Book description
The triumphs of recent biology - understanding hereditary disease,
the modern theory of evolution - are all thanks to the fruit fly, the
guinea pig, the zebra fish and a handful of other organisms, which
have helped us unravel one of life's greatest mysteries - inheritance.
Jim Endersby traces his story from Darwin hand-pollinating passion
flowers in his back garden in an effort to find out whether his
decision to marry his cousin had harmed their children, to today's
high-tech laboratories, full of shoals of shimmering zebra fish, whose
bodies are transparent until they are mature, allowing scientists to
watch every step as a single fertilised cell multiples to become
millions of specialised cells that make up a new fish. Each story has
- piece by piece - revealed how DNA determines the characteristics of
the adult organism. Not every organism was as cooperative as the fruit
fly or zebra fish, some provided scientists with misleading answers or
encouraged them to ask the wrong questions.
Jim Endersby is a historian of science. He is a lecturer in the
history department at the University of Sussex.
A Guinea Pig's
History of Biology
is his first book, winner of the Jerwood Award for non-fiction work in
progress.
