The Violinist's Thumb
And other Lost tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written By Our Genetic Code
Sam Kean 2012 Little Brown Bvtn 572.8 KEA
Kean focuses on scientific history and personalities, with some interesting science along the way. Amusing and snarky.
Asterisks indicate notes (digressions, really) in the back of the book.
The "thumb" was on Niccolo Paganini's (1782–1840) incredibly flexible hands. Possibly due to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which limits collagen production.
- p020 1871 Johannes Mischner "nuclein", later DNA
- Thomas Hunt Morgan fruitflies (Nobel 1933) Columbia, to Caltech 1928
- Hermann Muller ( Nobel 1946 for radiation mutation)
p60 RNA Tie Club 24 physicists and biologists: many baroque models for DNA -> RNA -> Protein
- p77 Zipf's law: word frequency inversely proportional to frequency ordering, p79 ditto for proteins
- p82 grawlix (symbols for swearing)
- Sister Miriam Michael Stimson - shapes of DNA bases in 1940s - errors, but developed infrared imaging of bases
- p103 Lynn Margulis, endosymbiosis
- p106 Microbes without mitochondria use 75% of energy for protein synthesis, no extra for novelties
p108 Barbara McClintock, maize. Cornell instructor 1927, Cold Spring 1941.
- p112 1950, jumping genes letter, chromosome regulation, controversy after 1951
- p118 William Barentz, polar bear liver vitamin A poisoning (vitamin A retinol regulates cell growth, too much and body organs and skin fails)
- p131 methyls stick mostly to cytosine