Reviews

Creation: How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself by Adam Rutherford

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dracola112's review against another edition

4.0

Essentially two books in one, the former focusing on the proposed biological pathway life took to formation, and the latter about the synthetic pathway we're looking into now. For my money the first half was the best part, lots of really cool insight into the parts that happened back in the hazy pre-fossilization days of the process. The XNA stuff in the back half was fun but the "gene hacking" section felt like it was describing something that's mostly just a novelty in breathlessly futurist terms.

vdarcangelo's review against another edition

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3.0

I recommend Adam Rutherford’s Creation for any fan of science writingcreation. However, my endorsement comes with a disclaimer: The electronic review copy I downloaded was corrupted and difficult to navigate. The result is that I didn’t read this book front to back, as I normally do. However, I was able to access about half of it, and what I read I thoroughly enjoyed.

Of particular interest to Transgress readers are the graphic details of surface cuts when explaining how the skin recovers from a wound. The squeamish reader might want to tag this book as horror for this reason alone.

Though I doubt there are any squeamish readers this blog.

Stylistically, Creation blends wit and storytelling with fair doses of hard science. Fans of Sam Kean, Mary Roach and Malcolm Gladwell will find much to love in its pages.

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e_f_p21's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

2.5

cgroza's review against another edition

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Electrical engineering principles applied to molecular biology to create genetic circuits that perform specific functions. Briefly, genetic programming might be possible.