The Geneticist Who Played Hoops with My DNA
(HarperCollins (USA) / Fourth-Estate/Harper-Collins (UK)

BY DAVID EWING DUNCAN

A highly original form of storytelling combining myth, biography, and the wit of Oliver Sacks, this is a depiction of cutting-edge science and its profound implications told through the personalities of scientists who are rewriting life on earth

Throughout history, the outsized personalities of scientists have astonished us with their brilliance and audacity. From Galileo to Jonas Salk, they push society into new realms with great leaps of inventiveness and originality, providing us with everything from the wheel to rocket ships and penicillin. Today’s masterminds in biotechnology promise lifespans up to 400 years; cures for cancer; and an end to pollution. But these masterminds could also produce unintended nightmares – bioengineered lifeforms that run amuck, bioweapons, social upheavals. Which will it be: heaven or hell, or both, or neither?

For three years, award-winning writer David Ewing Duncan has interviewed over 600 people, and spent time with masterminds that include James Watson, Sydney Brenner, Paul Berg, Francis Collins, Craig Venter, Cynthia Kenyon, and others. He has written an inventive narrative about science and personality, delving into stem cells, cloning, bioengineering, and genetics by telling the stories of the characters at the fulcrum of the science. He uses a unique method of tying in age-old stories and myths – Prometheus, Faustus, Eve, and Frankenstein – to ask the question: can we trust these scientists?

Duncan thinks we can, but society must closely watch them and their work; also, both scientists and the public must make more of an effort to publicly discuss and understand each others points of view. Duncan has attracted international attention for his column “Biotech and Creativity”; and for his writings and NPR commentaries. He makes a powerful case that this is the most important story of our time, perhaps of all human history – that a species has the power to self-evolve.

Calendar:
Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year
International Bestseller -- 19 Languages

Excerpts
Calendar Index
The Year 2000 Will Be...

From the earliest recorded date (4236 B.C.), people have tried to organize their lives according to the movements of the sun, moon and stars--and have, for the most part, consistently gotten it wrong. In this irresistible volume, David Ewing Duncan takes us on an extraordinary journey through man's reckoning of time, ranging from one of the earliest calendars (a series of markings gouged into an eagle bone 13,000 years ago) to the atomic clocks of today, which measure time too well for an ever slowing Earth.

The adventure spans the world from Stonehenge to astronomically aligned pyramids at Giza, from Mayan observatories at Chichen Itza at the atomic clock in Washington, the world's official timekeeper since the 1960s. We visit cultures from Vedic India and Cleopatra's Egypt to Byzantium and the Elizabethan court; and meet an impressive cast of historic personages from Julius Caesar to Omar Khayyam, and giants of science such as Galileo and Copernicus. Our present calendar system predates the invention of the telescope, the mechanical clock, and the concept of zero--and its development is one of the great untold stories of science and history.

How did Pope Gregory set right a calendar which was in error by at least ten full days? What did time mean to a farmer on the Rhine in 800 A.D.? What was daily life life in the Middle Ages, when the general population reckoned births and marriages by seasons, wars, kings' reigns, and saints' days? In short, how did the world ever come to agree on what day it was? As our personal clocks tick faster and time becomes more precious each day, as we move toward the mathematically awesome threshold of a new millennium, here is a fresh, stimulating volume that answers--and raises--a host of fascinating questions about the nature of human timekeeping and the majestic historical forces that have produced the miracle of the calendar.

A study of Hernando de Soto and his legendary expedition across North America examines the life of the Spanish conquistador, from his role in the conquest of Peru to his ill-fated journey through the wilderness of the New World and his destructive impact on the native peoples of the region.

This expose of the inner workings of America's medical training programs is both a stirring cry for reform of a health care system that endangers all of our lives and a collection of tense and terrifying stories of real life-or-death drama.