Koncocoo

Best Physiology

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ
Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain and yet we know very little about how it works. "Enders’s wonder at the strange ways of the gut is matched only by her incredulity at the limited public knowledge on the subject." — The New York Times "With a great sense of humor and ample enthusiasm, Enders explains everything readers did and didn’t want to know about their innards ... this book defies boring. "This primer is everything you ever wanted to know about the gut (and then some), chattily and accessibly written in a uniquely Millennial and matter of fact way. " Gut's probe into the human digestive system might be seen as an earnest younger sibling to Gulp , Mary Roach’s 2013 investigation into the same subject. The comparison isn’t meant as a slight; Enders swaps out Roach’s knowing wryness with a kind of puplike enthusiasm for the complex mechanisms that convert food into a body’s energy and waste without our even thinking about it."
Reviews
"Enders has a lively sense of curiosity and humor, and an endearing habit of anticipating readers' questions and answering them with great detail and patience. Perhaps the strangest was the blithe claim that salmonellosis in German eggs is caused by farmers buying cheap grain from Africa, where random turtles walk about in the fields pooping on seeds. Recently, Germany has spawned numerous European outbreaks of salmonellosis in the old-fashioned way: poorly regulated high-density factory farming with birds crammed into tiny, filthy cages."
"i was super exited to read it!But the content is too scientific and hard to read and understand."
"Giulia Enders answers questions you would not even ask your mother; what should a normal stool look like for example."
"I love this book, and have read, highlighted and written all over my hard copy."
"Full of facts and written (and translated !)."
"Loved this book."
"For those who want to know more about the part of our body that affects our health the most, this is a must read."
"I forced myself to read through the first chapter because this book has so many great reviews I thought I must be missing something."
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Body by Science: A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week
Backed by rigorous research, the authors prescribe a weekly high-intensity program for increasing strength, revving metabolism, and building muscle for a total fitness experience. , owns the state-of-the-art personal training facility Ultimate-Exercise.
Reviews
"The answer to this is that several years ago, I discovered Ken Hutchin's work with Super Slow exercise protocols. To me, the big plus of slow reps is the ability to use lighter weights with slower movements, all but eliminating the injuries that plague those always wanting to go higher in the bench press, dead lift, etc.. Finally, most people who pay big bucks to join a trendy gym will not be satisfied using it once a week for twenty or even fewer minutes. They will be tempted by all the fancy equipment and the often absurd (box jumping for example) urban legends infecting the modern fitness movement. These mental road blocks should, I think, be examined more in depth, as the actual exercise protocols are really quite simple compared to tackling the ingrained mind sets that feed into fitness in all its iterations. This, and yanky-jerky movements explains why most injuries associated with weight bearing exercises are not to the muscle but to supporting tissues (tendonitis is ubiquitous, sore joints are a close second). I have found from my personal experience, that I have eliminated tendonitis completely, and lessened joint aches to the point they're hardly noticeable, simply by plateauing every third month. Couch potatoes and the elderly especially, could easily see a doubling of muscle strength in their first three to four months after starting this protocol - you can bet that by comparison, their supporting tissues are weak. I am not a medical professional, but this plateauing works in my case, and it makes logical sense for certain classes of individuals using the protocols."
"This book turns just about everything I ever knew about exercise (and much about health and fitness) completely on it's head. I started my own exercise routine years ago with walking, moderate weight lifting, calisthenics, stretching and Yoga. It would never have occurred to me that lack of muscular strength is the central problem of growing older. Nor would I have even guessed the problem could be cured or be compensated for by strengthening the major muscle groups."
"I enjoyed the educational and study bases information in this book."
"Great book!"
"Eye opening book."
"Finally a workout method that makes sense, I think this is the wave of the future!"
"I switched my workout program after reading this book."
