Sex on Six Legs by Marlene Zuk

Source of book: My wife found this on the library discards shelf, so we decided to get it as a gift for an insect-loving person we know. But I obviously had to read it first. 

This was clearly one of this “hey, provocative title so a perfect gift for the right person.” But actually, I really enjoyed this book, which is both well researched and well written. 

Marlene Zuk isn’t primarily a writer. Her main job is a researcher and college professor, currently at the University of Minnesota, having worked previously for the University of California, Riverside. Her main areas of research have been sexual selection, and parasites. Which, well, seriously fascinating stuff as far as I am concerned, although I find to my disappointment that not everyone shares my taste.

How did I come to love bugs so much? I’m not really sure, but I do recall that the 1968 classic, Insects do the Strangest Things, was one of my favorite books as a small child. I recall devouring other books along that line from the library too. I like creepy crawlies, shall we say. 

Sex on Six Legs doesn’t quite fit its salacious title. Not even half of the chapters are about sex in the sense of mating. Rather, they look at genetics, evolution, and insect behavior in general. So, such things as insect language (think hymenoptera and termites), insect parenting, the ability of arthropods to learn, the balance of male and female in populations, and other such interesting topics find their way into this book. 

And yes, sex is one of the topics. After all, reproduction is one of the necessary traits of life, and the innate drive to perpetuate our DNA is one of the most interesting areas of study for an evolutionary biologist. This is particularly the case for insects because, unlike, say, humans, the life cycle of six-legged creatures is short, making experiments far more practical. (Not so much, perhaps, as bacteria, but insects also are closer to humans than bacteria - an uncomfortable truth that Zuk brings up regularly throughout the book.) 

One of the things that surprised me most about the book was that Zuk is an excellent and compelling writer. More often in my experience, I have found that good writers can learn enough of the science to put together an enjoyable, informative, and accurate book - but researchers often struggle to make their areas of expertise come alive. Thus, many of my favorite PopSci writers are primarily writers: Mary Roach, Sam Kean, Simon Winchester. There are, of course, some exceptions. Phillip Plait comes to mind. I am definitely adding Zuk to the list. She has written three other books, two of which are available from our library system. I am definitely adding them to my reading list. 

One of the most fascinating facts that Zuk points out is this: because insects are such an ancient life form, they have a tremendous amount of genetic diversity. Which leads to an equally astounding diversity in form, behavior, and gene differences. As Zuk notes, an elephant and a mouse are far more alike than a grasshopper and a flea. Even such things as the total amount of DNA in the cell varies far more among insects than vertebrates. 

And then, there is the subcategory of beetles. Fully one quarter of ALL the known species of animals are beetles. There are an astonishing 350,000 plus known species, with vast differences in diet, size, habitat, and behavior. 

Zuk spends a good bit of time discussing genes - unsurprising given her research on the subject. She also does a great job of explaining how specific genes work. (It doesn’t hurt to have some prior knowledge, though. I recommend Herding Hemingway’s Cats by Kat Arney for an excellent and thorough overview of modern genetics. And Sam Kean’s The Violinist’s Thumb for a more story-based approach.) 

There were a number of moments when I found Zuk’s specific pet peeves to be very like my own. For example, she opens chapter 4 with a fine whine about the way that Hollywood seems to prefer to portray social insects (bees and ants in particular) as male. Which is utter bullcrap. Yes, there are male bees and ants. We call them “drones,” and they are useless for anything other than sperm, and have no role in the complex insect societies. So, Jerry Seinfeld as a “worker bee” is just….wrong. And particularly so since the fact that most hymenoptera are female has been known for literally hundreds of years. Besides, as Zuk emphasizes, the truth is much more fascinating. Males come from unfertilized eggs - and have half the DNA of females. Thus, daughter females share 75% of their DNA with each other, but only 25% with their drone brothers. This leads to some...interesting genetic payoffs. It’s too complicated to explain here, but seriously, read the book. 

Actually, the whole discussion of sex ratios was crazy. Although the effect is less in first world nations, because there is less malnutrition, women who are better nourished tend (at the population level) to produce more male children, while those less nourished tend to produce more female children. This is predictable, given the specifics of human mating: because females are the limiting factor in reproductive rates, they are likely to be in demand even if less healthy. Whereas males, who can reproduce nearly infinitely, compete with each other. (Obviously, this is less apparent in a complex society, but the genetic realities stem from our evolutionary past. Monogamy is, to put it mildly, a startlingly modern idea in our species.) 

