Cracking the Genome
Inside the Race To Unlock Human DNA
Introduction
We are digital archives of the African Pliocene, even of Devonian seas;
walking repositories of wisdom out of the old days. You could spend a
lifetime reading in this ancient library and die unsated by the wonder of
it.
- Richard Dawkins
On April 1, 1993, two hundred guests gathered in a ballroom at an upscale
Washington, D.C., hotel for an important birthday party. As the nervous host, I
hoped everything would go smoothly: I had mailed invitations around the world,
hung banners from the walls, and booked the best entertainment I could find. As
the guests arrived, they paid compliments on how well the baby looked. How
could I disagree? After a nerve-wracking twelve months as the sole editor of a
fledgling science magazine called Nature Genetics, it was only natural
to mark its first anniversary with a party.
Nature Genetics was a spinoff from the prestigious British journal
Nature, which, since its inception in 1869, halfway through the reign
of Queen Victoria, has been "natur ... read full excerpt from Cracking the Genome: Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA ebook
