Confessions of a Biologist African Ancestors

_7~---------------------------------------S~NGBCXJKS;------------------------N_A_ru_~__ v_oL_._n __ ~_~ __ R,_L_,~_ period during which Italy and Europe The remainder of the book is about Confessions of a underwent cataclysmic political and social Luria's interest in literature, especially changes. I would have liked to have heard poetry, his commitment to politics and his biologist more about this time of his life; given his emotional development, each considered Sydney Brenner avowed existentialist views, he should have separately, as examples of his sectorial told us more about the formative years theory of autobiography. A Slot Machine, A Broken Test Tube: instead of merely flitting through them. I found the book disappointing. An Autobiography. By S.E. Luria. Indeed, the remainder ofthe historical nar Although not a contemporary, I know Harper& Row: 1984. Pp.228. $17.95. To rative is treated in the same brief manner, many of the protagonists and have lived be published in the UK on and is like an abstract of an autobiography through many of the events in science; I 31 May, £12.50. rather than the book itself. also know Luria and over the years have The middle part, "The Science Path", naturally formed my own opinion of him. describes his scientific work and develop Perhaps, like writers of autobiographies, AN autobiography allows a man the oppor ment. All elderly molecular geneticists reviewers need to be open and divulge their tunity to tell all about his life and work, to know of the Luria-Delbrilck fluctuation private judgements. There is a sense in reveal his secret motives and ambitions, experiment which proved which this book might be and to give a personal view of the world and that mutants pre-exist in even more self-revealing the people he has known in it. For many bacterial cultures and do than the author intended. scientists, total self-revelation might be not depend on exposure There is the Luria des almost indecent; there is the professional to the agent used to select cribed, but there is also stance of objectivity and rationality and, them. The experiment Luria the describer - a more to the point, there is that stuffy, consists in measuring the man with confident, if critical audience of colleagues. Scientists variation of mutant somewhat ponderous, are second only to politicians in taking frequency in independent judgements on all mat themselves very seriously and in erecting experiments. Luria re ters, noisy, irritable, ego deeply boring literary monuments to them counts how he got the centric. Who else could selves. Perhaps only the old and very idea at a faculty dance at have written the follow accomplished, who no longer care what Indiana University in ing after a reference to people think of them, and, possibly, the 1943 by watching some literature classes he con slightly mad, who don't mind, can write one using a slot machine ducted for science provokingly about themselves. The reason (one reference to the title students at home? why Jim Watson's The Double Helix is a of this book). The experiment was intended Some time ago I received a note from a former marvellous book is not that it demystified to refute the views of Sir Cyril M.l.T. student who had been in one of my the historical process of the scientific Hinshelwood who did not believe in genes classes. She reminded me that when she had told endeavour, as has been said, but rather that or mutation but only in chemical me she was planning to spend the summer after it tempered the drama with high comedy equilibria. I happen to know it did not con graduation learning more biochemistry I sug gested that instead she read Virginia Woolf. She and, at the end, the person who emerged as vince him at all, because I spent several claims that she did follow my advice, with the the worst (as well as the best) was the months at Oxford in 1952 and 1953 doing result that instead of chemistry she went into author himself. enough fluctuation experiments to prove to business administration. Shadows of Blooms Salvador Luria, Sedgwick Professor of Sir Cyril that the results could not be ex bury! Maybe she will be another John Maynard Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of plained by dirty test tubes. The broken test Keynes. 