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In the last few years, a startling new message has emerged about
our biology. Scientists have discovered that all living things are more deeply
alike than we ever imagined. Organisms from yeast to humans are run by similar
genes and proteins, which have passed down nearly intact for hundreds of millions
of years. At the most fundamental level, humans are genetically linked to every
part of the natural world. The award-winning science
writer Jennifer Ackerman brings these astonishing discoveries together for the
first time, weaving a mesmerizing story of heredity that is only now being understood. Far
more than a report from the field, Chance in the House of Fate offers an
encompassing vision of what these unities mean for our everyday lives. Ackerman's
remarkable skills of description lend wonder and awe to the striking connections
between our microcosmic makeup and the macrocosm of the visible world. Her voice
is rich in imagery and poetry, vivid and deeply personal. Pregnant with her first
child, she anxiously calculates the odds that her baby will inherit the gene that
caused her younger sister's profound retardation. Illuminating the science of
cell growth, she describes the heartbreaking cancer that claimed her mother's
life. Carrying her daughter on her hip at the crack of dawn to observe the millenial
orbit of a comet, she contemplates the universal circadian rhythms that measure
the passing of time. "This is the alchemy of
art with solid science -- the real thing," said Edward Hoagland in praising
Jennifer Ackerman's Notes from the Shore. Her new book is a magnificent
addition to both science and literature. Jennifer
Ackerman is a contributor to the New York Times, National Geographic,
and many other publications. A former staff writer and researcher for the book
division of the National Geographic Society, she has lectured at Harvard, MIT,
the University of Virginia, the Nature Conservancy, and other institutions. Notes
from the Shore, her first book, was published in 1995. Ackerman won a Bunting
Fellowship and a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to write Chance
in the House of Fate. She is married to novelist Karl Ackerman and has two
daughters. |