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Anatomy Trains E-Book: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists
Provides a revolutionary approach to the study of human anatomy which has been shown to improve the outcomes of physical therapies traditionally used to manage pain and other musculoskeletal disorders Describes a theory which is applicable to all common types of movement, posture analysis and physical treatment modalities Layout designed to allow the reader to gather the concept quickly or gain a more detailed understanding of any given area according to need Design icons direct readers to their own specialist areas of interest, e.g. manual therapy, movement therapy, visual assessment, kinaesthetic education or supplementary video material Appendices discuss the relevance of the Anatomy Trains concept to the work of Dr Louis Schultz (Meridians of Latitude), Ada Rolf (Structural Integration) and the practice of Oriental Medicine Accompanying website (www.myersmyofascialmeridians.com) presents multi-media exploration of the concepts described in the book - film clips from Kinesis DVDs, computer graphic representations of the Anatomy Trains, supplementary dissection photographs and video clips, webinars, and some extra client photos for visual assessment practice. Anatomy Trains champions a wider scope of the body and its movement systems. Gray Cook MSPT, OSPT, CSCS, Developer of the Functional Movement Screen Tom Myers' masterful second edition of Anatomy Trains incorporates the most recent scientific concepts into a framework for understanding and practicing deep tissue work. Using Tom Myers' Anatomy Trains concepts and techniques in my chiropractic practice has improved my ability to see the source of my patient's problem and more efficiently target the soft tissue structures involved. I highly recommend Anatomy Trains as a valuable asset for chiropractors and other practitioners using manipulation in their practices. Dr Andry Vleeming, Professor of Clinical Anatomy, co-editor of Movement, Stability and Lumbopelvic Pain The beauty of Tom Myers' work is that it is useful for a wide range of bodyworkers, from movement or energy therapists to manipulative manual specialists, and does more than simply demonstrating rote techniques, Anatomy Trains provides a deep understanding of strain patterns in the body to enable creative and effective solutions for the issues we encounter in a bodywork practice. Anatomy Trains will help physicians, therapists and bodyworkers of all backgrounds break away from the prevalent traditional, mechanistic view of how the body works and is to be treated and will then push you headfirst into a logical, systems oriented view that has helped expand my diagnostic and treatment paradigms as well as my personal practice enormously. Training optimal movement patterns requires an understanding of how the body regions connect and work in synergy. Anatomy Trains is an essential guide for understanding key myofascial lines which, when in tensegrity, facilitate optimal movement and postural patterns. I am recommending this book to friends and colleagues and keep using the concepts of Anatomy Trains in my everyday practice with great success. Helene M. Langevin MD, Research Associate Professor, Departments of Neurology, Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, University of Vermont Tom's Anatomy Trains book and in depth practical studies represent/reveal an invaluable and vivid insight/understanding into how the body has pre-organized its movement functions via the flexible fabric (cut on the bias) from within. Marie-Jose Blom Lawrence, Master Teacher of Pilates, Director Long Beach Dance Conditioning, Creator of Smart Spine Back Support System Anatomy Trains is a resource that gives inspiration for anyone who works with the human organism, for practitioners of various manual fields, for movement teachers and for educators in a larger sense. An unusually interesting guide to living anatomy - an excellent way to visualize the anatomy of movement. Author of The Endless Web As a movement professional it is essential to study the brilliance of anatomist Tom Myers in Anatomy Trains. Anatomy Trains will deepen your knowledge and practical applications regardless of what your training background has been. Author of Anatomy Trains and a set of supporting videos, and co-author of Fascial Release for Structural Balance (Lotus, 2010), Tom has also penned over 60 articles for trade magazines and journals on anatomy, soft tissue manipulation, and the social scourge of somatic alienation and loss of reliance on kinaesthetic intelligence.