Also fascinating was the chapter that focused on homosexual behavior in insects. This area of study has been fraught with controversy, not least because it challenges religious beliefs. As with other facets of animal behavior, it is easier to be (closer to) objective with insects, as we are less likely to project our own interpretations on them than we are on mammals. Although (as the book points out), insects are not automatons, they also do not seem to have “emotions” as we understand them. And certainly, they do not “sin” - what they do is largely the result of genetic programming, not individual choice. And thus, discovering “deviant” behavior in insects can be an aid in rethinking what we think we know about ourselves as well.

Another nice moment was when Zuk riffed briefly on “cyberchondria,” the tendency to look up dire diagnoses online at the first sign of a sniffle. She uses this to introduce the concept of “fertilization myopia,” considering coitus as the end of the story. Which it isn’t, even in the insect world. In fact, a whole bunch of interesting physiological and behavioral adaptations have arisen to affect which sperm successfully reproduces. This ranges from males being able to displace the sperm of previous males, to females being able to select which sperm is used. 

Perhaps the most startling fact from this section (and that is saying A LOT - this whole subject is nuts...pardon the pun) is the discussion of sperm size. Humans, for what it is worth, have relatively small and boring sperm. It gets the job done, but that’s about it. Now, on the other hand, one of the species of fruit fly (which are ubiquitous in this book because they are so often studied) has sperm which is...wait for it...twenty times the length of the male producing it. Say what!??! If that were expanded to human size, we guys would have sperm cells 100 or more feet long. As I said, rather crazy. 

There are so many additional bits to this book that were thoroughly enjoyable and informative. The discussion on what makes for a “language” is thoughtful and a bit disturbing: much of what we have decided makes us “human” can be found, at least in part, in those primitive six legged creatures. 

And this leads to my closing thought. In the last two pages of the book, Zuk transitions from insect language to poetry. Specifically, the poetry of Don Marquis, the creator of archie and mehitabel, the unforgettable cockroach and cat duo. 

What’s that? You haven’t heard of them? 

What IS this world coming to?

Writing during the Jazz Age, Marquis put together humor and biting social commentary using the idea of a cockroach with the soul of a poet devotedly typing his thoughts by jumping on the keys of a typewriter. (He can’t hold down the shift key, so everything is in lowercase.) 

I was, to say the least, thrilled to see that Zuk is a fellow aficionado of Marquis. She goes so far as to quote a couple of passages about the contrast - and similarities - between insects and humans. Although written about 100 years ago in some cases, these poems seem strikingly relevant and modern. Zuk quotes just a sanza of “what the ants are saying.” Here is the whole thing:

