The Secret Body: How the New Science of the Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live

by Daniel M. Davis Narrated by Jot Davies

Overview

“A perfect blend of cutting-edge science and compelling storytelling.”-Bill Bryson
This audiobook narrated by Jot Davies offers revolutionary new vision of human biology and the scientific breakthroughs that will transform our lives

Imagine knowing years in advance whether you are likely to get cancer, or having a personalized understanding of your individual genes, organs, and cells. Imagine being able to monitor your body's well-being, or have a diet tailored to your microbiome. The Secret Body reveals how these and other stunning breakthroughs and technologies are transforming our understanding of how the human body works, what it is capable of, how to protect it from disease, and how we might manipulate it in the future.

Taking readers to the cutting edge of research, Daniel Davis shows how radical new possibilities are becoming realities thanks to the visionary efforts of scientists to reveal the invisible and secret universe within each of us. Focusing on six important frontiers, Davis describes what we are learning about cells, the development of the fetus, the body's immune system, the brain, the microbiome, and the genome-areas of human biology that are usually understood in isolation. Bringing them together here for the first time, Davis offers a new vision of the human body as a biological wonder of dizzying complexity and possibility.

Written by an award-winning scientist at the forefront of this adventure, The Secret Body is a gripping drama of discovery and a landmark account of the dawning revolution in human health.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Finalist for the PROSE Award in Neuroscience, Association of American Publishers

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2021-06-22
An exciting update on human biology in the years since the initial description of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953.

This is not a subject that popular writers have ignored, but Davis, a professor of immunology, refreshingly avoids the low-hanging fruit (life extension, designer babies) and digs into the actual science. While acknowledging the many miracles this new science will lead to (most of which will not occur in the immediate future), the author explores what contemporary scientists have learned and how they learned it. Davis emphasizes that many breakthroughs followed the development of new technology. For centuries, scientists could only examine living cells through the familiar light microscope, the magnification of which reached a limit in the 1870s before breakthroughs in the 20th century vastly increased its power. Years of work determined the structure of a single protein, insulin, and won Frederick Sanger a Nobel Prize in 1958. Today, machines do this in minutes. “It once took years and hundreds of millions of dollars to sequence a human genome,” writes Davis. “Now it takes a few hundred dollars, or less, and can be done in a single day.” The tedious process of counting and identifying living cells became much smoother with the invention of the flow cytometer. It’s easy to understand how the heart or kidney works by watching it in action but not the brain. Enter optogenetics, by which a genetically altered neuron fires when exposed to light. Following its tortuous path became easier with another advance that allowed scientists to give a cell a bright color without killing it. Davis, who writes accessibly and concisely, also examines a fairly new fascination, the gut: “There’s scarcely any state of human health or disease that hasn’t been linked with the [microbiome]. Variations have been associated with diseases as diverse as autism, asthma, multiple sclerosis, cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.” Further current research is revealing new ways that we can manipulate our resident bacteria for our benefit.

Dazzling discoveries in expert hands.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175493185
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/24/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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