Occasional-Cortex-Mini-Me -- Posted April 22, 2019 -- But Priceless And Timeless

A huge "thank you" to Don for sending me the link. I had been looking for it but had not found it.

Occasional-Cortex-Mini-Me

******************** 

The Book Page 

Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome, Venki Ramakirishna, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, c. 2018

One might call this the "adult" sequel to Watson's The Double Helix. For my generation, which grew up on WatsonandCrickandDNA this is what we were waiting for. I haven't read it closely but I have page through all of it and and based on what little I've read, I would recommend it.

Again, for high school students planning on majoring in biology (or maybe physics or chemistry), this is another book that should be read before going to college. High school students today know "everything" about DNA and might do well skipping WatsonandCrick and moving directly to Venki's Ribosome.

It would take quite a story to "beat" / out-do the DNA-discovery story, but if any organelle could do it, it would be the ribosome.

p. 53:
With their efforts frustrated, some of the key people in the Russian effort dispersed all over the world. Some years later, in the mid-1990s, Yusupov wrote to Harry Noller, a leading ribosome biocmeist at UC Santa Cruz, asking to work on the structure of the ribosome in his lab, but that is a story best told later.

p. 130:
Marat and Gulnara were thrilled, and the couple went off to Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz, CA) to start working on the entire ribosome.

p. 173:
... just a few days after her colleague Francois Franceschi had spoken in Santa Cruz ..

LMB: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England

The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), a research institute in Cambridge, England.

For fun / light reading, a thick book, Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, The Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde, John Boessenecker, c. 2016. Thick? 528 pages. A #1 Best Seller.