The latest reinterpretation of Earth's ancient rocks and fossils and their comparisons with animals today has completed our understanding of the history of the Earth and of life. By comparing the data of science with the words and phrases of Genesis 1-11 the remarkable parallels become clear. In a fascinating and controversial scientific detective story Andrew Parker reveals how the latest modern understanding corresponds in unerring detail with the creation account in Genesis. His astonishing conclusions will revolutionise how many of us view the debate between science and religion, and asks the question: in a scientific world is there still a place for God?
The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology
by Amy Webb Andrew HesselNamed one of The New Yorker's BEST BOOKS OF 2022 SO FARThe next frontier in technology is inside our own bodies. Synthetic biology will revolutionize how we define family, how we identify disease and treat aging, where we make our homes, and how we nourish ourselves. This fast-growing field—which uses computers to modify or rewrite genetic code—has created revolutionary, groundbreaking solutions such as the mRNA COVID vaccines, IVF, and lab-grown hamburger that tastes like the real thing. It gives us options to deal with existential threats: climate change, food insecurity, and access to fuel. But there are significant risks. Who should decide how to engineer living organisms? Whether engineered organisms should be planted, farmed, and released into the wild? Should there be limits to human enhancements? What cyber-biological risks are looming? Could a future biological war, using engineered organisms, cause a mass extinction event? Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel&’s riveting examination of synthetic biology and the bioeconomy provide the background for thinking through the upcoming risks and moral dilemmas posed by redesigning life, as well as the vast opportunities waiting for us on the horizon.
The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth
by Michael Marshall'The story of the quest to understand life's genesis is a universal one, in which everyone can find pleasure and fascination. By asking how life came to be, we are implicitly asking why we are here, whether life exists on other planets, and what it means to be alive. This book is the story of a group of fragile, flawed humans who chose to wrestle with these questions. By exploring the origin of life, we can catch a glimpse of the infinite.'How did life begin? Why are we here? These are some of the most profound questions we can ask.For almost a century, a small band of eccentric scientists has struggled to answer these questions and explain one of the greatest mysteries of all: how and why life began on Earth. There are many different proposals, and each idea has attracted passionate believers who promote it with an almost religious fervour, as well as detractors who reject it with equal passion.But the quest to unravel life's genesis is not just a story of big ideas. It is also a compelling human story, rich in personalities, conflicts, and surprising twists and turns. Along the way the journey takes in some of the greatest discoveries in modern biology, from evolution and cells to DNA and life's family tree. It is also a search whose end may finally be in sight.In The Genesis Quest, Michael Marshall shows how the quest to understand life's beginning is also a journey to discover the true nature of life, and by extension our place in the universe.
The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth
by Michael Marshall'The story of the quest to understand life's genesis is a universal one, in which everyone can find pleasure and fascination. By asking how life came to be, we are implicitly asking why we are here, whether life exists on other planets, and what it means to be alive. This book is the story of a group of fragile, flawed humans who chose to wrestle with these questions. By exploring the origin of life, we can catch a glimpse of the infinite.'How did life begin? Why are we here? These are some of the most profound questions we can ask.For almost a century, a small band of eccentric scientists has struggled to answer these questions and explain one of the greatest mysteries of all: how and why life began on Earth. There are many different proposals, and each idea has attracted passionate believers who promote it with an almost religious fervour, as well as detractors who reject it with equal passion.But the quest to unravel life's genesis is not just a story of big ideas. It is also a compelling human story, rich in personalities, conflicts, and surprising twists and turns. Along the way the journey takes in some of the greatest discoveries in modern biology, from evolution and cells to DNA and life's family tree. It is also a search whose end may finally be in sight.In The Genesis Quest, Michael Marshall shows how the quest to understand life's beginning is also a journey to discover the true nature of life, and by extension our place in the universe.
The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth
by Michael MarshallHow did life begin? Why are we here? These are some of the most profound questions we can ask. For almost a century, a small band of eccentric scientists has struggled to answer these questions and explain one of the greatest mysteries of all: how and why life began on Earth. There are many different proposals, and each idea has attracted passionate believers who promote it with an almost religious fervor, as well as detractors who reject it with equal passion. But the quest to unravel life’s genesis is not just a story of big ideas. It is also a compelling human story, rich in personalities, conflicts, and surprising twists and turns. Along the way the journey takes in some of the greatest discoveries in modern biology, from evolution and cells to DNA and life’s family tree. It is also a search whose end may finally be in sight. In The Genesis Quest, Michael Marshall shows how the quest to understand life’s beginning is also a journey to discover the true nature of life, and by extension our place in the universe.
