The Violinist's Thumb

4.5 stars. Only because the last 30% was tedious.

Why anyone with the slightest interest in science should read this?

1. It is a comprehensive yet simple account of everything DNA related. It is funny. The necessary concepts are explained in an easily understandable manner.
2. It is nothing like a textbook. It is fully made up of anecdotes and experiments and interesting pieces of history. There are no complicated terms used, no endless sentences. It speaks in layman language, yet it conveys so much.
3. People who once studied genetics as a part of your curriculum but later forgot about it, would love this. This would be only a revision, much better than your original source.
4. It's fascinating. Not the book. Genetics itself, and the book does a wonderful job of showing it to us.

I'll just mention a few random facts from the book here.
1. Toxoplasma can manipulate you into liking it.
2. Polar bear liver is lethal
3. Human genes make up 2 percent of our genome. Virus genes make up 8 percent of our genome. We are 4 times more virus than human.
4. “sonic hedgehog” is gene which determines left-right symmetry when you are an embryo.
5. Cells overwhelmed with DNA damage can sense trouble and will kill themselves rather than live with the malfunction.
6. Toba is - or was - before the top 650 cubic miles blew off - a mountain in Indonesia that erupted seventy odd thousand years ago.
7. Ancient Egyptians ashamed of inbreeding Tutankhamen family (for disregarding their gods), hid them so well and built buildings over the tomb. As a result Tut's treasures survived mostly intact over the centuries. Treasures that in time would grant his heretical incestuous family something like immortality again.
8. Genghis Khan is the ancestor of 16 million men today. One in 200 males on earth carries his testes determining chromosome.

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