spring books in clear, nontechnical language, [Hayflick’s mutant is the only clue to dementia. Many of with the first fine physical map of a gene. This book] is an excellent introduction to the them may not even have the faintest idea how turned him into the legendary ‘atom-breaker scientific and demographic literature on this it all started. Such is the fate of success: E. O. of biology’. Other scientists would have multifaceted subject.” Tom Kirkwood, Nature Wilson, cited by Jonathan Weiner, com- probably capitalized on the success past 373, 484–485 (1995). mented: “progress in a scientific discipline retirement well into afterlife. Not Benzer. A can be measured by how quickly its founders loner by nature (a mutant?), Benzer consis- are forgotten.” Time, Love, and Memory may tently shies away from the crowds, especially hence be prescribed as an anti-amnesic when they attempt to join him. He is a scout, Lord of potion to generations of neuroscientists. not a general, an obsessive wanderer into Weiner’s book is about Benzer and his uncharted terrain. the flies quest for the origins of behaviour; it is also Indeed, for a while he drifted into the Time, Love, and Memory: A Great about a fascinating chapter in the history of more tranquil waters of RNA research. Del- Biologist and His Quest for the science that, because the investigator and his brück, who started getting reprints, was Origins of Behavior organism played it low-key, was protected quick to react: “Please ask Seymour,” he by Jonathan Weiner from attention for far too long — including wrote to Benzer’s first wife, Dotty, “to stop Alfred A. Knopf: 1999. 290 pp. $27 probably the attention of the jury in writing so many papers… If he must contin- Yadin Dudai Stockholm. ue, tell him to do what Ernst Mayer asked his Benzer’s lab at its most intensive period mother to do in her long daily letters, namely, William of Occam preached that “entities was off-off-Broadway, but it is there that a underline what is important.” Benzer should not be multiplied beyond necessity”, dominant scientific culture was founded. learned a lesson that should be included in but did not forget to add: “there are many Time, Love, and Memory navigates us the curriculum of every biology programme: things that God does with more that he could through Benzer’s career with great detail, ‘beware of falling into the biochemical drain’. do with fewer.” The interplay between bold encompassing both scientific and personal He traded phage for fruitflies. The rest is and cautious Occamism is the secret of suc- life. We learn about the early days in physics history. In 1967 he published his first neuro- cessful science. This book is about a scientist (Benzer was among the discoverers of tran- genetic paper: “Behavioural mutants of who for the past six decades has navigated his sistor technology); about the fascination Drosophila isolated by countercurrent distri- way in a marvellously idiosyncratic style on with Erwin Schrödinger’s What is Life?; and bution”. It is the epitome of an ingeniously the edge of Occam’s razor, and swept biology, about the influence of another physicist, simple approach to an extremely complex once and again, into new territories. Max Delbrück, who started modern molec- problem. The basic idea behind it all is: treat In the 1950s, in his adventures into the ular biology by focusing on the tiny viruses flies as atoms of behaviour. Induce single genetics of a virus, Seymour Benzer tore a — bacteriophage — as atoms of inheritance. gene mutations. Devise a simple behavioural window to the microcosm of the gene. In the Benzer was drafted into the reductionist assay. Isolate mutants that flunk in the test. late 1960s, toying with fruitflies in test-tubes, revolution. After years of almost manic You now have an entry point into the dissec- he altered neurobiology. Hundreds of hectic research, he was able to present the world tion of behaviour. investigators at this very moment run knock- Over the years, hundreds of mutants were out mice in watermazes, slice the brains of identified. Weiner concentrates on three transgenics or compose a paper to classes: clockmutants, which disrupt biologi- convince the world that their cal rhythms; love mutants, which disrupt courtship; and memory mutants. Nowadays, Dance at sea mainstream neuroscience mutates mice. Because scientists hate to learn from experi- Many seahorses form faithful long- ence, in its infancy mouse neurogenetics fell term pair bonds which are into some of the pitfalls that Drosophila neu- reinforced by greeting rituals. rogenetics escaped from long ago, such as The male and female may swim artefacts caused by genetic background, towards each other and dance pleiotropism and hidden developmental together before changing colour and lesions. mating. The female plants sticky Weiner’s book is well written and fun to strings of eggs in the male’s read, although the question arises, who is the pouch, and he broods the embryos audience? This is scientific reportage and as for up to six weeks before going into such should not be expected to provide in- labour to produce fully independent depth analysis of tenets and conclusions. young. It is no wonder that these Therefore, those who wish to find a critical bizarre creatures have fascinated people assessment of neurogenetics should look since at least the time of the ancient elsewhere. Greeks. The first guidebook to the world’s Many questions do deserve serious con- seahorses does justice to their beauty and sideration. For example, what is the price of extraordinary biology, while being a user- over-simplification? And what do genes tell friendly identification handbook and us about behaviour? Consider, for example, offering practical advice on the urgent the remarkable memory mutants. Those iso- need for conservation. Seahorses: An lated so far affect the nuts-and-bolts of cellu- Identification Guide to the World’s lar plasticity. They are therefore ‘plasticity Species and their Conservation is by Sara mutants’. Memories are experience-depen- A. Lourie, Amanda C. J. Vincent and Heather J. Hall dent internal representations whose analysis (publisher, Project Seahorse, £19.95, $32.95; distributed by must involve circuit and system levels. The NHBS; e-mail: [email protected]). expectation that neurogenetics per se would explain ‘memory’ thus neglects levels of