The Genesis of Feynman Diagrams
by Adrian WüthrichIn a detailed reconstruction of the genesis of Feynman diagrams the author reveals that their development was constantly driven by the attempt to resolve fundamental problems concerning the uninterpretable infinities that arose in quantum as well as classical theories of electrodynamic phenomena. Accordingly, as a comparison with the graphical representations that were in use before Feynman diagrams shows, the resulting theory of quantum electrodynamics, featuring Feynman diagrams, differed significantly from earlier versions of the theory in the way in which the relevant phenomena were conceptualized and modelled. The author traces the development of Feynman diagrams from Feynman's "struggle with the Dirac equation" in unpublished manuscripts to the two of Freeman Dyson's publications which put Feynman diagrams into a field theoretic context. The author brings to the fore that Feynman and Dyson not only created a powerful computational device but, above all, a new conceptual framework in which the uninterpretable infinities that had arisen in the old form of the theory could be precisely identified and subsequently removed in a justifiable manner.
The Genesis of Geopolitics and Friedrich Ratzel: Dismissing The Myth Of The Ratzelian Geodeterminism (Historical Geography and Geosciences)
by Alexandros StogiannosThis book discusses the influence of Friedrich Ratzel's ideas in more contemporary geopolitical analytical systems and the geodeterminism commonly attributed to him. The author thoroughly analyzes the structural components of Ratzel's thought. The research is inspired by the numerous contradictory approaches in the secondary literature, presenting Ratzel as both humanist and racist, geo-determinist and multidimensional analyst, organicist and social scientist, precursor of Geopolitics and opponent to the same idea. In this work, more particular issues are approached: the establishment of a scientific Political Geography; the methodological approach of his multidisciplinary work; the redefinition of his geopolitical period; his notion of state and the evaluation of sociological and cultural parameters as factors of state power; the biogeographical content of the notion of Lebensraum; his attitude towards the racist theories as well as towards the Darwinian theories; his overall worldview and the confrontation with cosmopolitism; his contribution to an interdisciplinary, positivist and scientific approach in analyzing social and international affairs; his thoughts on the architecture of Europe. The book will be useful for researchers and students in many scientific fields, such as International Relations, Geopolitics, Geography and History of Geography.
The Genesis of Logic: Reflections on the Origins, Principles and Paths of Common-sense Reasoning (Fuzzy Management Methods)
by Enric TrillasThe Genesis of Logic addresses the principles of common-sense reasoning, which are employed in everyday decision-making processes and extend beyond deductive reasoning alone. Linked to language, logic inherits its flexibility. These are a few laws, the 'formal skeleton of reasoning,' based on the relationship of linguistic inference that, while needing to be represented in each context, allow for the consideration of non-comparable, orthogonal statements. By facilitating deduction and abduction, speculation emerges as a fundamental intellectual operation. As a whole, this work offers a new genetic-evolutionary perspective to reconsider Logic, a panoramic outlook that examines laws outside the skeleton as local laws, necessary for the validity of specialized reasoning. It moves away from the rigid reticular structure of sets of statements and views induction as the search for speculations, non-monotonic reasoning as speculative, and conjecture, only proven in finite Boolean algebras,that reasoning involves following paths of inference in a zigzag pattern, alternating between deduction and abduction.
