The Violinist's Thumb - Sam Kean

Sub-title: and other lost tales of Love, War, and Genius, as written by our Genetic Code

This was a delight!  I'm crazy about genetics and DNA and this science writer has a wonderful way of making complicated subjects into entertaining stories.  I'd read his debut book, The Disappearing Spoon about the periodic table of the elements in 2015.  In this book, he uses anecdotes to illustrate principles and discoveries of DNA and genetics.  The title comes from the uniquely ability of Paganini, the violin virtuoso whose thumb flexibility is attributed to a genetic mutation.  The author takes us through history and the evidence provided by DNA in a variety of settings.  Even the notes at the end of the book are great reads! 

Some quotes I marked:

"Zipfs law says that the most common word in a language appears roughly twice as often as the second most common word, roughly three times as often as the third most common word...etc.  In English the  accounts for 7 percent of words, of  for about half that, and a third of that."

"Because of the parallels between DNA and language, scientists can even analyze literary texts and genomic 'texts' with the same tools. These tools seem especially promising for analyzing disputed texts...the scientists delved into the contentious world of Shakespeare scholarship, and their software concluded that the Bard did write The Two Noble Kinsmen...but didn't write Pericles, another doubtful work." 

"mtDNA opened up whole new realms of science as well, like genetic archeology.  ...because scientists know how quickly any rare changes do accumulate in a mitochondrial line - one mutation every 3,500 year - they can use mtDNA as a clock: they compare two people's mtDNA, and the more mutations they find, the more years that have passed since the two people share a maternal ancestor.  In fact, this clock tells us that all seven billion people alive today can trace their maternal lineage to one woman who lived in Africa 170,000 years ago, dubbed 'Mitochrondrial Eve.'  Eve wasn't the only woman alive then, mind you.  She's simply the oldest matrilineal ancestor of everyone living today." 

In his notes, the author also recommended Nine Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Robert Trumbull and Mendel's Legacy by Elof Axel Carlson.  This one is a keeper!


Published: 2012  Read: May 2018  Genre: Science