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

(Paperback)

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[Weissmann] has emerged in the last three decades as Americas 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 Weissmanns 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 todays 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 Galileos 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.

Reviews

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

Author Bio

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.