The Gene
An Intimate History
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The Gene
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Narrated by:
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Dennis Boutsikaris
About this listen
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Emperor of All Maladies, a magnificent history of the gene and a response to the defining question of the future: What becomes of being human when we learn to "read" and "write" our own genetic information?
2017 Audie Award Finalist for Non-Fiction
The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
Throughout the narrative, the story of Mukherjee's own family - with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness - cuts like a bright red line, reminding us of the many questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In superb prose and with an instinct for the dramatic scene, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation - from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Thomas Morgan to Crick, Watson, and Rosa Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary 21st-century innovators who mapped the human genome.
As The New Yorker said of The Emperor of All Maladies, "It's hard to think of many books for a general audience that have rendered any area of modern science and technology with such intelligence, accessibility, and compassion.... An extraordinary achievement."
A riveting, revelatory, and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life and an essential preparation for the moral complexity introduced by our ability to create or "write" the human genome, The Gene is a must-listen for everyone concerned about the definition and future of humanity. This is the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2016 Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D. All rights reserved. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 598
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 518
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,967
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,991
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5 out of 5 stars
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,836
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,310
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,292
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5 out of 5 stars
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Undoes what you've learned from the headlines
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,179
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,043
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,032
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4 out of 5 stars
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 16,736
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 13,725
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 13,766
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Secret Life of an American Cancer Cell
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 461
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 459
Groundbreaking, riveting, and expertly told, The Breakthrough is the story of the game-changing scientific discoveries that unleash our natural ability to recognize and defeat cancer, as told through the experiences of the patients, physicians, and cancer immunotherapy researchers who are on the front lines. This is the incredible true story of the race to find a cure, a dispatch from the life-changing world of modern oncological science, and a brave new chapter in medical history.
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- By Kari Niles on 01-21-19
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Critic reviews
Featured Article: The Best Science Listens to Channel Your Inner Einstein
While you might listen in order to be entertained, there are also a host of works intended to be purely educational. We chose the best science titles on this list for the fact that they are both. These selections not only bring important perspectives on some of the most pressing scientific issues of our time—they’re also written and performed with a refreshing clarity that makes them easy to swallow and entertaining to the end.
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 204
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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5 out of 5 stars
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fascinating ideas and science
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A Crack in Creation
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,363
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,164
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
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p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer Code
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer Code reveals the tale of the search for this gene, as well as the excitement of the hunt for new cures - the hype, the lost opportunities, the blind alleys, and the thrilling breakthroughs. As the long-anticipated revolution in cancer treatment tailored to each individual patient's symptoms starts to take off at last, p53 is still at the forefront of the game. This is a timely tale of scientific discovery and advances in our understanding of a disease that still affects more than one in three of us at some point in our lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent story! Unfortunate narration at start
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The Deeper Genome
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
Over a decade ago, as the Human Genome Project completed its mapping of the entire human genome, hopes ran high that we would rapidly be able to use our knowledge of human genes to tackle many inherited diseases, and understand what makes us unique among animals. But things didn't turn out that way.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great Scientific Writing/ Wrong Narrator
- By Richard on 11-24-15
By: John Parrington
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The Emperor of All Maladies
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- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 4,707
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,121
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Story5 out of 5 stars 4,099
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible
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The Compatibility Gene
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- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
Most of the 25,000 genes we possess are the same for all of us. Compatibility genes are those that vary most from person to person and give each of us a unique molecular signature. These genes determine both the extent to which we are susceptible to a vast range of illnesses and the different ways each of us fights disease.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If interested in medicine, got to read
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Evolving Ourselves
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 204
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
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A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- By: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,363
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,164
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
- By Philomath on 06-17-17
By: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
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p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer Code
- By: Sue Armstrong
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Jasicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer Code reveals the tale of the search for this gene, as well as the excitement of the hunt for new cures - the hype, the lost opportunities, the blind alleys, and the thrilling breakthroughs. As the long-anticipated revolution in cancer treatment tailored to each individual patient's symptoms starts to take off at last, p53 is still at the forefront of the game. This is a timely tale of scientific discovery and advances in our understanding of a disease that still affects more than one in three of us at some point in our lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent story! Unfortunate narration at start
- By Adriana on 12-25-14
By: Sue Armstrong
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The Deeper Genome
- Why There Is More to the Human Genome than Meets the Eye
- By: John Parrington
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
Over a decade ago, as the Human Genome Project completed its mapping of the entire human genome, hopes ran high that we would rapidly be able to use our knowledge of human genes to tackle many inherited diseases, and understand what makes us unique among animals. But things didn't turn out that way.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great Scientific Writing/ Wrong Narrator
- By Richard on 11-24-15
By: John Parrington
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The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 4,707
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,121
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Story5 out of 5 stars 4,099
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
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At the Edge of Uncertainty
- 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,201
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,085
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,084
The atom, the big bang, DNA, natural selection - all are ideas that have revolutionized science; and all were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped in recent years, and in At the Edge of Uncertainty, best-selling author Michael Brooks investigates the new wave of radical insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery.
