BIOLOGY and genetics are the new physics, regularly making the headlines with stories of cloning and gene technology, and attracting large tranches of public money for projects such as the sequencing of the human genome. And genes, the protagonists of these science dramas, are at centre stage in genomics, biotechnology, conservation and research into how organisms develop and age.
Dazzle your friends with your knowledge of genes by reading the Encyclopedia of Genetics (Academic Press, $995). This four-volume work contains about 1500 brief entries from the world鈥檚 leading geneticists and is edited by the renowned and beguiling biologist Sydney Brenner along with fellow-biologist Jeffrey Miller.
Geneticists are fond of surprising us with the knowledge that we are at least 98 per cent similar to chimpanzees in our genetic make-up. Jonathan Mark鈥檚 What It Means to be 98% Chimpanzee (University of California Press, 拢19.95; reviewed in New 杏吧原创 8 June, p 50) searches for the implications of this unsettling fact 鈥� even if the figure may be only 95 per cent (28 September, p 20). He chides those who, in his view, look uncritically to apes to understand human psychological and behavioural predilections. We can but hope for a companion volume from Brenner, who tells us that the fugu, the eeadly puffer fish of Japanese cuisine, effectively contains all of the genes found in a human but in a genome that鈥檚 a tenth of the size.
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Two new books show the limits of the conventional views of species as isolated sets of genes. Frederic Bushman鈥檚 Lateral DNA Transfer (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 拢28), and Horizontal Gene Transfer (Academic Press, 2nd edition, $99.95), edited by Michael Syvanen and Clarence Kado, document the extent to which species from the lowly bacteria right on up to ourselves have received genes from other organisms. Humans may have between about 40 and 50 from bacteria. How did we get them? Claude Combes鈥檚 Parasitism: The ecology and evolution of intimate interactions (University of Chicago Press, $55) hints at one route.
Stephen Jay Gould鈥檚 untimely death from cancer earlier this year adds poignancy to his recently published book, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Harvard University Press, 拢27.50). Gould would have known while writing that this was to be his final work, so readers can expect in it a complete account of his theoretic stance, as he would like it to be remembered. In 1400 pages, the book discusses Gould鈥檚 consistent themes of chance and contingency in the evolution of life on Earth. Some find Gould鈥檚 ideas little more than unremarkable variations on a grand Darwinian story. Others see in them an alternative to the theory of evolution by natural selection. Whatever your views, Gould was a memorable writer who never failed to provoke or educate his readers. This book is your last chance to get his ideas while they鈥檙e fresh.
Genetics has redefined conservation as a hard science. R. Frankham, J. D. Ballou and D. A. Briscoe鈥檚 Introduction to Conservation Genetics (Cambridge University Press, 拢34.95) shows how genes make it possible to identify cryptic species among identical-looking samples, track animals鈥� movements and breeding patterns, and study their population structure. One species of bat has recently become two, for instance, on the basis of genes showing that morphologically indistinguishable individuals nevertheless cannot interbreed. Measuring 鈥済ene flow鈥� between populations can pinpoint truly isolated groups at risk of extinction. And genetic studies will dominate political debates over conservation, as agriculture and property development increasingly fragment the landscape and so place barriers between populations.
Reading these will put you well along the way towards joining today鈥檚 scientifically literate chattering classes, but there are many more from which to choose. It may be time to start a biology and genetics book club.