dear boss i was talking with an ant

the other day

and he handed me a lot of

gossip which ants the world around

are chewing over among themselves

i pass it on to you

in the hope that you may relay it to other

human beings and hurt their feelings with it

no insect likes human beings

and if you think you can see why

the only reason i tolerate you is because

you seem less human to me than most of them

here is what the ants are saying

it wont be long now it wont be long

man is making deserts of the earth

it wont be long now

before man will have used it up

so that nothing but ants

and centipedes and scorpions

can find a living on it

man has oppressed us for a million years

but he goes on steadily

cutting the ground from under

his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

we ants remember

and have it all recorded

in our tribal lore

when gobi was a paradise

swarming with men and rich

in human prosperity

it is a desert now and the home

of scorpions ants and centipedes

what man calls civilization

always results in deserts

man is never on the square

he uses up the fat and greenery of the earth

each generation wastes a little more

of the future with greed and lust for riches

north africa was once a garden spot

and then came carthage and rome

and despoiled the storehouse

and now you have sahara

sahara ants and centipedes

toltecs and aztecs had a mighty

civilization on this continent

but they robbed the soil and wasted nature

and now you have deserts scorpions ants and centipedes

and the deserts of the near east

followed egypt and babylon and assyria

and persia and rome and the turk

the ant is the inheritor of tamerlane

and the scorpion succeeds the caesars

america was once a paradise

of timberland and stream

but it is dying because of the greed

and money lust of a thousand little kings

who slashed the timber all to hell

and would not be controlled

and changed the climate

and stole the rainfall from posterity

and it wont be long now

it wont be long

till everything is desert

from the alleghenies to the rockies

the deserts are coming

the deserts are spreading

the springs and streams are drying up

one day the mississippi itself

will be a bed of sand

ants and scorpions and centipedes

shall inherit the earth

men talk of money and industry

of hard times and recoveries

of finance and economics

but the ants wait and the scorpions wait

for while men talk they are making deserts all the time

getting the world ready for the conquering ant

drought and erosion and desert

because men cannot learn

rainfall passing off in flood and freshet

and carrying good soil with it

because there are no longer forests

to withhold the water in the

billion meticulations of the roots

it wont be long now It won’t be long

till earth is barren as the moon

and sapless as a mumbled bone

dear boss i relay this information

without any fear that humanity

will take warning and reform

And this bit, from the collection I reviewed nearly seven years ago:

i do not see why men

should be so proud

insects have the more

ancient lineage

according to the scientists

insects were insects

when man was only

a burbling whatisit

I am looking forward to reading other books by Zuk. This one is worth seeking out. In fact, here is another poem by archy that seems to fit. (It’s my favorite…) 

there are two

kinds of human

beings in the world

so my observation

has told me

namely and to wit

as follows

firstly

those who

even though they

were to reveal

the secret of the universe

to you would fail

to impress you

with any sense

of the importance

of the news

and secondly

those who could

communicate to you

that they had

just purchased

ten cents worth

of paper napkins

and make you

thrill and vibrate

with the intelligence

                   archy

Marlene Zuk is definitely one of the second type. 

Underbug by Lisa Margonelli

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This book is kind of a broad and rambly look at termites, the various research projects involving them, and the ways in which they intersect with humanity. Margonelli spent parts of a decade more or less obsessed (her own words) with termites, leading her around the world, and putting her in contact with biologists, roboticists, geneticists, and other scientists, and many more. The book starts off pretty normally, with her account of an expedition to collect termites, but gets pretty far in the weeds as the book goes along. 

Termites are pretty fascinating, I must admit. They are one of the most ancient creatures on the planet, and are part of the hidden biology which supports all other life. They are social insects, but evolved on a totally different branch than the more familiar hymenoptera - bees, wasps, and ants. They are most closely related to cockroaches, particularly genetically. And, even more fascinatingly, they exist symbiotically with thousands of kinds of bacteria and protists which enable them to digest cellulose. 

For me, I found the parts of the book that were actually about termites to be quite interesting. The recent discoveries of the complex multi-organism colonies in the termite guts, for example, were awesome. The idea of huge clumps of organisms of various kinds which have formed a symbiotic colony is rather at the foundation of how scientists believe life made the jump from single-cell to multi-cell organisms. Which is why animals, from termites to humans, actually have more bacteria and protist cells in our bodies than “our” cells. 

Likewise, the sections on termite mounds and behavior were enlightening. Margonelli clearly knows and loves her subject. Throughout, her enthusiasm makes even the more boring sections seem interesting. 

That said, there are some things that irritated me about the book. First, Margonelli treats it rather like a memoir of her own exploration, rather than a book imparting information. While one of my favorite writers, Mary Roach, tends to do this as well, in Roach’s case, her outrageous journeys are part of the fun - and Roach pokes fun at herself and keeps her tongue firmly in her cheek. Margonelli, on the other hand, is earnest. Very earnest. She takes herself and her research very seriously. Which is fine. But just not that interesting when she inserts too much of herself in the story. 

Similarly, while it is nice to learn about the people who conduct the research, these sections tended to get a bit long and involved; yet afterward, despite the detail, it was difficult to keep track of the many characters and what they were researching. 

This isn’t to say that the research itself wasn’t fascinating - it was. But too much of the book was about the grind of research, and too little about what it has revealed. Which, I guess would be a good way to write a book about how much of research is repetitive and mind-numbing. But this wasn’t that book. 

I have mixed feelings about Margonelli’s tendency to philosophize. She strikes me as kind of the new-age hippie sort (except with legit journalistic credentials and a solid science background.) Sometimes, this is grating. But plenty of times, she hits on genuinely memorable thoughts. One that particularly struck me is her observation that being a termite kind of looks like fun. 

There is an old canard about termites building civilization without reason, but watching them, I wonder if there can be any civilization, or organization, without joy. 

There is, after all, a joy in coming together to accomplish a goal. (Hey, I’m a musician - there is truly a high from making music with others.) We too are social creatures. 