The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution
by James HannamThe Not-So-Dark Dark AgesWhat they forgot to teach you in school:People in the Middle Ages did not think the world was flatThe Inquisition never executed anyone because of their scientific ideologiesIt was medieval scientific discoveries, including various methods, that made possible Western civilization's "Scientific Revolution"As a physicist and historian of science James Hannam debunks myths of the Middle Ages in his brilliant book The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. Without the medieval scholars, there would be no modern science.Discover the Dark Ages and their inventions, research methods, and what conclusions they actually made about the shape of the world.dle Ages were a time of one intellectual triumph after another. As Dr. Hannam writes, "The people of medieval Europe invented spectacles, the mechanical clock, the windmill, and the blast furnace by themselves. Lenses and cameras, almost all kinds of machinery, and the industrial revolution itself all owe their origins to the forgotten inventors of the Middle Ages."In The Genesis of Science you will discoverWhy the scientific accomplishments of the Middle Ages far surpassed those of the classical worldHow medieval craftsmen and scientists not only made discoveries of their own, but seized upon Eastern inventions-printing, gunpowder, and the compass-and improved them beyond the dreams of their originatorsHow Galileo's notorious trial before the Inquisition was about politics, not scienceWhy the theology of the Catholic Church, far from being an impediment, led directly to the development of modern scienceProvocative, engaging, and a terrific read, James Hannam's Genesis of Science will change the way you think about our past-and our future.
The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions: Rethinking the Nature and Nurture of Research
by Venkatesh Narayanamurti Jeffrey Y. TsaoResearch powers innovation and technoscientific advance, but it is due for a rethink, one consistent with its deeply holistic nature, requiring deeply human nurturing. Research is a deeply human endeavor that must be nurtured to achieve its full potential. As with tending a garden, care must be taken to organize, plant, feed, and weed—and the manner in which this nurturing is done must be consistent with the nature of what is being nurtured. In The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Jeffrey Tsao propose a new and holistic system, a rethinking of the nature and nurturing of research. They share lessons from their vast research experience in the physical sciences and engineering, as well as from perspectives drawn from the history and philosophy of science and technology, research policy and management, and the evolutionary biological, complexity, physical, and economic sciences. Narayanamurti and Tsao argue that research is a recursive, reciprocal process at many levels: between science and technology; between questions and answer finding; and between the consolidation and challenging of conventional wisdom. These fundamental aspects of the nature of research should be reflected in how it is nurtured. To that end, Narayanamurti and Tsao propose aligning organization, funding, and governance with research; embracing a culture of holistic technoscientific exploration; and instructing people with care and accountability.
The Genetic Age: Our Perilous Quest To Edit Life
by Matthew Cobb'Brilliant .. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough' - Henry Marsh, New Statesman (about The Idea of the Brain)A new gene editing technology, invented just seven years ago, has turned humanity into gods. Enabling us to manipulate the genes in virtually any organism with exquisite precision, CRISPR has given scientists a degree of control that was undreamt of even in science fiction.But CRISPR is just the latest, giant leap in a long journey to master genetics. The Genetic Age shows the astonishing, world-changing potential of the new genetics and the possible threats it poses, sifting between fantasy and the reality when it comes to both benefits and dangers.By placing each phase of discovery, anticipation and fear in the context of over fifty years of attempts to master the natural world, Matthew Cobb, the Baillie-Gifford-shortlisted author of The Idea of the Brain, weaves the stories of science, history and culture to shed new light on our future. With the powers now at our disposal, it is afuture that is almost impossible to imagine - but it is one we will create ourselves.
The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie
by Richard DawkinsFrom a renowned biologist and best-selling author, a whole new way of looking at living organisms: reading them as documents describing ancient worlds A Financial Times Best Book of 2024: Science • Named Science Book of the Year by Times (UK) • A Guardian Best Ideas Book of 2024 “Intellectually sparkling and beautifully crafted.”—Adrian Woolfson, Wall Street Journal “A glorious affair. . . . Arguably [Dawkins’s] most joyous ode to the wonders that evolution has wrought in the animal world.”—Philip Ball, Science An exquisitely camouflaged lizard has a desiccated landscape of sand and stones “painted” on its back. Its skin can be read as a description of an ancient desert, a world in which its ancestors survived. Such descriptions are more than skin deep, however. They penetrate the very warp and woof of the entire animal. In this groundbreaking exploration of the power of Darwinian evolution and what it can reveal about the past, Richard Dawkins shows how the body, behavior, and genes of every living creature can be read as a book—an archive of the worlds of its ancestors. In the future, a zoologist presented with a hitherto unknown animal will be able to decode its ancestral history, to read its unique “book of the dead.” Such readings are already uncovering the remarkable ways animals overcome obstacles, adapt to their environments, and, again and again, develop remarkably similar ways of solving life’s problems. From the author of The Selfish Gene comes a revolutionary, richly illustrated book that unlocks the door to a past more vivid, nuanced, and fascinating than anything we have seen.