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Title details for The Second Tree by Elaine Dewar - Available

The Second Tree

Of Clones, Chimeras and Quests for Immortality

by Elaine Dewar
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The Second Tree documents a biological revolution that will change the way you think about the material world, your own life and even the inevitability of your own death
Genetic scientists are busily pushing back the boundaries of the humanly possible, climbing the branches of a tree of life that has been grafted by man, not God. Elaine Dewar chronicles the lives, the discoveries, and the feuds among modern biologists, exploring how they have crafted the tools to alter human evolution. She travels the globe on the trail of Charles Darwin and his intellectual descendants, telling the story of James D. Watson and his partner Francis Crick, who first described DNA; of Frederick Sanger, who invented how to sequence genes and won two Nobel prizes; of the computer scientists who put the human genome on the World Wide Web. She visits companies that are trying to turn cloned sheep into pharmacies on the hoof, to resurrect prize cows from the grave, to transplant human genes into mice — ultimately attempting to give us immortality in pieces while trying to keep investors happy. As these tales spill out, we find out how biologists learn by doing: tearing mice and worms and flies and human eggs apart, twinning disparate animal cells and genes together — creating clones and chimeras as outlandish as any sphinx.
In public, research biologists often express their good intentions about curing the big diseases. In private, many of them are compelled by furious struggles to be rich, famous and first. Dewar lays bare the motives, conflicts and fears of the men and women whose job it is to trespass the boundaries of what laypeople consider ethical and sacred.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 7, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780307368911

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780307368911
      • File size: 2299 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 22, 2004
      Canadian journalist Dewar's book is as much a personal journey as an examination of the science, ethics and politics of cutting-edge biology. It's structured around the author's comprehensive set of interviews with leading figures in stem cell research and reproductive cloning technology; with ethicists attempting to come to grips with the complex moral issues these studies raise; and with Canadian politicians working to regulate scientific research. Although Dewar (Bones: Discovering the First Americans
      ) does a very good job of presenting both the science and the excitementof the field, she falters by giving herself far too great a presence, endlessly discussing her scientific ignorance and explaining how she's come to ask the questions she's posing. The scientific advances are breathtaking (companies breeding cloned farm animals, scientists growing heart muscle from embryonic stem cells) and the ethical questions perplexing (is manipulating a human egg immoral? when is the potential to become human replaced with the actuality of being human?). Dewar insinuates that many of those involved in this research are looking for personal glory. Unfortunately, she neither demonstrates this conclusively nor answers the host of political questions currently swirling around biotechnology. And many American readers may find the extended focus on Canadian politics too narrow. Agent, Ron Eckel, Random House Canada.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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