Another line was so good, I have to quote it. It wasn’t original to Margonelli, but to one of the researchers she spent time with. (And he borrowed it from somewhere - it was apparently a joke going around.) This particular research was focused on understanding “complex systems,” such as the behavior of hive insects. As the joke goes, “We’re all just waiting for Carnot.” Understanding the joke, of course, requires a knowledge of Nicolas Carnot, the father of thermodynamics, as well as Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot. Pretty much all of our modern technology rests on Carnot’s theories about how heat works - his ideas revolutionized science. In the case of complex systems, however, Carnot - the person who can draw unifying explanations from the data - hasn’t yet arrived. 

One particular factual bit also stood out. Apparently, termites don’t fit the stereotype of industrious insects. (I mean, this dates at least as far back as Aesop and the Bible.) Termites do not work all the time, and a number of them seem to do very little at all. The researchers speculated about a reserve fighting force, or guards, or perhaps just senior citizens. But the fact of the matter is that the termite mound does not appear to be a matter of pure peak efficiency. There may indeed be “insect slackers” just as there are in human society. (Or, as Margonelli muses, perhaps they are philosophers...or the termite versions of Bill Murray.)

Overall, I quite enjoyed most of the book, with the caveat that a few spots dragged a bit. I am kind of tempted to seek out her other book on the petroleum industry. I get the impression that her work on that book got her interested in termite research, because of the possibility of replacing gasoline with “grassoline” - sustainable cellulose based fuel, in which the gut microorganisms of termites could play a key role. Ah, the ways that our brains follow trails.

Herding Hemingway's Cats by Kat Arney

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Yet another impulse pick from the new books shelf at the library. I think I have a problem. 

This book is about genetics, which makes it a cousin, if you will, of a previous book on that topic, The Violinist’s Thumb by Sam Kean. (I’m a big Sam Kean fan, so you can find posts about his three pop-science books on this blog.) This book is quite a bit different, however. Kean writes his books by exploring a topic through stories. Each chapter will typically focus on a real life story, and bring the science into the discussion. By contrast, Arney focuses more on the science, both the process of discovery, and the current understanding of how things work. In genetics, there are so many remaining mysteries and controversies that the best she can do in many cases is lay out the different competing hypotheses.

Each chapter focuses on one area of genetics, whether the genes themselves (genes encode recipes for proteins), the control switches that turn genes off and on, or the many other areas of DNA that do different things - or nothing at all.

Probably the thing that was most apparent from this book is that the more we learn about genetics, the more “kludgy” our genetic code appears to be. And by “our” I mean that of all living creatures. Even simple organisms show signs of mutation and junk and unnecessarily complex ways of doing things. It is certainly not how an engineer would do things. But it fits very well with the idea that the genetic code arose through mutation and selection. If something “worked,” it stuck, even if there was a simpler way of doing things. Useless bits could stick around indefinitely, as long as they didn’t kill the organism before reproduction. (As Sam Kean noted, we have a lot of junk in our DNA that was randomly inserted by viruses in our past. It doesn’t harm us, but it generally doesn’t do anything either.)

I won’t even attempt to get into the various topics. There are 22 chapters, each of which addresses a different facet of genetics. Each chapter builds on the last, so picking one out of midstream is unhelpful.

There are a few things that are worth mentioning, though. First, DNA and genetics has become a kind of shorthand for “science.” Anyone can recognize the DNA molecule, and spout off some nonsense about genes. But most of what we “know” in the pop cultural sense is wrong. Particularly, the idea of genes as a neat cookbook for life, or the idea that most diseases are due to a single faulty gene. The whole picture is both far more complex and nuanced, and also less neat and orderly than believed. One thing is true, however. Our understanding of genetics is fairly new, and has grown exponentially over the last few decades. Still, we have a long way to go to understand even fairly basic mechanisms. When we look back on our era from 100 years hence, chances are, our present understanding will be viewed as primitive.

In the introduction, the author recalls her secondary school headmaster (she’s British, so this is the equivalent of high school here in the US) bemoaning “modern” science.

“He took to the stage, black academic gown flowing out behind him like a cape, clasping in his hand what looked like a magazine, but must have been a scientific journal of some kind. Towering in impotent fury from the stage, he shook it at us in disapproval as if it were a piece of pornography fished out from behind a cistern in the boys’ toilets. ‘Look at this!’ he thundered, slapping at a page covered in the letters A, C, T and G, repeated ins seemingly endless permutations. ‘It’s like the phone book! All these letters. Letters, letters, letters.’ A pause for breath. “THIS IS BIOLOGY NOWADAYS!’”