NATURE | VOL 398 | 29 APRIL 1999 | www.nature.com © 1999 Macmillan Magazines Ltd 773 spring books complexity. With time, Benzer himself real- ized that Drosophila are not behavioural atoms but rather intricate individuals. He abandoned behavioural for developmental analysis. No doubt, Weiner was captivated by the eccentric style of Benzerism, and this encouraged him to recite scores of amusing anecdotes. Whether all appeal to the general public, or only to a small cult, is a different question. Another caveat is also appropriate: stu- dents who read the book should not expect mainstream science to follow Benzer’s model. Most laboratory work is much more boring than the hunt for bizarre mutants in the forefront of science. Most mentors are much less imaginative, daring and permis- sive than Benzer. And, unfortunately, the days are long gone when an enthusiastic investigator shared plans without fear, and mutants without a lawyer. This was before business killed fair play. Tracing the development of lines As for Benzer himself — at the age of 77 he has just discovered a new mutant, The artistic development of talented and less Development in Children: Comparative Methuselah, that refuses to age. talented children was compared over a ten-year Studies of Talent (Cambridge University Yadin Dudai is at the Weizmann Institute of period by the developmental psychologist Press, £40, $59.95). Milbrath describes Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. Constance Milbrath. She assessed the ages of the development of artistic talent as development of different elements of drawing, being dependent on both figurative and including form, spatial relationships and cognitive abilities. Here, a talented composition. The study has been written up in 11-year-old has drawn the back views of Hitting a technical book, Patterns of Artistic two people and a dog. the target erudite book, with appeal to readers across a even the simplest antibacterial agents to The Elusive Magic Bullet wide spectrum of backgrounds. ensure that we don’t succumb to a brief by John Mann His new book continues and expands on encounter with pathogens in our everyday Oxford University Press: 1999. 202 pp. this theme and approach. Its focus is the dis- life. Average life expectancy was only about £18.99, $29.95 covery of twentieth-century medicines for 45 years at the turn of this century, when Stephen Neidle the treatment of bacterial and viral diseases Alexander Fleming started as a medical stu- and cancer, and their historical context. Its dent. One child in six did not survive beyond The use of medicines to combat disease style is a beguiling blend of science and his- five years. Mann has provided a vivid almost certainly predates recorded human torical detail, liberally spiced with anecdotes account of the devastating impact that bacte- history. One can imagine our prehistoric and accounts of the wider impact of these rial diseases had on the populace, right up to ancestors, during the course of foraging for discoveries. the Second World War, and the dramatic food, finding that whereas some plants and The “magic bullet” concept originated effects of the widespread availability of fruits were harmful, others could have bene- with Paul Ehrlich. Mann pays fitting tribute antibiotics such as penicillin and strepto- ficial effects. The Chinese developed particu- to Ehrlich as the true father of modern mycin. Some topics, such as the discovery of lar expertise with herbal remedies, a tradi- approaches to drug discovery, since he also penicillin and its subsequent development tion that is at least 5,000 years old and still effectively devised the concepts of therapeu- into a clinically available drug, are rightly thrives today. tic index, chemoreceptors and combination given extensive coverage. The problems of The science of drug discovery has its ori- therapy. But it is the idea that there exist per- drug resistance and superbugs are also dis- gins in this tradition. Many subsequent cul- fectly specific drugs to combat human dis- cussed in brief, but adequate, illustrated tures also contributed, with primitive phar- ease that grabs the public imagination. One descriptions of antibiotics’ modes of action macy arising from the ancient Greeks, and real strength of this book is Mann’s critical and the molecular basis of resistance. notably from the Arabic world. The Dark examination of this idea, especially in the Surprisingly, in a book written by a Ages onwards saw these elements intertwin- context of anti-cancer therapies, where pub- chemist, there is not a single chemical struc- ing with the pseudo-science of alchemy, a lic demand for magic bullets is a potent force. ture to be found, even though there are combination that dominated materia med- The survey of biological approaches to numerous descriptions of them and their ica until the onset of modern science at the cancer therapy succinctly covers such topics significant features. Perhaps the publishers end of the eighteenth century. All this and as interleukins, Ras farnesyltransferase felt that the inclusion of chemical formulae more was the subject of John Mann’s earlier inhibitors, angiogenesis and antibody- would intimidate potential purchasers. book, Murder, Magic and Medicine, which directed enzyme prodrug therapy. As Mann Following the Second World War, the focused on the use of natural products points out, this last approach probably search for further chemotherapeutic agents through the ages, for both base and noble comes closest to Ehrlich’s original concept, with selective activity against particular purposes. Mann, a distinguished natural even though it still awaits full verification in organisms became the mainstay of much of product chemist himself, succeeded in the the clinic. the pharmaceutical industry. Many compa- difficult task of writing an entertaining yet It is difficult to envisage a world without nies were effectively vast palaces of organic

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