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Title: The X in Sex : How the X Chromosome Controls Our Lives by David Bainbridge ISBN: 0-674-01028-0 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 31 March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting and entertaining
Comment: This book presents a few tidbits about the X chromosomes and the genes resident on it and how they affect our lives. Topics discussed include autoimmune diseases, color blindness, disease transmission vectors (due to mutated genes), X chromosome inactivation in anyone possessing multiple X chromosomes...etc
Overall, this is a good, entertaining layman read. It is not an overview on the biology of the X chromosome. Rather,a good afternoon read for one's infotainment.
Rating: 3
Summary: Already out of date...
Comment: See David Page's (at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.) new research, first hitting the news on June 18, 2003.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Strange Tale of The X Chromosome
Comment: I love to read science books because they continually amaze me with the hidden worlds that they reveal. This book is no exception. Author Bainbridge has written a slim book of 181 pages, that tells us the marvels, eccentricities, and terrors hidden away in the X chromosome. It always amuses me when people extol the human body as the epitome of creation excellence. When you look deeply into our physical engineering, though, you usually start wondering if perhaps we were designed by a fractious committee.
It is the male Y chromosome, and specifically the "Sry" gene on that chromosome, that actively sets out to make any cell blob containing it to turn into a male. But the Y chromosome is really just a dried up fossil of a gene that serves no other purpose than determining sex. It is the X that has many functions.
The book answers many questions. Why are diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy and hemophilia mostly limited to males? Why are male identical twins really identical, while female identical twins are not totally identical? Why are approximately 50% of female body cell X chromosomes different from the other 50% while in a male the cells are all alike? Why are women the main sufferers from autoimmune diseases? What happens when a woman is born with only one sex chromosome, a single X? Why is it that color blindness affects mostly men, and why is color blindness almost inevitably red-green, and almost never blue-yellow?
We also learn that many other mammals live and reproduce perfectly well with no Y chromosomes. Armadillos generally give birth to identical quadruplets. And on and on goes Mr. Bainbridge with the facts about the unusual X chromosome that is an astounding two inches long yet is able to intricately fold itself to fit into every tiny body cell.
This is a very accessible book that should educate and, indeed, entertain anyone who picks it up.
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Title: Y : The Descent of Men by Steve Jones ISBN: 0618139303 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 15 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Nature Via Nurture : Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human by Matt Ridley ISBN: 0060006781 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Reflections of Our Past: How Human History is Revealed in Our Genes by John H. Relethford, John Relethford ISBN: 0813339588 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Isaac Newton by JAMES GLEICK ISBN: 0375422331 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells ISBN: 069111532X Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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