Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body

Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body
by Armand Marie Leroi

Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body
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Book Summary Information

Author: Armand Marie Leroi
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-02-01
ISBN: 0142004820
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Book Reviews of Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body

Book Review: At play in the genetic casino
Summary: 5 Stars

"Mutants" is part side-show and part genetic crapshoot where the mutated gene almost always loses. The author states that on the average, 300 mutations burden each newly conceived embryo. Five of the mutations won't make it into the general population because of miscarriage and childhood deaths---"No one leaves the genetic casino unscathed." Being born with three sets of eye-lashes, an extra set of ears on one's neck, or in my case, crooked little fingers, are very benign mutations compared to what can and sometimes does go wrong.

The primary theme of this elegant, engaging book is that mutations are the signposts that can be used to determine exactly where in the morphogenesis of an infant, something went physically or genetically astray.

Chapter 1, "A Perfect Join (On the invisible geometry of embryos)" takes the reader on a tour through the first few hours and days of a fertilized egg. Conjoined twins are an example of what can go wrong with the developmental mechanics within the womb. One unfortunate baby was born with 21 partially developed twins (determined through a leg count) in his skull. However, the main thrust of this chapter, using conjoined twins as an example of the process gone wrong, is the search for an 'organizer': that which informs the cells what to do, what to become, and where to go. It is a process that is part mechanical, part chemical, and part sheer dumb luck. As the author puts it: "The power of cell-cell adhesion to mould the developing body is startling."

In the next chapter, the author examines the powerful homeotic genes and signaling proteins such as 'sonic hedgehog,' employing some gruesome examples of what can go wrong during the formation of the neural tube and other body parts. Human and animal Cyclops, as well as other mutations such as 'mermaids' are outcomes of control processes gone wrong. Sonic hedgehog-defective infants have a single cerebral hemisphere, hence one eye. "Mice in which the sonic hedgehog gene has been completely disabled have malformed hearts, lungs, kidneys and guts. They are always stillborn and have no paws..."

I certainly wouldn't recommend this book to a pregnant friend. It's frightening enough to have a vague notion of what might go wrong, without this author's meticulous gene-by-gene guide as to the results of many mutations.

Limb buds, skeletons, growth, gender, and skin color are all viewed in turn, through the distorting lens of genes gone wrong. We are introduced to pigmies, piebalds, cretins, and castrati.

The penultimate chapter, "The Sober Life (on Ageing)" is especially interesting because ageing is something we all do regardless of our original mutational burden. The author raises the interesting question as to whether death is just another genetic engineering problem. "Were it not for ageing's pervasive effects, 95 per cent of us would celebrate our centenaries; half of us would better the biblical Patriarchs by centuries and live for more than a thousand years."

Sir Peter Medawar was the first to suggest that mutations causing fatal errors in old age are not necessarily selected against. Once we've bred and raised our children, what use has nature for us?

The final chapter, "Anthropometamorphosis (an Epilogue)" ends rather wistfully with a discussion of beauty, and why it may be important for the survival of a species. Beauty is defined as the absence of imperfections: "the machine errors that arise from the vicissitudes of the womb, childhood, maturity and old age, that are written all over our bodies and that are so ubiquitous that when we see someone who appears to have evaded them, however fleetingly, we pause to look with amazed delight."

Read "Mutants" and you may also find yourself pausing, and looking about with amazed delight. Armand Marie Leroi does not exploit freaks of mutation so much as he weaves them into the story of each of our individual lives.

Summary of Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body

Visit Armand Marie Leroi on the web: http://armandleroi.com/index.html

Stepping effortlessly from myth to cutting-edge science, Mutants gives 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).

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