The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code (53 page)

As always, DNA had the last word. Along with his autobiography, Watson released his genome to the public in 2007, and some scientists decided to plumb it for markers of ethnicity. Lo and behold, they discovered that Watson might have, depending on the accuracy of his sequence, up to sixteen times more genes from black Africans than a typical Caucasian has—the genetic equivalent of a black great-grandfather.

an extra pair of chromosomes and inserting them into embryos
:
Among other people, Nicholas Wade makes this suggestion in
Before the Dawn,
a masterly tour of all aspects of human origins—linguistic, genetic, cultural, and otherwise.

Here’s a list of books and papers I consulted while writing
The Violinist’s Thumb
. Anything marked with an asterisk I recommend especially. I’ve annotated the ones I recommend especially for further reading.

Bondeson, Jan.
A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities
. W. W. Norton, 1999.

*Contains an astounding chapter on maternal impressions, including the fish boy of Naples.

Darwin, Charles.
On the Origin of Species
. Introduction by John Wyon Burrow. Penguin, 1985.

———.
The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication
. J. Murray, 1905.

Henig, Robin Marantz.
The Monk in the Garden
. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001.

*A wonderful general biography of Mendel.

Lagerkvist, Ulf.
DNA Pioneers and Their Legacy
. Yale University Press, 1999.

Leroi, Armand Marie.
Mutants: On genetic variety and the human body
. Penguin, 2005.

*A fascinating account of maternal impressions, including the lobster claw–like birth defects.

Carlson, Elof Axel.
Mendel’s Legacy
. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004.

*Loads of anecdotes about Morgan, Muller, and many other key players in early genetics, by a student of Muller’s.

Endersby, Jim.
A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology
. Harvard University Press, 2007.

*A marvelous history of the fly room. One of my favorite books ever, in fact. Endersby also touches on Darwin’s adventures with gemmules, Barbara McClintock, and other tales.

Gregory, Frederick.
The Darwinian Revolution
. DVDs. Teaching Company, 2008.

Hunter, Graeme K.
Vital Forces
. Academic Press, 2000.

Kohler, Robert E.
Lords of the Fly
. University of Chicago Press, 1994.

*Includes details about Bridges’s private life, like the anecdote about his Indian “princess.”

Steer, Mark, et al., eds.
Defining Moments in Science
. Cassell Illustrated, 2008.

Hall, Eric J., and Amato J. Giaccia.
Radiobiology for the Radiologist
. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2006.

*A detailed but readable account of how exactly radioactive particles batter DNA.

Hayes, Brian. “The Invention of the Genetic Code.”
American Scientist
, January–February 1998.

*An entertaining rundown of early attempts to decipher the genetic code.

Judson, Horace F.
The Eighth Day of Creation
. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004.

*Includes the story of Crick not knowing what
dogma
meant.

Seachrist Chiu, Lisa.
When a Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish
. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Trumbull, Robert.
Nine Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki
. Dutton, 1957.

*For a fuller account of Yamaguchi’s story—and for eight other equally riveting tales—I can’t recommend this book enough.

Flapan, Erica.
When Topology Meets Chemistry
. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Frank-Kamenetskii, Maxim D.
Unraveling DNA
. Basic Books, 1997.

Gleick, James.
The Information
. HarperCollins, 2011.

Grafen, Alan, and Mark Ridley, eds.
Richard Dawkins
. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Zipf, George K.
Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort
. Addison-Wesley, 1949.

———.
The Psycho-biology of Language
. Routledge, 1999.

Comfort, Nathaniel C. “The Real Point Is Control.”
Journal of the History of Biology
32 (1999): 133–62.

*Comfort is the scholar most responsible for challenging the mythic, fairy-tale version of Barbara McClintock’s life and work.

Truji, Jan.
The Soul of DNA
. Llumina Press, 2004.

*For a more detailed account of Sister Miriam, I highly recommend this book, which chronicles her life from its earliest days to the very end.

Watson, James.
The Double Helix
. Penguin, 1969.

*Watson recalls multiple times his frustration over the different shapes of each DNA base.

Hacquebord, Louwrens. “In Search of
Het Behouden Huys
.”
Arctic
48 (September 1995): 248–56.

Veer, Gerrit de.
The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic Regions
. N.p., 1596.

Berton, Pierre.
Cats I Have Known and Loved.
Doubleday Canada, 2002.

Dulbecco, Renato. “Francis Peyton Rous.” In
Biographical Memoirs
, vol. 48. National Academies Press, 1976.

McCarty, Maclyn.
The Transforming Principle
. W. W. Norton, 1986.

Richardson, Bill.
Scorned and Beloved: Dead of Winter Meetings with Canadian Eccentrics.
Knopf Canada, 1997.

Villarreal, Luis. “Can Viruses Make Us Human?”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
148 (September 2004): 296–323.

Bondeson, Jan.
A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities
. W. W. Norton, 1999.

*A marvelous section on human tails, from a book chock-full of gruesome tales from the history of anatomy.

Isoda, T., A. Ford, et al. “Immunologically Silent Cancer Clone Transmission from Mother to Offspring.”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
106, no. 42 (October 20, 2009): 17882–85.

