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Epigenetics in the Age of Twitter

Pop Culture and Modern Science

Gerald Weissmann

$46.95

Paperback

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English
Bellevue Literary Press
06 March 2012
""[Weissmann] has emerged in the last three decades as America's most interesting and important essayist. He has achieved this status both epigenetically and through Twitter, word of mouth, so to speak. . . . Much like Susan Sontag, Weissmann likes being a contemporary, and does not feel shackled by tradition. . . . This book is a joy for the heart and instructive for the mind."" -ERIC KANDEL, Nobel Laureate and author of In Search of Memory ""Only a mind as nimble and well traveled as Gerald Weissmann's could see, never mind make and expound on, the connections between salamanders and Prohibition . . . white blood cells, Hollywood and erectile dysfunction . . . health care reform and Marie Antoinette . . . bacteria, the Equal Rights Amendment and the ""Miracle on the Hudson."" Better yet, Weissmann does so with wit and insight. A fascinating tour through history, science and pop culture."" -MAX GOMEZ, MD, Emmy Award-winning WCBS-TV Medical Correspondent ""Erudite energy leaps from this lively commingling of art, culture and science. . . . In each [essay], Weissmann finds links between research and elements of history and pop culture, which play off each other to illuminating effect. So US politician Sarah Palin pops up in a discussion of 'Marie Antoinette syndrome'. . . and the 'meltdown' of the mythical Icarus meets the nuclear version at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan."" -Nature Epigenetics, which attempts to explain how our genes respond to our environment, is the latest twist on the historic nature vs. nurture debate. In addressing this and other controversies in contemporary science, Gerald Weissmann taps what he calls ""the social network of Western Civilization,"" including the many neglected women of science: from the martyred Hypatia of Alexandria, the first woman scientist, to the Nobel laureates Marie Curie, Christiane Nsslein-Volhard, and Elizabeth Blackburn, among other luminaries in the field. Always instructive and often hilarious, this is a one-volume introduction to modern biology, viewed through the lens of today's mass media and the longer historical tradition of the Scientific Revolution. Whether engaging in the healthcare debate or imagining the future prose styling of the scientific research paper in the age of Twitter, Weissmann proves to be one of our most incisive cultural critics and satirists. Gerald Weissmann is a physician, scientist, editor, and essayist whose collections include Epigenetics in the Age of Twitter: Pop Culture and Modern Science; Mortal and Immortal DNA: Science and the Lure of Myth; and Galileo's Gout: Science in an Age of Endarkenment. He is professor emeritus and research professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine. His essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications worldwide, including the London Review of Books and New York Times Book Review. The former editor-in-chief of the FASEB Journal, he is now its book reviews editor. He lives in Manhattan and Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
By:  
Imprint:   Bellevue Literary Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 228mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 23mm
Weight:   368g
ISBN:   9781934137390
ISBN 10:   1934137391
Pages:   256
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Gerald Weissmann (August 7, 1930 July 10, 2019) was a physician, scientist, editor, and essayist whose collections include The Fevers of Reason: New and Selected Essays; Epigenetics in the Age of Twitter: Pop Culture and Modern Science; Mortal and Immortal DNA: Science and the Lure of Myth; and Galileo's Gout: Science in an Age of Endarkenment.

Reviews for Epigenetics in the Age of Twitter: Pop Culture and Modern Science

Select Praise for Gerald Weissmann Gerald Weissmann is Lewis Thomas's heir. --Robert Coles Weissmann has a strong and well-informed interest, unusual for a scientist, both in poetry and in art. --Freeman Dyson [Weissmann] bridges the space between science and the humanities, and particularly between medicine and the muses, with wit, erudition, and, most important, wisdom. --Adam Gopnik America's most interesting and important essayist. --Eric Kandel How I envy the reader coming upon Dr. Weissmann's elegant, entertaining essays for the first time! --Jonas Salk Dr. Weissmann's juggling with the balls of global politics, biology, medicine, and culture in the framework of history is breathtaking. --Bengt Samuelsson, Nobel Laureate and former chairman of the Nobel Foundation The premier essayist of our time, Weissmann writes with grace and style. --Richard Selzer An absolutely first-rate writer. --Kurt Vonnegut [Weissmann] is a man of wide culture, a captivating and graceful writer. --New Yorker Weissmann introduces us to a new way of thinking about the connections between art and medicine. --New York Times Book Review Oliver Sacks, Richard Selzer, Lewis Thomas . . . Weissmann is in this noble tradition.--Los Angeles Times As a belles-letterist, Weissmann is the inheritor of the late Lewis Thomas . . . Like Thomas, he's a gifted researcher and clinician who writes beautifully. Unlike Thomas, he is an original and indefatigable social historian as well. --Boston Globe He writes as a doctor, a medical scientist, a knowing lover of art and literature and a modern liberal skeptic. But more than anything else, Weissmann writes as a passionate and wise reader. --New Republic Weissmann is a master of the essay form. His witty and elegant prose makes the toughest subject matter not only accessible but entertaining. --Barnes and Noble Review [Weissmann] is a Renaissance Man. . . . He'll stretch your mind's hamstrings. --Christian Science Monitor [Weissmann's essays] intertwine the profound connections of science and art in the context of our modern era . . . to illuminate the ongoing challenges scientists face in dealing with scrutiny and criticism, from colleagues and from our broader society. --Science Weissmann not only endeavors to connect the realms of literature and medicine, but also to create community among readers in light of class, race, religion, and age. --Glassworks Magazine Essays that brim with knowledge and bubble with attitude. --Kirkus Reviews Erudite, engaging, and accessible. --Library Journal Juicy and conversational. --Booklist Weissmann models his work after that of his mentor, Lewis Thomas. . . . His ideas . . . are every bit as important. --Publishers Weekly Weissmann's humanist, sometimes sardonic, voice binds together disparate strands to show how all human endeavor is linked. . . . Weissmann clearly sees how history obfuscates the work of women, people of color and immigrants, and tries to alter that. --Shelf Awareness for Readers


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