Reviews
"Tom Myers in his two books presents an appealing if not compelling theory on fascial anatomy and its potential effects on movement and posture across broad planes. The book is wonderfully done, and the theory is well presented with ample and useful anatomical illustrations of each anatomy train. That being said I do have some reservations about the Anatomy Trains concept and the phenomenon of whole scale acceptance that surrounds the theory. I've had anatomy instructors in Rolfing training, in pre-medicine in college, and in both chiropractic and veterinary college, and I can say Tom Myers is as good as they come in making anatomy relevant to clinical treatment. I think he is a visionary in stepping back to look at functional anatomy from a whole body perspective. While there has been a great deal of basic scientific work done on the microscopic structure and chemistry of fascia, the work has yet to be done to verify what Rolfers have always proposed: 1) that restriction in a small area of fascia can be propagated across long distances and across firm attachment points to cause global movement dysfunction and 2) that deep manual intervention is actually able to stretch or "free" fascial restrictions deep in the tissues. While the Anatomy Trains concept is an excellent theory that, if true, would be a wonderful guide to strategy in manual therapies, there are other competing theories that make as much sense and may have a better scientific underpinning. One such theory is that deep fascial intervention, as a secondary byproduct, causes mast cell degranulation in superficial tissues and that the released histamine granules cause extravasation of intravascular fluid into the tissues which "hydrates" those tissues, bringing about better sliding between fascial planes. This is why I see it so troubling that the Anatomy Trains concept has become so pervasively accepted as fact, yet the most basic premises, 1) that gross fascial strain can be transmitted physically across chains of firm anchor points and 2) that deep manual intervention can stretch or "release" fascia in vivo, remain completely unproven theories. As it is, the Anatomy Trains concept is an exciting theory, but it is as yet only a theory, not an essential revolutionary truth in manual medicine, as many claim."
"The diagrams in this book blew me away."
"Great book any one interested in fascia or muscle/kinetic chains should check this out."
"This book is a good manual for layperson and clinician alike to understand it and goes a long way in teaching how to approach producing healing effects within it, whether you are treating yourself or patients or clients."
"I'm a chiropractor and this should have been part of our curriculum."
"Best money I've spent on a text book in a long time."
"Great book."
"The previous edition was a better book."
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Best Pathophysiology

Pathophysiology - E-Book: The Biologic Basis for Disease in Adults and Children (Pathophysiology the Biologic Basis)
This edition includes a NEW Epigenetics and Disease chapter along with. additional What’s New boxes. highlighting the latest advances in pathophysiology. Over 1,200 full-color illustrations and photographs depict the clinical manifestations of disease and disease processes — more than in any other pathophysiology text. EXTENSIVELY Updated content reflects advances in pathophysiology including tumor biology invasion and metastases, the epidemiology of cancer, diabetes mellitus, insulin resistance, thyroid and adrenal gland disorders, female reproductive disorders including benign breast diseases and breast cancer, and a separate chapter on male reproductive disorders and cancer.
Reviews
"Very in depth look into how the body works."
"Good book."
"Slight highlighting ang cover aging signs, and what looks like a coffee stain."
"Product was just as described."
"Amazing book, informative."
"Torn up bindings."
"Very difficult to follow."
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Best Nosology

Dash Diet Slow Cooker Cookbook: Prep-And-Go Easy And Delicious Recipes Made For Your Crock Pot To Cracked Weight Loss and Have a Better Lifestyle( Lower Blood Pressure, Vegan Diet, Vegetarian Diet)
Now, along with your Slow Cooker, you can produce a range of stunning dishes with this Dash Diet Slow Cooker Cookbook: Prep-And-Go Easy And Delicious Recipes Made For Your Crock Pot To Cracked Weight Loss and Have a Better Lifestyle , a book which offers dozens of recipes including: Get a copy of Dash Diet Slow Cooker Cookbook and start experimenting in the kitchen with some fabulous ideas! Read Dash Diet Slow Cooker Cookbook TODAY and start experimenting in your kitchen with some fabulous ideas!
Reviews
"Dash Diet: Dash diet is very safe for our health."
"Many benefits of slow cooker have been mentioned in the book.The images are so tempting ,seeing the pictures you will definitely know how your dish would look once its been cooked."
