Next: A Novel (49 page)

Houdebine, Louis-Marie.Animal Transgenesis and Cloning. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2003. A clear discussion of transgenesis that is accessible to the interested, not-very-technical reader. Inserting genes into embryos is immensely complex.

Knight, H. Jackson.Patent Strategy for Researchers and Research Managers. 2d edition.

Chichester, England: John Wiley and Sons, 1996.

Krimsky, Sheldon, and Peter Shorett, eds.Rights and Liberties in the Biotech Age: Why We Need a Genetic Bill of Rights. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. This collection of very brief essays identifies a range of concerns among those who feel that biotechnology must be limited. Some essays address science; others raise philosophical or legal issues.

Krimsky, Sheldon.Science in the Primate Interest: Has the Lure of Profits Corrupted Biomedical Research? Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003. Krimsky was one of the earliest, and has been one of the most persistent, critics of the commercialization of biology. A thoughtful, important book that indicates the complexities within the trend to academic commerce.

Larson, Edward J.Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Few events in American history are as misunderstood as the Scopes trial. Today it is emblematic of a war between science and religion. In fact, it was nothing of the sort; the truth is far more amusing, complex, and provocative. A gem of a book.

Midgley, Mary. Evolution as a Religion. London: Methuen and Co., 1985. Our attitude toward genetics is closely tied to our understanding of evolution. A long-simmering philosophical debate concerns the way we think about evolution and what lessons we draw from it. I find this debate more interesting than the debate that gets all the media attention, which has to do with the mechanisms of evolution. Midgley, a British philosopher who has addressed scientific subjects all her life, does not hesitate to take on sacred cows and those leading lights whose thoughts she regards as uninformed or shallow.

Moore, David S. The Dependent Gene: The Fallacy of “Nature vs. Nurture.” New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001. A psychologist aggressively attacks notions that genes and environment interact in any simple or even measurable way. His assessment of such terms as hereditability make this book worth reading. One may conclude that the author protests too much; nevertheless, he exemplifies the deep passions that characterize the nature/nurture debate.

Morange, Michel.The Misunderstood Gene. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Mueller, Janice M.An Introduction to Patent Law. New York: Aspen Publishers, 2003.

National Research Council of the National Academies.Reaping the Benefits of Genomic and Proteomic Research: Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, and Public Health. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2006. Gene patents endanger future research.

Petryna, Adriana, Andrew Lakoff, and Arthur Kleinman, eds.Global Pharmaceuticals: Ethics, Markets, Practices. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005.

Pincus, Jonathan H., and Gary J. Tucker.Behavioral Neurology, 4th edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.

Ridley, Matt.Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Ridley is that rarest of science writers, one who is able to be entertaining and also not simplify the material. An easy and readable style, good humor, rich anecdotes, and a generally lively mind.

———.The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. How do genes interact with the environment? What constitutes an environmental or a genetic effect?

With brilliant examples, Ridley takes the reader through the intricacies.

Sargent, Michael G. Biomedicine and the Human Condition: Challenges, Risks, and Rewards.New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Shanks, Pete.Human Genetic Engineering: A Guide for Activists, Skeptics, and the Very Perplexed. New York: Nation Books, 2005. Balanced, straightforward, easy to read.

Stock, Gregory.Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. A UCLA biophysicist embraces this new technology while attempting to clarify the reasons why others oppose or fear it.

Tancredi, Laurence.Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals About Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. The author is experienced in both medicine and law, and presents a brisk, engaging overview. He distinguishes clearly between present realities and future possibilities.

U.S. Department of Commerce.Patents and How to Get One: A Practical Handbook. New York: Dover Publications, 2000.

Wailoo, Keith, and Stephen Pemberton.The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

Watson, James D.The Double Helix. New York: Touchstone, 2001. A classic. A memoir as brilliant as the discovery itself.

Weiner, Jonathan.Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior. New York: Knopf, 1999. Too many books fail to give any sense of how science is actually done. This delightful book focuses on Seymour Benzer and his work.

