2019 PEN/E.
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Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world\'s best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we.
We need a new definition of what Heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer\'s lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it.
We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable.
Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies.
Heredity isn\'t just about genes that pass from parent to child.
A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways.
Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history.
But, Zimmer writes, Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors.
As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities...
Gradually, people translated their old notions about Heredity into a language of genes.
The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that.
Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning Heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it.
Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist Science book of the year--The Guardian One of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018 One of Publishers Weekly\'s Top Ten Books of 2018 One of Kirkus\'s Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss\'s Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday\'s Best Science Books of 2018 Extraordinary--New York Times Book Review Magisterial--The Atlantic Engrossing--Wired Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year--Minneapolis Star-Tribune Celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. 2019 PEN/E.
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