Mutants : On Genetic Variety and the Human Body

by Leroi, Armand Marie

• ISBN13: 9780142004821
• ISBN10: 0142004820
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-25
• Publisher: Penguin Books

Summary

Stepping effortlessly from myth to cutting-edge science, Mutantsgives a brilliant narrative account of our genetic code and the captivating people whose bodies have revealed it—a French convent girl who found herself changing sex at puberty; children who, echoing Homer’s Cyclops, are born with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads; a village of long-lived Croatian dwarves; one family, whose bodies were entirely covered with hair, was kept at the Burmese royal court for four generations and gave Darwin one of his keenest insights into heredity. This elegant, humane, and engaging book captures what we know of the development of what makes us human” (Nature).

Author Biography

Armand Marie Leroi has lived in South Africa, Canada, and the United States. Since 1996, he has been a lecturer in evolutionary genetics at Imperial College, London. He has published widely in technical journals on evolutionary and developmental genetics and writes occasionally for the London Review of Books.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Prologue

I. Mutants (An introduction) 3
II. A Perfect Join (On embryos) 23
III. The Last Judgement (On first parts) 65
IV. Cleppies (On arms and legs) 105
V. Flesh of my Flesh, Bone of my Bone (On skeletons) 137
VI. The War with the Cranes (On growth) 169
VII. The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole (On gender) 217
VIII. A Fragile Bubble (On skin) 247
IX. The Sober Life (On ageing) 297
X. Anthropometamorphosis (An epilogue) 335

Acknowledgements 357
Notes 359
Bibliography 389
Index 421