"I really loved the book and this book will go to my collection of cookery books."
"This book is brilliant and the vast majority of the key lesson in this book.The Author has completed an awesome activity."
"The Dash diet primarily focuses on the intake of plants,fruits,vegetables,whole grains and low fat dairy products.It helps you decide weekly,monthly and thus yearly nutritional goals and achieve the results.Finally,you will find 100 dash diet slow cooker recipes which will support your dash diet journey.All the recipes are easy to make they are delicious,nutritional and good for health.All the ingredients are easy to find in your local market."
"Informative book,Dash diet means eating healthy food to prevent Hypertension in which now a days is a very common illness.It clearly explain the proper usage and the way on how to choice a good Slow Cooker device.Every meal has its own nutrition facts to be gather which are clearly define and the ingredients are easy to find.Well i will try some of the recipes here and hoping for the fruitful result.Good book."
"The Author has made an incredible showing with regards to.This Dash Diet cookbook is likewise composed extremely well.This Dash Diet cookbook will enable you to begin with your new eating regimen and it will end up being the most valuable instrument in the kitchen.I trust you should discover this book accommodating."
"This book will enable you to begin with your new eating routine and it will end up being the most valuable instrument in the kitchen.I trust you should discover this book helpful.cooking time and other data accessible."
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Best Embryology

Instant Pot Cookbook: Electric Pressure Cooker Recipes Easy and Superfast Cooking for Healthy Meals, with Pictures, Calories & Nutritional Information
With this fabulous recipe book, you can use an Instant Pot to improve the quality of food you eat, cut down on the time you spend in the kitchen and provide your family with amazing dishes, like:
Reviews
"The recipes are amazing, with the beautiful pictures, as well as all the needed information about calories and nutritional value."
"This was a gift but I was told it had very good recipes."
"Now cooking for me is quick and easy with this instant pot cookbook."
"An interesting and useful book for the cook!"
"Love it, can’t picture cooking with out it."
"My family cannot start their day without marvelous pancakes I have once cooked from this instant pot cookbook, they are in love with them."
"It's hard for me as European to understand North American measurements, but this book provides the explanation for it which is great and makes my cooking time more effective and easy."
"As we are introducin. Examples include the following: From the introduction: "As we are introducing a very fast and healthy way of preparing meals at home, that does not requirements much time; and guess what, it offers hand free cooking.""
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Best Immunology

Super Immunity: The Essential Nutrition Guide for Boosting Your Body's Defenses to Live Longer, Stronger, and Disease Free
In Super Immunity , world-renowned health expert and New York Times bestselling author of Eat to Live Dr. Joel Fuhrman offers a nutritional guide to help you live longer, stronger, and disease free. “This book proves that eating high nutrient dense foods is the best path to building a super immune system, leading to a healthy long life with a “sound mind” and the recipes are superb.” (Dr. Rudy Kachmann, Neurosurgeon, Kachmann Mind Body Institute). “Super Immunity should be the book everyone is talking about. Super Immunity offers everybody the most sensible, most effective dietary approach to become and stay truly healthy.” (James Craner, MD, MPH, FACOEM, FACP Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Reno, NV Assistant Clinical Professor, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine). “ Super Immunity expertly yet succinctly combines the latest nutrition and scientific research, plus a handful of anecdotes from Fuhrman’s patients, into 170 pages of air-tight, irrefutable advice on how to get and stay healthy, even in an increasingly toxic and processed world.” (VegNews Magazine). Based on the latest scientific research, Super Immunity shows us how we can become almost totally resistant to colds, influenza, and other infections. Combining the latest data from clinical tests, nutritional research, and results from thousands of patients, Dr. Fuhrman proves that super immunity exists and is well within reach for those who choose it.