West-Eberhard, Mary Jane.Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. The relationship of plasticity to evolution is central to our understanding of how evolution actually occurs. It is a difficult subject here made clear in an excellent text.

ARTICLES, PRESS

Attanasio, John B. “The Constitutionality of Regulating Human Genetic Engineering: Where Procreative Liberty and Equal Opportunity Collide,”The University of Chicago Law Review 53

(1986): 1274–1342. I ordinarily dislike far-out speculation, but this essay, now twenty years old, remains remarkable for its detailed and complex presentation.

Charlton, Bruce G. “The rise of the boy-genius: Psychological neoteny, science and modern life,”Medical Hypotheses 67, no. 4 (2006): 679–81.

Dobson, Roger, and Abul Tahar. “Cavegirls Were the First Blondes to Have Fun,”The Sunday Times (U.K.), February 26, 2006.

Marshall, Eliot. “Fraud Strikes Top Genome Lab,”Science 274 (1996): 908–910.

Newman, Stuart A. “Averting the Clone Age: Prospects and Perils of Human Developmental Manipulation,”Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy 19, no. 1 (2003): 431–63. A scientist presents the anti-cloning case.

Patterson, N., Daniel J. Richter, Sante Gnerre, Eric S. Lander, and David Reich. “Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees,”Nature (advance online publication), DOI: 10.1038/nature 04789.

Rajghatta, Chidanand. “Blondes Extinction Report Is Pigment of Imagination,”Times of India , October 3, 2002.

“Scientist Admits Faking Stem Cell Data,”New York Times, July 5, 2006.

Stern, Andrew. “Artist Seeks to Free His Glowing Creation—Rabbit,” Reuters, September 23, 2000, http://www.ekac.org/reuters.html

Wade, Nicholas. “University Panel Faults Cloning Co-Author,”New York Times, February 11, 2006.

———. “Journal to Examine How It Reviewed Articles,”New York Times, January 11, 2006.

Neng Yu, M.D., Margot S. Kruskall, M.D., Juan J. Yunis, M.D., Joan H.M. Knoll, Ph.D., Lynne Uhl, M.D., Sharon Alosco, M.T., Marina Ohashi, Olga Clavijo, Zaheed Husain, Ph.D., Emilio J.

Yunis, M.D., Jorge J. Yunis, M.D., and Edmond J. Yunis, M.D. (2002). “Disputed maternity leading to identification of tetragametic chimerism,”New England Journal of Medicine 346, no.

20: 1545–52.

INTERNET SOURCES

“Berlusconi’s Fat Becomes Soap.” http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1424471.html

“‘Berlusconi’s Fat’ Moulded to Art.” BBC News, June 20, 2005.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4110402.stm

“Blonde Extinction.” http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/blondes.asp

“Blondes to Die Out in 200 Years.” BBC News, September 27, 2002.

“Extinction of Blondes Vastly Overreported, Media Fail to Check Root of ‘Study.’” Washington Post, October 2, 2002.

“Genetic Savings & Clone.” http://www.savingsandclone.com/

“Marco Evaristti, Polpette al grasso di Marco, 2006 (to fry in his own fat).”

http://www.evaristti.com/news/meatball.htm

“It Really Hauls Ass.” Wired, May 2006. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/start.html Marshall, Eliot. “Families Sue Hospital, Scientist for Control of Canavan Gene.”

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/290/5494/1062

“The Cactus Project.” http://www.thecactusproject.com/images.asp

“Tissue Engineering: The Beat Goes On: Nature.”

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6926/full/421884a.htm WHO. “Clarification of erroneous news reports indicating WHO genetic research on hair color.”

October 1, 2002. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/statement05/en/

About the Author

MICHAEL CRICHTON
is best known for the novels Jurassic Park and State of Fear . He is also the creator of the television series ER . The first of his controversial novels was published while he was still in medical school.

www.michaelcrichton.net