Identically Different: Why You Can Change Your Genes. by Tim Spector - Hardcover

Tim Spector

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297866311 ISBN 13: 9780297866312

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012

Synopsis

Since the discovery of DNA scientists have believed that genes are fixed entities that cannot be changed by environment - we inherit them, pass them on to our children and take them with us when we die. We can make choices that influence our environment, but we cannot change our genes. Or so we have long been prepared to believe.

Professor Tim Spector reveals how the latest genetic research and his own pioneering studies are rewriting everything we thought we knew about genes, identity and evolution. Conceptually, he explains, our genes are not fixed entities but more like plastic, able to change shape and evolve, and these changes can be passed on to our children and grandchildren. In the face of these astonishing new discoveries, the old nature-nurture debate instantly dissolves and can be replaced with a much deeper understanding of our genes and the complex role they play in shaping our identities.

Tim Spector's dazzling guide to the hidden world of our genes will make you think again about everything from sexuality to religion, cancer to autism, politics to pubic hair, clones to bacteria, and what it is that makes us all so unique and quintessentially human.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Spector is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London and Hon consultant Physician at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital. He set up the Twins UK register in 1993, the largest of its kind in the world, which he continues to direct. He has won several academic awards and published over 500 academic papers. He has appeared in numerous TV documentaries and is often consulted in British and international media on his team's cutting-edge research.

Review

Spector will get you through many dinner parties. But, much more importantly, he will show how a certain kind of scientific fundamentalism collapsed under the burden of its inability to explain the world as it is - complex, flowing, changing - rather than as they would like it to be - simple and clear. Read him. -- Bryan Appleyard THE SUNDAY TIMES 20120617 A fascinating and provocative book...Spector is a talented story-teller, weaving real-life accounts of identical twins into each chapter...This is an informative and thought-provoking tour of some of the most exciting areas in biology right now. Spector concludes by inviting us to imagine a future in which we see our genes as malleable, rather than as masters of our biological destiny - just one part of the endlessly complex and fascinating story of what makes each of us unique. NEW SCIENTIST Identically Different is a fresh and though-provoking book on how the environment affects epigenetics. -- Dr Nessa Carey BBC FOCUS MAGAZINE Spector...pulls off the rare feat of being able to make genetic theory both intriguing and comprehensible to the ordinary reader. THE LADY In Identically Different, Tim Spector, a world-renowned authority on twins, introduces us in an entertaining, eloquent and expert way to the new (yet old) science of epigenetics: the study of how the environment can influence our genes and how those influences can be passed on to future generations. -- James Williams TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT A fascinating attempt to see us for what we are and to investigate what life is, and to show why a heady combination of hormones, chemicals, genes and instinct can make us what we are, and what we might be. GOOD BOOK GUIDE This book is a fascinating exploration of our current understanding of what makes us what we are: health, behavior, and personality. JOURNAL OF TWIN RESEARCH AND HUMAN GENETICS Tim Spector's book turns genetics on its head. Lucid, surprising and with a very human face. It brings epigenetics alive. it is a great read! Michael Mosley

Edition details

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0297866311
• ISBN 13: 9780297866312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 280