Villarreal, Luis P.
Viruses and the Evolution of Life
. ASM Press, 2005.

Rossiianov, Kirill. “Beyond Species.”
Science in Context
15, no. 2 (2002): 277–316.

*For more on Ivanov’s life, this is the most authoritative and least sensationalistic source.

Barber, Lynn.
The Heyday of Natural History
. Cape, 1980.

*A great source for information about the Bucklands,
père
and
fils.

Carroll, Sean B.
Remarkable Creatures
. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.

Finch, Caleb.
The Biology of Human Longevity
. Academic Press, 2007.

Finch, Caleb, and Craig Stanford. “Meat-Adaptive Genes Involving Lipid Metabolism Influenced Human Evolution.”
Quarterly Review of Biology
79, no. 1 (March 2004): 3–50.

Sommer, Marianne.
Bones and Ochre
. Harvard University Press, 2008.

Wade, Nicholas.
Before the Dawn
. Penguin, 2006.

*A masterly tour of all aspects of human origins.

Gould, Stephen Jay. “Wide Hats and Narrow Minds.” In
The Panda’s Thumb
. W. W. Norton, 1980.

*A highly entertaining rendition of the story of Cuvier’s autopsy.

Isaacson, Walter.
Einstein: His Life and Universe
. Simon and Schuster, 2007.

Jerison, Harry. “On Theory in Comparative Psychology.” In
The Evolution of Intelligence
. Psychology Press, 2001.

Treffert, D., and D. Christensen. “Inside the Mind of a Savant.”
Scientific American
, December 2005.

*A lovely account of Peek by the two scientists who knew him best.

Leroi, Armand Marie.
Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body
. Penguin, 2005.

*This marvelous book discusses in more detail what specific disease Toulouse-Lautrec might have had, and also the effect on his art.

Sugden, John.
Paganini
. Omnibus Press, 1986.

*One of the few biographies of Paganini in English. Short, but well done.

Reilly, Philip R.
Abraham Lincoln’s DNA and Other Adventures in Genetics.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000.

*Reilly sat on the original committee that studied the feasibility of testing Lincoln’s DNA. He also delves into the testing of Jewish people’s DNA, among other great sections.

Angrist, Misha.
Here Is a Human Being
. HarperCollins, 2010.

*A lovely and personal rumination on the forthcoming age of genetics.

Shreeve, James.
The Genome War
. Ballantine Books, 2004.

*If you’re interested in an insider’s account of the Human Genome Project, Shreeve’s book is the best written and most entertaining I know of.

Sulston, John, and Georgina Ferry.
The Common Thread
. Joseph Henry Press, 2002.

Venter, J. Craig.
A Life Decoded: My Genome—My Life
. Penguin, 2008.

*The story of Venter’s entire life, from Vietnam to the HGP and beyond.

Gliboff, Sander. “Did Paul Kammerer Discover Epigenetic Inheritance? No and Why Not.”
Journal of Experimental Zoology
314 (December 15, 2010): 616–24.

Gould, Stephen Jay. “A Division of Worms.”
Natural History
, February 1999.

*A masterly two-part article about the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

Koestler, Arthur.
The Case of the Midwife Toad
. Random House, 1972.

Serafini, Anthony.
The Epic History of Biology
. Basic Books, 2002.

Vargas, Alexander O. “Did Paul Kammerer Discover Epigenetic Inheritance?”
Journal of Experimental Zoology
312 (November 15, 2009): 667–78.

Caplan, Arthur. “What If Anything Is Wrong with Cloning a Human Being?”
Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law
35 (Fall 2003): 69–84.

Segerstråle, Ullica.
Defenders of the Truth
. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Wade, Nicholas.
Before the Dawn
. Penguin, 2006.

*Among other people, Nicholas Wade suggested adding the extra pair of chromosomes.

*
This and all upcoming asterisks refer to the Notes and Errata section, which begins
here
and goes into more detail on various interesting points.

First off, a thank-you to my loved ones. To Paula, who once again held my hand and laughed with me (and at me when I deserved it). To my two siblings, two of the finest people around, lucky additions to my life. To all my other friends and family in D.C. and South Dakota and around the country, who helped me keep perspective. And finally to Gene and Jean, whose genes made this book possible. :)

I would furthermore like to thank my agent, Rick Broadhead, for embarking on another great book with me. And thank you as well to my editor at Little, Brown, John Parsley, who helped shape and improve the book immensely. Also invaluable were others at and around Little, Brown who’ve worked with me on this book and on
Spoon,
including William Boggess, Carolyn O’Keefe, Morgan Moroney, Peggy Freudenthal, Bill Henry, Deborah Jacobs, Katie Gehron, and many others. I offer thanks, too, to the many, many scientists and historians who contributed to individual chapters and passages, either by fleshing out stories, helping me hunt down information, or offering their time to explain something. If I’ve left anyone off this list, my apologies. I remain thankful, if embarrassed.

S
AM
K
EAN
is a writer in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the
New York Times
national bestseller
The Disappearing Spoon,
which was also a runner-up for the Royal Society’s book of the year for 2011. His work has appeared in the
New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate,
and
New Scientist,
and has been featured on NPR’s
Radiolab
and
All Things Considered.

http://samkean.com

The Disappearing Spoon