January 11, 2016
Writing in a breezy, irreverent style, Arney, a science journalist specializing in genetics, explores what is known about the inner workings of the genome. Her results are both fascinating and surprising. As Arney demonstrates, scientists have uncovered a huge amount since the 1953 discovery of DNA’s double helix structure. Scientists can now read DNA sequences easily and quickly, they understand that much of the “junk” DNA in our cells probably plays a role in controlling the functioning of our genes, and they have come to grips with the fact that pieces of DNA occasionally “jump” around the genome. But Arney also points out that much remains unknown. At the most basic level, it is no longer clear that scientists have a meaningful or concise definition of a gene, and the nature of gene regulation has turned out to be far more complex than most originally thought. Arney interviews a host of scientists at the cutting edge of genetics and provides insight into their experiments, as well as into the scientific enterprise. She dismantles some of the commonly accepted wisdom about epigenetics and discusses how some traits might be passed from parent to offspring without the direct involvement of DNA. Both specialists and general readers will find much to savor in Arney’s excellent work.
January 1, 2016
The human genome is not what the public thinks it is, says Arney, a journalist with a developmental genetics PhD from Cambridge University. Human DNA is not a flawless spiral staircase leading, step by purposeful step, to the perfection of life, for there are too few of us, and we breed too slowly. Because evolution had little time to perfect humans, our genome is filled with "garbage, control switches, and a few thousand proper protein-making genes dotted about in all the mess." Those who decipher it are flawed as well, for "scientists are about as conservative as the average religious type." The author is often highly amusing, and she knows her stuff, but while genetic control switches seem less than "organised," when they play the keyboard of the genome, they produce the awe-inspiring composition that is human intelligence. Arguably, the latter is underdeveloped in this study and could have been emphasized more without stinting on hard truths. VERDICT An intelligent and engaging look at human genetics.--Cynthia Fox, Brooklyn
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from January 1, 2016
A survey of recent research and thinking on genes. What are genes, asks science writer Arney, and what do they do? "Genes are the things in your DNA that make your eyes blue, your belly bulge or your hair curl....Genetic knowledge has the power to save us," she writes at the beginning of the book. Of course, it's not nearly that simple, but by the end of the book, Arney has arrived at a simplified definition of a gene: "an inherited thing that does a thing." In between, the author delivers an alluring tale of science at its most humble and probing, at least as practiced by the company of skeptics and scientific investigators. Genes are strings of DNA with instructions telling the cells to make various molecules--a string of building blocks to make a protein, for instance--that enable us to grow from a single cell into a baby. But the more we learn about genetic behavior, the murkier becomes our understanding. We know that genes can be switched on and off, but we also know the activator can be seriously distant from the genes producing a protein to endow a cell with individual characteristics. How do they communicate? There are 6 feet of DNA in every cell, jammed into the nucleus, "constantly on the move, writhing and wriggling like a nest of snakes." If evolution is genetics and time, then this is natural selection at its most immediate and intimate. Arney delves into the importance of nature and nurture, as well as the epigenetic "impact of the environment on how this genetic information gets used." Then come the bedeviling stochastic chemical interactions, the matters of chance "that the right things will come together at the right time." With all the moving parts, she writes, genetics is "a statistical event rather than a guaranteed one." A robust, bouncy, pellucid introduction to DNA and genetics.
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February 1, 2016
Breakthroughs in the 1960s and '70s in decoding the DNA of microbes fired biologists with hopes for genetic omniscience. But fresh from the frontiers of twenty-first-century research, Arney reports that the genomes of many species (including humans) have stubbornly refused to yield critical secrets, so dashing these hopes. That fact, however, has hardly prevented resourceful geneticists from launching new inquiries. As readers look over the investigators' shoulders, they realize that the genes of mice, cats, bats, and humans are far more dynamic, slippery, and even chaotic than previously supposed. Struggling to come to grips with that genetic chaos, intrepid biologists have learned much about strangely hipless stickleback fish in landlocked lakes, about curiously extra-toed cats prowling Hemingway's estate, and (of course) about inexplicably brainy humans. But even as assiduous investigators answer some genetic conundrums, they expose tantalizing new mysteries. Only those conversant with genetic biochemistry can actually probe these proliferating enigmas, but Arney has well primed her readers to share the intellectual excitement sure to come when today's pioneers announce their findings.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)