In our own cultural moment where science is broadly dismissed and denigrated, and faked “studies” by discredited hucksters are considered by many to outweigh multiple repeated large scale legitimate studies, this is both amusing and all to prescient.

In the interest of equal time, I’ll note with amusement the line from geneticist Mark Ptashne that scientists often use “complex” when they mean “mysterious.” The tendency to pretend understanding where there is none…

Another bit which stood out on its own was the discussion on genetic switches. While this implies on and off, many serve more like a dimmer, adjusting the activity of a gene. One particular set of switches control the genes for melanin production. In essence, just a few letters in a few switches among billions of DNA bases are responsible for a trait which has been the pretext for millennia of violence, enslavement, genocide, and prejudice.

One final one: even the “simple” genes, the ones that encode proteins, turn out to be neither simple nor straightforward. In fruit flies (which are the most studied animal because of their relatively simple genome, fast generation, and ease of handling), one particular gene codes not one or two proteins, but 38,016 different RNA messages, depending on how it splices. This is both kludgy and innovative. On the one hand, it saves space to reuse one gene. On the other, it looks a bit like using duct tape for everything. It isn’t always pretty, it doesn’t always hold together, it tends to waste energy due to mistakes in transcription, but it is “good enough.” Which is really all evolution needs.

This is a fascinating book, fairly heavy on the science for a pop-sci book, but intriguing. Kat Arney’s background in both science and writing are apparent. Her main gig right now is with the UK Cancer Research Center, where she is responsible for translating science jargon into understandable English for the rest of us. She succeeds in this book. Her obvious grasp of the topic combines with a clear writing style that makes the complex understandable.

One warning, however. This book does assume that the reader has a high school level of biology and genetics. If you don’t already have a basic idea of what DNA, RNA, and proteins are, and how a cell is laid out, you probably should brush up before reading the book, as she does not go back and explain the basics.

I rather enjoyed this book, and recommend it for anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of modern genetics.

***

The title, by the way, comes from the “Hemingway" cats, genetic mutants that have six toes on a paw. Okay, sort of. My family owned several of them during my teens, so I have some firsthand knowledge. Normal cats have five toes on the front paws, four on the back. The most common Hemingway variant adds a non-functional claw between the “thumb” and first finger of the front paws, sometimes accompanied by a vestigial fifth claw midway up on the back paw. We had some like this. A few will have even more toes. One cat we had was truly unusual (and very rare). He had six toes on each front paw - but they were all connected to bone and evenly spaced. The rear paws were even more unusual, with five equally spaced toes. His paw prints in the snow were unusual. Like the Sasquatch of felines. 

Tell me you can resist that...

***

My kids really like the DNA Cat logo on the book.

The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean

Source of Book: Borrowed from the library

I previously read and reviewed The Disappearing Spoon by the same author. Sam Kean writes for the New York Times Magazine and Mental Floss, and has appeared on NPR. His books could loosely be called pop science: understandable to the average educated reader, without an abundance of footnotes and citations, but with significant intellectual content. Obviously, a professional scientist would consider them simplistic, and utterly lacking in the higher math they work with every day. Like Malcolm Gladwell - who I also enjoy - he tells a good story. Unlike Gladwell, who writes pop sociology, Kean has no need to make a point or suggest a solution to anything. Rather, his goal is to make an arcane area of knowledge enjoyable.

In his previous book, Kean discussed the elements and the periodic table. Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century science, essentially. For this book, he delves into what is a decidedly Twentieth and Twenty-first Century topic - that of genetics and DNA. 

The title, by the way, comes from the story of Paganini, who had unnaturally flexible fingers. The pieces he wrote 200 years ago - unlike most of the music from that era - still challenges the technique of the world’s finest violinists to this day. Playing Paganini is the sort of thing one does as an exclusive pursuit. The genetic source of Paganini’s physical advantages probably came from a defective mutation that caused him to become nearly crippled at a relatively young age, which is why his story makes it into the book.

