Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code

by Matthew Cobb Narrated by John Lee

Overview

Everyone has heard of the story of DNA as the story of Watson and Crick and Rosalind Franklin, but knowing the structure of DNA was only a part of a greater struggle to understand life's secrets. Life's Greatest Secret is the story of the discovery and cracking of the genetic code, the thing that ultimately enables a spiraling molecule to give rise to the life that exists all around us. This great scientific breakthrough has had far-reaching consequences for how we understand ourselves and our place in the natural world, and for how we might take control of our (and life's) future.



Life's Greatest Secret mixes remarkable insights, theoretical dead-ends, and ingenious experiments with the swift pace of a thriller. From New York to Paris, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Cambridge, England, and London to Moscow, the greatest discovery of twentieth-century biology was truly a global feat. Biologist and historian of science Matthew Cobb gives the full and rich account of the cooperation and competition between the eccentric characters who contributed to this revolutionary new science. And, while every new discovery was a leap forward for science, Cobb shows how every new answer inevitably led to new questions that were at least as difficult to answer. But the setbacks and unexpected discoveries are what make the science exciting. This is a riveting story of humans exploring what it is that makes us human and how the world works.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"[T]he cracking of the code of life is a great story, of which this is an accomplished telling."—Economist

"Readers of Mr. Cobb's book will learn much about the history and current state of modern biology."—Wall Street Journal

"A lucid explanation of the science and the stories of key players."—Nature

"An authoritative but nevertheless thrilling narrative.... In short, this is a first-class read."—Observer

"[A] masterly account.... Cobb's book is a delight. Even those who know parts of the story quite well will find fresh, intriguing vignettes."—Guardian

"Cobb covers well-plowed ground, but he does so in a manner both thoroughly engaging and truly edifying."—Publishers Weekly

"Like Cobb's other titles, this scholarly work reflects extensive research and draws upon primary documents. Upper-level students and researchers in biology or the history of science are best equipped to appreciate this detailed book."—Library Journal

"[A] fine history of genetics.... [A] gripping, insightful history, often from the mouths of the participants themselves."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"Most people think the race to sequence the human genome culminated at the 2000 White House 'Mission Accomplished' announcement. In Matthew Cobb's Life's Greatest Secret, we learn that it was just one chapter of a far more interesting and continuing story."—Eric Topol, professor of genomics and director, Scripps Translational Science Institute, and author of The Patient Will See You Now

"The third of the grand unifying theories of biology was completed in the 20th Century, following Darwin's evolution by natural selection, and Cell Theory a century earlier. DNA, the double helix, and the universality of the genetic code radically transformed our understanding of life: no area in biology has been untouched by this revolution, from cancer to human origins to genetic engineering, and now, to the future of data storage. Cobb, a scientist and thorough historian, is a master storyteller, and recounts the thrilling science, politics, egos of this grand scientific revolution. Essential, definitive reading."—Adam Rutherford, author of Creation: How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself

"Life's Greatest Secret is the logical sequel to Jim Watson's The Double Helix. While Watson and Crick deserve their plaudits for discovering the structure of DNA, that was only part of the story. Beginning to understand how that helix works—how its DNA code is turned into bodies and behaviors—took another 15 years of amazing work by an army of dedicated men and women. These are the unknown heroes of modern genetics, and their tale is the subject of Cobb's fascinating book. Every now and again I had to stop reading because the amazement overload was too great."—Jerry Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution, the University of Chicago, and author of Why Evolution Is True

"Matthew Cobb is a respected scientist and historian, and he has combined both disciplines to spectacular effect in this wonderful book. A compelling, authoritative, and insightful account of how life works at the deepest level. Bloody brilliant!"—Brian Cox, professor of physics, the University of Manchester and author of Why Does E=mc²?

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"[G]ripping, insightful history." —Kirkus Starred Review

OCTOBER 2015 - AudioFile

Absolutely fascinating listening. Narrator John Lee brings his many skills to what might have been dry history. Instead, he makes this a memorable “page-turner,” and his delivery sounds like that of the best professor you ever had. He enlivens the intriguing topic by injecting an urgency into the scientists’ epic quest to understand human genetics in all its fundamentals and complexity. The author does his part, of course. Cobb is a fine practitioner of practical and elegant prose. Both men appear to be entranced by the scientific pursuit. As is the listener. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2015-04-14
Animal breeders have always known that "like breeds like," but no one, Charles Darwin included, knew why offspring resemble parents except, sometimes, when they don't. Cobb (Zoology/Univ. of Manchester; Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris 1944, 2014, etc.) describes how they learned. One of the only defects of his fine history of genetics is the title. There was rarely a race to figure out the genetic code but rather a stream of advances that began with the 17th-century speculation of the great physician William Harvey, sped up after the 1900 rediscovery of Mendel's laws, and accelerated still more in 1943, when Oswald Avery and Maclyn McCarty showed that DNA contained the genetic code. (This was perhaps the greatest discovery that didn't win a Nobel Prize.) The DNA molecule is so simple that many scientists found this hard to accept, but by 1953, when James Watson and Francis Crick revealed its structure, they knew where to look. Details of how this deceptively uniform molecule guides production of a living organism began pouring out with the arrival of computers and the information revolution during the following decades. Genetics is, after all, information. Unraveling the code and putting it to work, writes Cobb, "was a leap forward in humanity's understanding of the natural world and our place within in, akin to the discoveries of Galileo and Einstein in the realm of physics or the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. These comparisons are not the fruit of hindsight, they were made at the time." The greatest milestone in 20th-century biology received an iconic account in Horace Freeland Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation (1979). Much has happened since that publication, and Cobb's gripping, insightful history, often from the mouths of the participants themselves, updates the story, bringing it all the way into the present.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170692644
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	08/11/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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