Reviews
"In Super Immunity, Fuhrman outlines how certain foods including leafy green vegetables, mushrooms, onions, garlic, pomegranate, berries and seeds can improve our natural defenses. In addition to emphasizing immune-strengthening and cancer-fighting foods, Fuhrman outlines guidelines to help readers to adapt a Super Immunity diet. Fuhrman is not an advocate of a 100% raw diet, so the recipes include a combination of raw and cooked meals. However, because of the high fiber and water content of the meals, the diet is naturally low in calories, making it a perfect program for dieters who want to lose weight but also enjoy eating large meals. Here is an example of a day's eating on the Super Immunity Plan: Breakfast: Forbidden Rice Pudding (ingredients include black rice, soy or almond milk, dried apple, wild blueberries, cinnamon and vanilla). Lunch: Spinach Salad with Strawberry Sesame Vinaigrette, Tangy White Beans and Zucchini. Dinner: Raw snow peas, broccoli and carrots, Island Black Bean Dip, Braised Kale and Squash with pumpkin seeds. Dessert: Black Cherry Sorbet. Super Immunity includes recipes for both raw and cooked plant-based meals and will appeal to vegans as well as anyone interested in improving their health through a better diet. For those of us who prefer to eat a raw food diet here is a list of some of the raw food recipes included in this book: Cinnamon Apple Omega Milk. Detox Green Tea. Waldorf Blended Salad. Marinated Kale Salad. Rainbow Chopped Salad. Triple Treat Cabbage Salad. Golden Onion Morsels. Chunky Blueberry Walnut Sorbet. Coconut Carrot Cream Pie. Golden Delicious Truffles. Overall I found the book to be an enjoyable read and I picked up on a few key concepts that will no doubt improve my overall diet."
"Then I was diagnosed with Psoriasis and when I read how insidious the disease could become and the cancer causing drugs used in treatment, I knew I had to change."
"The top foods recommended to add to your diet are: - Kale, collards, mustard greens. - Arugula, watercress. - Most greens and cabbage. - Broccoli, brussel sprouts. - Carrots, tomatoes. - Onion, garlic. - Mushrooms. - Pomegranates. - Berries of all kinds. - Seeds (like sesame, flax, etc.). Some radical natural hygienist claim that the entire germ theory is a scam and that viruses never cause illnesses, but those claims are not supported by science. I've lived something close to the recommended lifestyle for over 12 years and although I occasionally got a cold, I've never had a flu in all that time and the more closely I followed the recommendations, the healthier I've become."
"Joel Fuhrman scores again with a readable encouraging book."
"I was skeptical when I purchased this."
"This book is a must for anyone seeking sound and lasting nutritional advice and good health."
"Just remember if you juice GREENS; make the finished green juice no more than 25% of the total juice volume."
"Loved this book."
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Best Microbiology Science

Dr. Mary's Monkey: How the Unsolved Murder of a Doctor, a Secret Laboratory in New Orleans and Cancer-Causing Monkey Viruses Are Linked to Lee Harvey Oswald, ... Assassination and Emerging Global Epidemics
The 1964 murder of a nationally known cancer researcher sets the stage for this gripping exposé of medical professionals enmeshed in covert government operations over the course of three decades. Jim Marrs is the author of Alien Agenda, Crossfire (which was consulted by Oliver Stone during the making of the movie JFK), and Rule by Secrecy. He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and Investigative Reporters & Editors and is a former president of the Press Club of Fort Worth.
Reviews
"Best prescription - Take the red pill and read Ed Haslam's, Dr. Mary's Monkey, don't take two aspirin, and call someone in the morning... You'll need to."
"CIA engages virus researchers to "invent" a virus that can be used as a weapon."
"I'm not a JFK researcher and I was glad that this book was so much more interesting than I could have imagined."
"It is worthwhile to read this book along with Jim Garrison's book, On the Trail of the Assassins, which is about the JFK assassination by the C.I.A., by Cuban expatriates, and the subsequent cover-up by the Warren Commission, the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Dallas Police Department, the Secret Service, and others."
