Life's Greatest Secret: The Race To Crack the Genetic Code

Cobb (zoology, Univ. of Manchester; The Resistance) relates the convoluted history of research on DNA, the molecule that carries our genetic data, and its metabolic partner RNA. He explains how the nascent field of cybernetics furnished a metaphor for the encoding and transmission of heritable information. Inspired by this metaphor, an assortment of researchers—some collaborative and others bitterly competitive—determined the structure of DNA and the general mechanism of protein synthesis, proposed a model for operons (genes regulated in a coordinated fashion), and finished deciphering the genetic code by the mid-1960s. The last quarter of the book is an overview of recent research on nucleic acids. Few illustrations appear in the review copy; one hopes more will be added to the published book to explain some of the complex molecular mechanisms described. (Similarly, the index was not seen.)