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1 out of 5 stars
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All smoke, no fire
- By Kenton on 07-25-15
By: Michael Brooks
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Creation
- How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself
- By: Adam Rutherford
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4 out of 5 stars 43
What is life? Humans have been asking this question for thousands of years. But as technology has advanced and our understanding of biology has deepened, the answer has evolved. For decades, scientists have been exploring the limits of nature by modifying and manipulating DNA, cells, and whole organisms to create new ones that could never have previously existed on their own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Goldilocks book on what is life
- By Gary on 07-11-13
By: Adam Rutherford
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The Cancer Chronicles
- Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery
- By: George Johnson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
When the woman he loved was diagnosed with a metastatic cancer, science writer George Johnson embarked on a journey to learn everything he could about the disease and the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and combating it. What he discovered is a revolution under way - an explosion of new ideas about what cancer really is and where it comes from. In a provocative and intellectually vibrant exploration, he takes us on an adventure through the history and recent advances of cancer research that will challenge everything you thought you knew about the disease.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A quick read - hard to put down
- By Digital Dilema on 09-06-13
By: George Johnson
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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Herding Hemingway's Cats
- Understanding How Our Genes Work
- By: Kat Arney
- Narrated by: Kat Arney
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
The language of genes has become common parlance. We know they make your eyes blue, your hair curly or your nose straight. The media tells us that our genes control the risk of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism or Alzheimer's. The cost of DNA sequencing has plummeted from billions of pounds to a few hundred, and gene-based advances in medicine hold huge promise. So we've all heard of genes, but how do they actually work?
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2 out of 5 stars
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A non-scientists misguided interpretation
- By AraSevera on 05-15-16
By: Kat Arney
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The Language of Life
- DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine
- By: Francis S. Collins
- Narrated by: Greg Itzin
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Story4 out of 5 stars 97
A scientific and medical revolution has crept up on us, based on study after study, from hundreds of laboratories around the world. It is no longer just a theoretical shift: every one of us will be touched by it, and many of us already have been. The meaning of disease, our understanding of the human body, and crucial decisions about what we all need to know and what choices we make about our health are at stake. Welcome to the new world of personalized medicine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The future of medicine
- By Ronald E on 04-12-10
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Neanderthal Man
- In Search of Lost Genomes
- By: Svante Pääbo
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 779
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 690
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Story4 out of 5 stars 694
A preeminent geneticist hunts the Neanderthal genome to answer the biggest question of them all: what does it mean to be human? What can we learn from the genes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pbo’s mission to answer that question, beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in his sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2009.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent science tale
- By Neuron on 01-19-15
By: Svante Pääbo
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Life Unfolding
- How the Human Body Creates Itself
- By: Jamie A. Davies
- Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 101
Where did I come from? Why do I have two arms but just one head? How is my left leg the same size as my right one? Why are the fingerprints of identical twins not identical? How did my brain learn to learn? Why must I die? Questions like these remain biology's deepest and most ancient challenges. They force us to confront a fundamental biological problem: How can something as large and complex as a human body organize itself from the simplicity of a fertilized egg?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Biology ; Distracting Narration
- By Tim on 03-01-15
By: Jamie A. Davies
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Editing Humanity
- The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing
- By: Kevin Davies
- Narrated by: Kevin Davies
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Engrossing and captivating, Editing Humanity takes listeners inside the fascinating world of a new gene editing technology called CRISPR, a high-powered genetic toolkit that enables scientists to not only engineer but to edit the DNA of any organism down to the individual building blocks of the genetic code. Davies introduces listeners to arguably the most profound scientific breakthrough of our time. He tracks the scientists on the front lines of its research to the patients whose powerful stories bring the narrative movingly to human scale.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent content, solid execution
- By Samuel Finlayson on 01-25-21
By: Kevin Davies
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Welcome to the Microbiome
- Getting to Know the Trillions of Bacteria and Other Microbes In, On, and Around You
- By: Rob DeSalle, Susan L. Perkins
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Suddenly, research findings require a paradigm shift in our view of the microbial world. The Human Microbiome Project at the National Institutes of Health is well under way, and unprecedented scientific technology now allows the censusing of trillions of microbes inside and on our bodies as well as in the places where we live, work, and play. This intriguing, up-to-the-minute book for scientists and nonscientists alike explains what researchers are discovering about the microbe world and what the implications are for modern science and medicine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I learned so much from this book. I am happy.
- By Jonathan Miller on 09-08-18
By: Rob DeSalle, and others
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An Epidemic of Absence
- A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases
- By: Moises Velasquez-Manoff
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
An Epidemic of Absence asks what will happen in developing countries, which, as they become more affluent, have already seen an uptick in allergic disease: Will India end up more allergic than Europe? Velasquez-Manoff also details a controversial underground movement that has coalesced around the treatment of immune-mediated disorders with parasites. Against much of his better judgment, he joins these do-it-yourselfers and reports his surprising results.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The point of view from a Veterinarian immunologist
- By rtgymnast on 11-03-17
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Vagina Obscura
- An Anatomical Voyage
- By: Rachel E. Gross
- Narrated by: Siho Ellsmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 133
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 131
The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means “parts for which you should be ashamed”. Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named for a