50 Genetic Ideas - A Book Review

Recently, upon encouragement of my friends i read '50 genetic ideas you really need to know' by Mark Henderson. The cover of the book is quite well chosen, as for those studying biology or even those who took biology at GCSE will recognize that the cover symbolizes Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal and perceived the book to be for advanced biologists, with different ideas and experiments from scientists around the world. However, the book turned out to be not only for people interested in the sciences but in fact for everyone.

One of the things i loved about the book was that Henderson, did not take anything for granted and began the book by the very aptly named chapter, the Theory of Evolution. He moves step by step from the basics of genetics into the more complex ideas of what genetics really do in the body and of course cloning not only sheep and other animals but people! His writing provides readers a view into the interesting and ever expanding world of genetics and highlights how much we don't know and how much we need to find out. Starting off with the basics of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution for  all organisms, Henderson moves into the more complex questions about genetics pertaining to everything from sex genes to designer babies.

His handle and exploration of the subject matter is astounding and helps to provide a clearer view into the work that has gone into trying to find an answer for the question of our genetics. Furthermore he provides a short sentence at the end of every topic quickly summarizing the main point of the chapter calling them condensed ideas. I quite enjoyed the extra bits of information he provided for each topic such as the one on Mitochondrion, where he points out that mitochondria are passed down from the mother and that currently a research team at Newcastle University (UK) is attempting to move the nucleus from an egg with damaged mitochondria to one with healthy mitochondria!

Overall the book was a good read and i would especially recommend it to biology students as it helps to understand the basics of the subject matter Henderson is discussing!