Infinite forme bellissime. La nuova scienza dell'Evo-Devo

This is a fascinating book about developments in genetics and evolution in the past twenty years. Sean Carroll is a leading researcher in the field; his lucid writing style and lively approach make this book a "must-read" for anybody interested in the subject. Plenty of illustrations and drawings he Leggi tutto

You've heard the stories how we share 98% of genes with chimpanzees and something like 30% with daffodils. This seems confusing because we don’t look like we’re one third daffodils. Sean B Carroll’s book tries to explain this conundrum to the general reader by introducing us to the new, exciting fie Leggi tutto

I don't know how many articles I've read in the last 10+ years that have tried to explain some of the discoveries about how a cell "knows" it should become a liver cell or a skin cell and why we don't end up with shoulder blades in our kidneys. These articles got my level of understanding from "I be Leggi tutto

This is staggeringly rivetting science and lovely science writing. I have been looking for a work on embryology and evolution to clarify some questions about how to design evolutionary algorithms and this was it. At the same time, it opens up a breathtaking vista of how evolution actually happens an Leggi tutto

First of all, I should clarify that I'm no scientist. But I do have an egghead mentality, and I've read plenty on evolution. What I hadn't read was much about developmental biology, and for me, that's where the main benefit of the book came. Although sometimes I wished Carroll would have boiled some Leggi tutto

The writing was much too breathless, in a "gee, look at this butterfly wing!" sort of way. The science got buried in metaphorical cliche'. Writing for a lay audience is always going to be tricky and I think in this case Carroll aimed too low and ended up using too many words that don't say much. For Leggi tutto