"Dr. Mary's Monkey is a book that will change one's view of many subjects: polio vaccine, Mary Sherman's death, bio-medical research, and the Kennedy assassination."
"Great book!!!!."
"Really enjoying this book."
"I felt it was almost two books, biographical, literature combined but would read better separated entirely instead of within each chapter."
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Best Anatomy

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them. Roach delves into the many productive uses to which cadavers have been put, from medical experimentation to applications in transportation safety research (in a chapter archly called "Dead Man Driving") to work by forensic scientists quantifying rates of decay under a wide array of bizarre circumstances. There are also chapters on cannibalism, including an aside on dumplings allegedly filled with human remains from a Chinese crematorium, methods of disposal (burial, cremation, composting) and "beating-heart" cadavers used in organ transplants. Roach has a fabulous eye and a wonderful voice as she describes such macabre situations as a plastic surgery seminar with doctors practicing face-lifts on decapitated human heads and her trip to China in search of the cannibalistic dumpling makers.
Reviews
"Very interesting examination of death and what happens, or should happen, to our 'mortal coil' once we shuffle it off."
"Death is very much a part of life as this book will show you and also give you a good laugh along the way!"
"Love all her works, fascinating and written so that it is palatable to anyone."
"I bought this book after having been given the Mary Roach book - 'Packing for Mars'."
"An interesting read."
"Gave this as a gift, haven't gotten any complaints."
"STIFF: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. For anyone interested in the "messy" part of human science, this is the book for you. STIFF tells what happens to the human body after death whether that death is natural or not."
"Mary Roach is my favorite non fiction author and this is the first book I read by her."
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Best Biochemistry

Handbook of Evidence-Based Radiation Oncology
Building on the success of this book's first edition, Dr. Eric Hansen and Dr. Mack Roach have updated, revised, and expanded the Handbook of Evidence-based Radiation Oncology, a portable reference that utilizes evidence-based medicine as the basis for practical treatment recommendations and guidelines. 4 Stars Doody's Review for 1st Edition: "This is a "must-have" for any radiation oncology resident.
Reviews
"Most of us as residents always had difficulty gleaning the truly important bits of information and clinical trials from the standard rad-onc textbooks."
"Great book for oncology students!"
"It quotes the most important publications per tumor sites and also describes without digressions the therapeutic approach."
"As a Medical Physicist this book is a great, condensed resource for understanding the physician's side of things, especially when understanding prescribed dose, fractionation schemes and why PTV margins were chosen as they were."
"it's small than other textbooks and easier to understand in the daily routine."
"10 stars all the way."
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Best Genetics

The Gene: An Intimate History
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. A New York Times Notable Book. A Washington Post and Seattle Times Best Book of the Year From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies —a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick” ( Elle ). “A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future” ( Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. "This is perhaps the greatest detective story ever told—a millennia-long search, led by a thousand explorers, from Aristotle to Mendel to Francis Collins, for the question marks at the center of every living cell. “With this fat, enthralling, juicy, scholarly, wonderfully written history of cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee vaults into that exalted company, inviting comparisons to the late physician and historian Lewis Thomas and the late palaeontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould… What a story—full of quixotic characters, therapeutic triumphs and setbacks, and recent historical events—with all the hubris and pathos of Greek tragedy.” (Susan Okie, Washington Post). "It’s hard to think of many books for a general audience that have rendered any area of modern science and technology with such intelligence, accessibility, and compassion. “Mukherjee brings an impressive balance of empathy and dispassion to this instantly essential piece of medical journalism.” (Time). “A meticulously researched, panoramic history… What makes Mukherjee's narrative so remarkable is that he imbues decades of painstaking laboratory investigation with the suspense of a mystery novel and urgency of a thriller. “Riveting