Signs of Life - Softcover

Pollack, Robert

 
9780395735305: Signs of Life
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0395735300 ISBN 13: 9780395735305
Verlag: Houghton Mifflin, 1995

Inhaltsangabe

Called "provocative," "magnificent," and "lucid" by critics, SIGNS OF LIFE presents a fresh and engaging look at nature's most wondrous chemical. DNA, biologist Robert Pollack suggests, should be seen as a work of great natural literature, a three-billion-year-old, continuously evolving text. Displaying a rare gift for metaphor, Pollack draws on his thirty years of research and study to show how DNA provides a complete instruction book for all living things. Until recently, the book has been indecipherable, but we are now beginning to read and edit this text in ways that will transform all our lives. Yet the power to change the human genome brings with it enormous responsibilities, and Pollack argues that if we fail to achieve a fuller understanding of the multiple meanings of DNA, we risk disaster. With the grace of a born writer and teacher, Pollack has written a book that will change the way people think about science, literature, and the future of our species.

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Críticas

"What Pollack does so well is to integrate explanations of what is possible within the realm of genetic engineering ... with a realistic and sobering sense of ethics." "The most distinguished book about science I have seen so far this decade." -- Horace Freeland Judson

Reseña del editor

The genetic age is upon us, yet most people have only a limited understanding of the wondrous chemical that encodes the formula for all living things. As DNA's secrets are revealed, they must be rescued from the obscuring language of science, and now Signs of Life does just that. Borrowing from the humanities, Robert Pollack offers an entirely fresh perspective: DNA, he argues, should be seen as a great work of natural literature, a three-billion-year-old, continuously evolving text. An award-winning scientist and teacher, Pollack displays both a sophisticated understanding of biology and a remarkable gift for metaphor. In elegant prose, he shows precisely how DNA provides the instruction book for life. He takes us deep inside a living cell - a teeming walled city - and explains how the genetic script at its heart governs all its operations. He opens the book containing the human genome and lucidly reveals the process by which biologists and physicians have begun to read its words and sentences. But the frontier of genetics now extends into troubling territory. Pollack identifies several areas of concern: the ambitious but flawed Human Genome Project, the widespread access to individual genetic data, the temptation to manipulate genetic codes to make them "better." Given our still-crude ability to interpret these living texts, our eagerness to rewrite them is alarming. The power to change the human genome brings with it enormous responsibilities, and Pollack offers persuasive evidence that if we fail to achieve a fuller understanding of the multiple meanings of DNA, we risk disaster. Signs of Life is both a brilliant illumination of a biological text and a provocative meditation on ourawesome new ability to alter it. With the grace of a born writer and teacher, Robert Pollack has written a book that will change the way people think about science, genetics, and the future of our species.

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Verlag
Houghton Mifflin
Erscheinungsdatum
1995
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0395735300
ISBN 13 
9780395735305
Einband
Tapa blanda
Anzahl der Seiten
212
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
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