0 Technology, would agree with most of this, tube of the title also refers to another of and he sets the challenge in the preface: "I Luria's experiments which led him to the Sydney Brenner is a member of the scientific have found most biographies of scientists discovery of the restriction phenomenon, staffof the Medical Research Council's Labora remarkably uninteresting and their auto research which has had a great impact. tory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge. biographies even more so". The book he has written is deliberately personal - a confessional account of himself and his The road to personal discovery started in scientific, political, literary and other African ancestors 1963 when, at the age of 19, Richard was interests. The treatment is not chrono piloting a light aircraft over the rift valley logical and the author explains that he is C.K. Brain to Olduvai Gorge. Along the west side of replacing this by a developmental Lake Natron he saw exposures of promis One Life: An Autobiography. approach which he sees in existential terms, By Richard E. Leakey. ing-looking sediments and before long re the self defining itself by creative acts of turned to the place to establish that fossils Michael Joseph: 1984. Pp.207. £10.95. will in response to the outside world. could indeed be found in abundance there. Indeed, in the preface the reader will find a With help from his father's National Geo theory not only of life but also of meta-life, To HAVE been born into the Leakey family graphic Society grant, he organized several or autobiography. of East Africa meant that, from birth, one expeditions to this Peninj site, accom However, the most interesting part of was immersed in African antiquity, fossils panied by Glynn Isaac, who was to become the book is the story of Luria's early years. and discussion of human origins. Under codirector of the later Koobi Fora project, He was born in 1912 in Turin, Italy, into a standably enough, Richard Leakey's first and Kamoya Kimeu, who in time estab branch of one of the oldest Jewish families. reaction was to distance himself from lished himself as Kenya's foremost fossil A contemporary at school was Ugo Fano things academic and from the research acti collector. This fieldwork produced a spec who later become a physicist and played an vities of his illustrious parents, Louis and tacular mandible of Australopithecus important role in Luria's life in giving him Mary. But the allure of fossil man drew him boisei, the first lower jaw of this hominid to Max Delbrtick's papers to read; I did not back, urging him to make a unique contrib be found in East Africa. realize that Luria knew of Delbrtick before ution to palaeoanthropology, on his own Richard's big chance to exercise his he went to America. Luria studied terms, and free of his father's shadow. organizational skill came three years later, medicine, spent some time in Rome, left How this was achieved is the story of when a joint American-French-Kenyan ex Italy for France in 1938 and escaped to Richard Leakey's life, related here with pedition involving Clark Howell, Camille America in 1940. It is a great pity that he freshness and excitement which makes Arambourg and Louis Leakey went to the devotes only 19 pages of the book to this most enjoyable reading. Omo valley in Ethiopia. Louis Leakey dele- © 1984 Nature Publishing Group _NA_TU__ ~_v_o_L_.n __ ~ __ AP_R_IL_I_~------------------------~NGBCXlKS.--------------------------------------~~ gated his son to act as his representative its advanced features can be accom and as field leader of the Kenyan team, modated with greater confidence. Measured moments which set off in June 1967. In the course of Perhaps the most striking feature of the that expedition, again while travelling by personality portrayed in this autobio Barry Cox graphy is the driving ambition and energy air, Richard came to see the fossiliferous Timescale: An Atlas of the Fourth sediments on the eastern side of Lake behind the achievements, sharpened Dimension. By Nigel Calder. Turkana that were to prove of such perhaps by the realization that Richard's Chatto & Windus/Viking: 1984. Pp.288. immense significance. life could well be a short one. In 1969, aged £12.95, $19.95. The fossil wealth of the Lake Turkana 25, doctors told him that his kidneys could deposits, subsequently revealed by not last more than ten years, and by 1979 inspection on the ground, convinced the his health had severely deteriorated. The NIGEL Calder's unusual book provides a National Geographic Society that an ex situation was saved by the transplant of a complete chronology of the world, starting pedition to the area would be a rewarding kidney donated by his younger brother with the first microsecond some 13,500 enterprise. This expedition, organized and Phillip - this was the end of "one life", million years ago, and ending with the the title of the book , and beginning of Space Shuttle. another. It would obviously have been impossibly One of Richard's ambitions was to dull to do this only as a consecutive nar become Executive Director of Kenya's rative, and Calder has sensibly taken National Museum. But how to do it at the several different but complementary age of 23 and without the benefit of uni approaches.

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