Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American Jones and Bainbridge arrive in different ways at the same conclusion: women are the more resilient sex. Jones, professor of genetics at University College London, puts it bluntly: "[M]ales are wilting away.... From sperm count to social status, and from fertilization to death, as civilization advances those who bear Y chromosomes are in relative decline." Bainbridge, lecturer in comparative anatomy and physiology at the Royal Veterinary College in London, focuses more on the biology of sex differences. "Almost every woman is, inside and out, a patchwork of two different cells--some using one X chromosome, and some the other.... What more all-encompassing way could one want for women to be more complex than men?" Consequently, they are less vulnerable to such sex-linked diseases as hemophilia, muscular dystrophy and color blindness. (131)
Editors of Scientific American
From Booklist To appreciate the genetic lottery that divides us into boys and girls, one has a reliable odds-maker in Bainbridge, author of Making Babies: The Science of Pregnancy (2001). Bainbridge summarizes our knowledge of the genetic information that determines one's sex by recounting the ancients' speculations about the genesis of gender, following with modern biologists' discovery of the X and Y chromosomes about a century ago, and of the sex-determining gene Sry in the 1990s. In a discussion rich with history, evolution, and philosophy, Bainbridge points out the dramatic effect that gender selection has on people's lives: it "consigns many to a life of disease, disrupts the everyday running of our body, and even forces women to live a bizarrely double life." He discusses sex-linked diseases, specifically the hemophilia afflicting male rulers of Europe; the complicated nature of the sex-determination process, which is much more fragile than previously realized; and the implications of allowing couples to control the sex of their children. A fascinating, often humorous analysis of the science of sexuality. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description A tiny scrap of genetic information determines our sex; it also consigns many of us to a life of disease, directs or disrupts the everyday working of our bodies, and forces women to live as genetic chimeras. The culprit--so necessary and yet the source of such upheaval--is the X chromosome, and this is its story. An enlightening and entertaining tour of the cultural and natural history of this intriguing member of the genome, The X in Sex traces the journey toward our current understanding of the nature of X. From its chance discovery in the nineteenth century to the promise and implications of ongoing research, David Bainbridge shows how the X evolved and where it and its counterpart Y are going, how it helps assign developing human babies their sex--and maybe even their sexuality--and how it affects our lives in infinitely complex and subtle ways. X offers cures for disease, challenges our cultural, ethical, and scientific assumptions about maleness and femalenes s, and has even reshaped our views of human evolution and human nature.
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