What I have found is that while most people tend to acknowledge the truth of atomic theory - even while failing to understand or spectacularly misunderstanding it - they don’t tend to have heated opinions about chemical reactions. Genetics is a whole other beast. Most people lack even a basic knowledge of what DNA is and how it works. But that certainly does not stop them from having violently strong opinions about genetic issues. And many deny even the best understood and proven scientific facts about genetics. I’ll make specific mention here of the O. J. Simpson trial, which took place during my first year in law school. Much of the prosecution’s case turned on DNA evidence, which failed to impress the jury, who preferred doggerel poetry as the best explanation. (“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”) Although my own theory is that Mark Fuhrman’s use of racial slurs would have sunk the case in any event. Another contemporary issue was the drive to require warning labels on genetically modified food here in California. In that case, there was a lot of heated rhetoric centering on what is “natural” (such as human directed hybridizing and mutating using toxins and radiation) and what is “unnatural” (directly manipulating the DNA). Instructive in this debate might be C. S. Lewis’ excellent discussion of the word “nature” in Studies in Words, which I reviewed here. (“Natural” often meaning “what I like.”)

For those who get the heeby-jeebies about intentional manipulation of genes, I recommend you avoid this book. On that level, it is highly disconcerting because recent discoveries have upended some of what we popularly believe about the nature of humanity and our conception of nature as static and clean and perfect.

Let me just lead off with the one that blew my mind the most. Viruses (which occupy the weird line between living and non-living) are notorious for rapid mutation and evolution. This is why the flu shot has to be different each year. All the related flu viruses combine and swap genetic information whenever they are present in the same host. Plus, random errors in DNA and RNA transcription occur, and stuff gets moved around and lost, and imported from the host creature, and all kinds of crazy stuff. Viruses are essentially a bad carbon copy system that makes billions of copies really fast.

Here is where it got freaky: not only do viruses steal our genes, they insert their own into our DNA. Not every time we get sick - our error-check system is better than that in viruses. And what mutations we do get from viruses typically only affect the infected cells, not our reproductive cells (egg or sperm). But once in a while, they do. And, since viruses reproduce like crazy, the insertions add up. Viral genes can be recognized by a combination of two ways. First, some genes are easily seen to be virus genes because of the proteins they make (to form the viral shell). Second, if certain stretches of DNA in the human genome show the same unusual (for humans) genes, but placed in different places in a seemingly random order, the chances are, it is junk. Stuff placed there by an error. So, apparently, we have a lot of virus DNA accidentally spliced into our own.

Yeah, this sounded like it might be a stretch. Until a guy named Thierry Heidmann went through and re-created a virus from this material. Yes, he actually located and spliced together the pieces. It looked similar - but not exactly like - known modern viruses.

Now, freak out time. He injected the reconstituted virus DNA into living cells from various mammals. And they caught the disease. (A very mild, rather benign infection, fortunately.) The virus replicated itself and infected new cells.

Now remember, viruses are quasi-living. They reproduce, but they require a living cell to do so. They cannot process food or create waste or reproduce without the use of a living cell. Thus, they may or may not be “alive” as we consider it. But still, an “extinct” virus was resurrected purely from the DNA found interspliced in ordinary human DNA.

(Yes, this is the premise of Jurassic Park, originally written by the fascinating Michael Crichton. It would/will be much, much harder to re-create a more complex extinct organism because viruses are merely DNA or RNA in a protein capsule. Insert the genetic information into the cell, and the cell assembles the parts. A lizard would require a very similar lizard to develop the egg and sperm and develop the grown creature. It may well turn out to be impossible. Or at least unlikely.)

I’ll mention a few other interesting things. Just like in the case of the so-called Big Bang (which I discussed in Why Does the World Exist), originally, the discovery of DNA was considered a threat to Darwinism. If all traits of all living things were determined by an inviolable code, then they cannot have changed over time. Later, of course, it was discovered that DNA does in fact mutate - and much more often than originally thought. Obviously, there are many unanswered questions. The specifics of development from simple to complex defies an easy explanation, but a genetic explanation of inherited traits doesn’t preclude one or the other.

One of the most interesting parts of this book was the history of the fruit fly experiments, which formed the basis of much of what we know about genetics. Just a fascinating story.

Also intriguing was the long term experiment in genetic mutation that arose in the case of Hiroshima. Nothing like bombarding a large population with strong radiation, and then checking to see what happens over the next 70 years. I found it interesting that, despite the potential for great damage, the rates of cancer for the survivors was surprisingly low. In particular, those unlucky individuals who managed to get hit by both bombs were far less affected than expected. For the most part, they went on to live normal lifespans and die of normally expected diseases. (Yes, plenty died of cancer - often in their 90s, though. Which may well have occurred anyway at that age if they missed out on heart disease.) Human and animal bodies are remarkably resilient, particularly to short term exposure. What doesn’t kill us may not always make us stronger, but it doesn’t always weaken us either.

