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Every couple of months I try to read a book that will broaden my understanding of a science and this well-reviewed book on genetics looked interesting. Like many people who are interested in history and archeology I was aware that easily sequencing DNA was something that was changing our understanding but realised that I had very little knowledge of what it could and couldn't tell us and how it all worked.
I expected this book to be accessible to the average reader and teach me more, but had not expected it to also be an entertaining and often hilariously funny read as well. Adam Rutherford has managed to write a book that not only informs, amuses and fascinates but is also brilliantly explained. The lay-person can grasp the scientific stuff without being given a headache and the stories that illustrate how genetics can tell us so much about the past, present and possible future are enthralling.
More seriously, it exposes how genetics was and is distorted by frauds, bigots and the illogical to substantiate some dubious claims.
It is astonishingly broad in range. Moving from the micro-level of what the human genome is and how it is studied to the macro-level of how genes can be used to track early human migration, what inbreeding is likely to do and some of the more famous (and infamous) cases citing DNA proof.
I was delighted to find that I could claim Viking ancestry (as can nearly everybody else unfortunately), fascinated by the results of the People of the British Isles project and found the whole book unputdownable. Adam Rutherford really deserves some kind of prize.
Even if you usually recoil from popular science books do read this one. I defy anybody not to be stimulated, amused and painlessly educated by what I believe to be a extraordinary book.
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