and powerful… Mukherjee’s extraordinary book might stimulate a wider discussion of how to wisely allocate our precious health care resources.” (San Francisco Chronicle). Add to their company Siddhartha Mukherjee: oncologist, researcher, and author of The Emperor of All Maladies (Scribner), a sweeping, erudite, and challenging ‘biography of cancer.’” (Elle magazine). “Sobering, humbling, and extraordinarily rich reading from a wise and gifted writer who sees how far we have come—but how much farther far we have to go to understand our human nature and destiny.” (Kirkus, starred review). "Mukherjee deftly relates the basic scientific facts about the way genes are believed to function, while making clear the aspects of genetics that remain unknown. He offers insight into both the scientific process and the sociology of science... By relating familial information, Mukherjee grounds the abstract in the personal to add power and poignancy to his excellent narrative." Mukherjee punctuates his encyclopedic investigations of collective and individual heritability, and our closing in on the genetic technologies that will transform how we will shape our own genome, with evocative personal anecdotes, deft literary allusions, wonderfully apt metaphors, and an irrepressible intellectual brio.” (Ben Dickinson, Elle). The story [of the gene] has been told, piecemeal, in different ways, but never before with the scope and grandeur that Siddhartha Mukherjee brings to his new history… he views his subject panoptically, from a great and clarifying height, yet also intimately.” (James Gleick, New York Times Book Review). The book is compassionate, tautly synthesized, packed with unfamiliar details about familiar people.” (Jennifer Senior, The New York Times). "[Mukherjee] nourishes his dry topics into engaging reading, expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories . [and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry. With a marriage of architectural precision and luscious narrative, an eye for both the paradoxical detail and the unsettling irony, and a genius for locating the emotional truths buried in chemical abstractions, Mukherjee leaves you feeling as though you've just aced a college course for which you'd been afraid to register -- and enjoyed every minute of it." He renders complex science with a novelist’s skill for conjuring real lives, seismic events.” (Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune). The Gene captures the scientific method—questioning, researching, hypothesizing, experimenting, analyzing—in all its messy, fumbling glory, corkscrewing its way to deeper understanding and new questions.” (Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). The Gene is a story that, once read, makes us far better educated to think about the profound questions that will confront us in the coming decades.” (Ron Krall, Steamboat Today). But his sober warning about the future might be the book’s most important contribution.” (Kevin Canfield, San Francisco Chronicle). “Destined to soar into the firmament of the year’s must reads, to win accolades and well-deserved prizes, and to set a new standard for lyrical science writing. Thanks to Dr. Mukherjee’s remarkably clear and compelling prose, the reader has a fighting chance of arriving at the story of today’s genetic manipulations with an actual understanding of both the immensely complicated science and the even more complicated moral questions.” (Abigail Zuger, New York Times Science Section). “[The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene] both beautifully navigate a sea of complicated medical information in a way that is digestible, poignant, and engaging . I shook my head countless times while devouring it, wondering how the author—a brilliant physician, scientist, writer, and Rhodes Scholar—could possibly possess so many unique talents. “A brilliant exploration of some of our age’s most important social issues, from poverty to mental illness to the death penalty, and a beautiful, profound meditation on the truly human forces that drive them. Perhaps the most powerful lesson of Dr Mukherjee’s book [is]: genetics is starting to reveal how much the human race has to gain from tinkering with its genome, but still has precious little to say about how much we might lose.” (The Economist). But at a deeper level, the book is far more than a simple science history.” (Fred Bortz, Dalls Morning News). A well-written, accessible, and entertaining account of one of the most important of all scientific revolutions, one that is destined to have a fundamental impact on the lives of generations to come. Mukherjee opens with a survey of how the gene first came to be conceptualized and understood, taking us through the thoughts of Aristotle, Darwin, Mendel, Thomas Morgan, and others; he finishes the section with a look at the case of Carrie Buck (to whom the book is dedicated), who eventually was sterilized in 1927 in a famous American eugenics case.