Another great fact was the application of knot theory to DNA. In a development that will come as absolutely NO surprise to any musician who uses cables, if you put a rope in a box and jostle it for a while, it will form surprisingly complex knots by itself. DNA is similar. It makes knots that must be untangled for copying. In fact, in light of all the things that can easily go wrong, it is amazing that we can reproduce at all.

I’ll also note the interesting - and unsurprising - fact that many of the great developments in genetics that came from the work of women came from the work of nuns. Why? Well, a woman in the not very distant past was expected to give up her career on marriage. A woman who remained single was looked on with suspicion, and rarely if ever could make her living at science. So who might be able to devote the time to scientific pursuits without being pressured to marry or ostracised if they did not? Well, why not those who had devoted their single lives to the service of God?

(Side note: if my wife had been born 100 years ago, I believe she would have gone this direction. As it was, she was sure she would never marry, because she had ambitions beyond the kitchen, which was unacceptable in the group she grew up in.)

Finally, I give bonus points to this book for addressing the ethical issues in genetics in a dispassionate and informative manner. One of the big ones has been the issue of genetics and race. Even Watson (of Watson and Crick - discoverers of the structure of DNA) tried to make a political statement about the “error” of failing to acknowledge the inferiority of certain races. (Guess which race was singled out as inferior?) And yet, despite fanfare, the supposed “smart gene” which certain races have less of, turned out to not, um, determine intelligence after all. But it sure tends to make news! In this context, the problem of nature versus nurture arises again and again. Both are tied up and possibly inseparable. And while genes for specific diseases have been found, the big traits such as intelligence and strength appear to be determined by many genes and possibly other genetic markers yet to be discovered.

Kean also notes the controversies over genetic manipulation. If we could some day cure cystic fibrosis (to give one example) by repairing the broken gene, that would be an unmitigated blessing to mankind. However, the means of manipulation are often misunderstood, and attacked as “not natural.” (Reminder, disease is very natural.) However, other manipulations are fraught with ethical issues. Cloning gets a specific mention, for the risk of making clones, not to be viewed as separate humans, but as organ harvests, for example. That said, I appreciate that Kean notes that clones have been living among us since the dawn of life. We call them identical twins, but genetically, they are simply clones: identical at the genetic level. But clearly separate persons - and different despite the identical DNA.

As with Kean’s last book, I found it to be a good read. However, prepare to have some of what you thought you knew challenged. It is difficult to look at life the same way after reading this book.

Note on the Human Genome Project:

One of the juicy stories in this book was the contentious race between the National Institute of Health and the private company Celera to completely sequence the human genome. (Essentially a road map to human DNA.) I won’t attempt to recount the whole thing, but it was like the Ben Hur Chariot Race of science nerds, with plenty of trash talk, some dirty deeds, and a whole lot of finger pointing and chest pounding afterward. In fact, the controversy continues today, with NIH still trying to get sole credit for the discovery.

Here is a recent article, if you are interested in reading more.

This wasn’t helped at all by the fact that J. Craig Venter started out with NIH, and then grew impatient with the pace, started Celera, and then invented techniques which vastly improved the speed of sequencing. (Thereby pushing NIH to improve their process.) Venter was, shall we say, a “difficult” person. Brilliant, but difficult.

In fact, most who worked with or against him preferred a more “colorful metaphor,” as Spock would say.

(No, I cannot possibly resist using that reference and posting a clip. I love this movie. Also, I’ll note that my dad’s favorite line was “Ah. The giants.” 

Note on Paganini:

Do you really think I could write about Paganini without adding a clip?

Paganini’s Caprices are legendary among violinists in the same way that Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas are. Amazing invention combined with profoundly and maddeningly impossible technical demands. (In Bach’s case, the use of a solo instrument to play three and four part fugues, for example.)

Carprice #24 is famous because its theme was borrowed by several composers as the basis for their own sets of variations. The best known is Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini, for piano and orchestra, which is one of my favorite piano works.

Here is Hilary Hahn, showing her chops. I will particularly note the left hand pizzicato section beginning at the 2:58 mark. Holy moley! I wish I could play like that…

For those who care, the second piece is Nathan Milstein’s Paganiniana, his own set of variations on Paganini’s theme.