LIFE’S GREATEST SECRET: THE STORY OF THE RACE TO CRACK THE GENETIC CODE
Book ID/图书代码： 13000514B73967
English Summary/英文概要： The first popular account of one of the greatest discoveries – and what it holds for the future.
The cracking of the genetic code in 1961 was one of the greatest discoveries in human history, with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of ourselves and of our place in the cosmos. It forms the most striking and profound proof of Darwin’s central hypothesis that all organisms are related; holds tremendous promise for radically improving human health and well-being and shows that organisms are more than just bags of chemicals – those chemicals contain information.
Everything that you think about genes, about why you look like your parents, about humanity’s place in the natural world, can be traced back to two decades of discovery in the 1940s and 1950s, when biologists were adopting the words and concepts of computing – codes, information, programs. They showed that genes were made of DNA and then realised that the DNA contains a code that instructs organisms how to grow and behave. Yet, amazingly, few people know about this discovery and the shift in our worldview that it brought about – or the names of most of those involved.
It is a story that contains remarkable insights, theoretical dead-ends and ingenious experiments; explores the competition between some of the twentieth-century’s most outstanding and eccentric minds including Erwin Schrödinger, George Gamow, Claude Shannon, Richard Feynman, François Jacob, Jacques Monod, Oswald Avery, Jim Watson and Francis Crick; and unusually spans all the main scientific disciplines – biology, physics, chemistry, computing and mathematics. It also spans the globe, from Cambridge to Paris to Moscow, passing through most of the main research labs in the United States before concluding with Nobel prizes for some of the scientists, but not for others. It is a story not only of how science is done but also of the future discoveries and potential applications opened up by this monumental discovery – from ‘junk DNA’ and genetic determinism to gene therapy and designer babies.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 首次以流行的方式记述了迄今为止最伟大的发现之一---以及其对于未来的无限助力。
1961年，遗传基因密码的破译成为了人类历史上最伟大的发现之一，在帮助我们理解我们自身及在宇宙中的位置上有着深远的影响。它形成了最强有力的证据，深刻地论证了达尔文的中心假设：所有的有机体都是相互联系与关联的；同时也让迅速提升人类健康及幸福状况充满了无限可能，并为我们展示了生物体并非只是大量的化学元素的集合---这些化学元素包含着其独特的信息。
你所思考的有关于基因的一切，有关于为何你长相酷似你的父母，有关于人性在自然界中的位置，都可以追溯到20世纪40年代和50年代那二十年中的发现，那时的生物学家们正努力接受电脑化的词语和概念---密码、信息、编程。他们为我们展示基因由DNA组成，并很快发现DNA中包含有一种密码，正是这种密码指导着生物体的成长与行为表现。然而令人大为惊讶的是，甚少有个体知晓这一发现以及其所带来的在个体世界观上的变化---或是大部分关联其中的人们的名字。
本书中饱含各种惊人的见解、理论上的死胡同以及那些巧思妙想的实验；探究了20世纪最杰出的也最古怪奇妙人物之间的竞争，其中包括薛定谔、乔治•伽莫夫、克劳德•香农、理查德•费曼、弗朗西斯•雅各布、杰奎•莫诺德、奥斯瓦德•艾福瑞、吉姆•沃特森和弗朗西斯•克里克；并以一种前所未有的方式囊括了各类主要科学学科--生物、物理、化学、计算机以及数学。此外，本书涉及范围还遍及全球，从剑桥到巴黎再到莫斯科，谈及美国最主要的一些研究室，最终以一些诺贝尔奖获奖科学家结尾。本书不仅讲述了科学的发现故事，而是更多的关于未来的发现以及这些发现可能会带来的潜在应用---不论是“垃圾DNA”和基因决定论，还是基因疗法和设计婴儿（DC）。
Awards/获奖情况：
About the Author/作者介绍： 马修•考伯是一名动物园学教授，同时也是曼彻斯特大学的一名常务副院长。他著有《鸡蛋与精子的竞争》，并凭借本书荣获了伦敦动物园协会2008年度科学交流奖。他拥有很长的一段流行科学写作与发表博文的经历：曾就《生命的至上奥秘》的观点进行世界范围内的讲说；他还是布莱恩•科克斯即将上映的BBC系列电视节目“生命奥妙”的科学顾问。作为一名获奖法语科学书籍翻译家，考伯还进行法国战争时期历史的写作，其中包括“ The Resistance”一书，并借此获得了法英协会图书奖，此外他还著有“Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944”一书。
Matthew Cobb is Professor of Zoology and an Associate Dean at the University of Manchester. He is the author of The Egg and Sperm Race, for which he won the London’s Zoological Society’s 2008 Award for Communicating Science. He has a long track-record of popular science writing and blogging; has given talks on aspects of Life’s Greatest Secret around the world; and is scientific advisor to Brian Cox’s forthcoming BBC TV series ‘Wonders of Life’. An award-winning translator of French scientific books, Cobb also writes French wartime history, including The Resistance, which won the Franco-British Society’s Book Prize, and Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944.
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Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：SOLD
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
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