Reviews
"The volume benefits from Mukherjee’s elegant literary style, novelist’s eye for character sketches and expansive feel for human history. Mendel was an abbot in a little known town in Central Europe whose pioneering experiments on pea plants provided the first window into the gene and evolution. Eugenics has now acquired a bad reputation, but Galton was a polymath who made important contributions to science by introducing statistics and measurements in the study of genetic differences. Many of the early eugenicists subscribed to the racial theories that were common in those days; many of them were well intended if patronizing, seeking to ‘improve the weak’, but they did not see the ominous slippery slope which they were on. Eugenics was enthusiastically supported in the United States; Mukherjee discusses the infamous Supreme Court case in which Oliver Wendell Holmes sanctioned the forced sterilization of an unfortunate woman named Carrie Buck by proclaiming, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”. Another misuse of genetics was by Trofim Lysenko who tried to use Lamarck’s theories of acquired characteristics in doomed agricultural campaigns in Stalinist Russia; as an absurd example, he tried to “re educate” wheat using “shock therapy”. Mutations in specific genes (for instance ones causing changes in eye color) allowed them to track the flow of genetic material through several generations. The scientists most important for recognizing this fact were Frederick Griffiths and Oswald Avery and Mukherjee tells their story well; however I would have appreciated a fuller account of Friedrich Miescher who discovered DNA in pus bandages from soldiers. All these events set the stage for the golden age of molecular biology, the deciphering of the structure of DNA by James Watson (to whom the quote in the title is attributed), Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and others. Many of these pioneers were inspired by a little book by physicist Erwin Schrodinger which argued that the gene could be understood using precise principles of physics and chemistry; his arguments turned biology into a reductionist science. As a woman in a man’s establishment Franklin was in turn patronized and sidelined, but unlike Watson and Crick she was averse to building models and applying the principles of chemistry to the problem, two traits that were key to the duo’s success. The book then talks about early successes in correlating genes with illness that came with the advent of the human genome and epigenome; genetics has been very useful in finding determinants and drugs for diseases like sickle cell anemia, childhood leukemia, breast cancer and cystic fibrosis. Mukherjee especially has an excellent account of Nancy Wexler, the discoverer of the gene causing Huntington’s disease, whose search for its origins led her to families stricken with the malady in remote parts of Venezuela. The basic verdict is that while there is undoubtedly a genetic component to all these factors, the complex interplay between genes and environment means that it’s very difficult currently to tease apart influences from the two. The last part of the book focuses on some cutting edge research on genetics that’s uncovering both potent tools for precise gene engineering as well as deep insights into human evolution. There are a few minor scientific infelicities: for instance Linus Pauling’s structure of DNA was not really flawed because of a lack of magnesium ions but mainly because it sported a form of the phosphate groups that wouldn’t exist at the marginally alkaline pH of the human body. The book’s treatment of the genetic code leaves out some key exciting moments, such as when a scientific bombshell from biochemist Marshall Nirenberg disrupted a major meeting in the former Soviet Union. Nor is there much exploration of using gene sequences to illuminate the ‘tree of life’ which Darwin tantalizingly pulled the veil back on: in general I would have appreciated a bigger discussion of how DNA connects us to all living creatures. Its sweeping profile of life’s innermost secrets could not help but remind me of a Japanese proverb quoted by physicist Richard Feynman: “To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven."
"There are abundant scientific notions to satisfy any reader picking up the book to understand the real subject matter, but not in the general bland fashion of studies-and-conclusions that tend to lose many a lay people. From the notions of introns and exons to the polygenic nature of most phenotypes, the feedback from environment to gene mutation and the massive role played by non-gene factors in most our traits, the author uncovers a staggering number of interesting findings in a highly understandable manner. As professionals or parents seek to weed out certain deformities, there are genuine risks of us eliminating some important evolutionary traits mainly out of ignorance of how genes really work at this stage but also out of their possible other utilities in long future."
"But when it comes to genetics, surely the most significant (maybe the last) revolution of all, I am basically at a loss, bewildered and dumbfounded. Thus it is both a relief and pleasure to read and study this book to attain the very basic level of understanding of the subject."
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