Following a long road to ancient DNA

Ars Technica » Scientific Method 2014-02-16

Scientific memoirs are difficult things to do well. Typically, if a researcher's output is famous enough to warrant one, then the science itself is all familiar. That leaves authors with two choices: trying to capture the excitement and frustration that accompanied discovery, or trying to capture the personalities and politics (including the author's own) that enabled it.

Doing both well is really hard, which is why the few authors who've done it well—Jim Watson's book on finding the structure of DNA leaps to mind—have produced books that ended up being widely read by an audience beyond science enthusiasts. (Even as some of the personalities chronicled in Watson's book object to the liberties they felt that he took.)

The latest to take a stab at the challenge is Svante Pääbo. Although he's not a household name, the project he led has repeatedly made headlines around the world: the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, and the discovery of Denisovans through their genome. The story told in his book Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes, has all the raw ingredients. On the science side, there were years of frustration, unexpected breakthroughs, and results that changed what we thought we knew about ourselves. And there are personalities and politics galore, as Pääbo needs to convince curators from around the world to let him take a drill bit to precious bones, including the first Neanderthal skeleton ever described.

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