Review: The Society of Genes

The Society of Genes by Itai Yanai
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the intro, the authors say that while The Selfish Gene was important, it didn't answer the question of how said selfish genes interacted, and this, a more "holistic perspective" builds on that. In ten chapters, Yanai and Lercher cover topics from the last couple decades of research, starting with the mutations required for cancer, green beard genes, how different is the .5% difference between individual humans (still millions of base pairs), positive feedback loops, and endosymbiosis theory, among other things.

Aimed at a general audience with illustrated metaphors, this is a great introduction to current genetic knowledge (or a refresher if it's been a while since undergrad genetics). I still haven't read The Selfish Gene, so I can't judge how well this works as a successor in describing ideas on how genes interact and function (I assume TSG is also aimed at a general audience, but I also think it might be deeper? Won't know until I've read it).

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Review: The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation

The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation by Fred Pearce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I seem to have unintentionally gotten into a "how should humanity address current ecological concerns" kick this year, as The New Wild continues on themes previously touched on in Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things and The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. The New Wild doesn't tread the exact same paths as the other books, as Sixth Extinction depicted a rather morose view of the anthropocene and Resurrection Science examined ways we try to mitigate what we've caused. Instead, The New Wild considers the ecosystems we have now: a mix of native and non-native species in a constantly changing environment.

Fred Pearce is rather pointed about challenging the orthodoxy of typical conservation- he posits there are no 'pristine' ecosystems and what we often think of as pristine have still been shaped by humanity for thousands of years, so why try to preserve a fixed point in time when nature is constantly changing? Various examples of invasives filling in niches of native plants that were wiped out because of people are placed in context as providing habitat/food/etc. for endangered species native to the area, or how something that can be endangered in one place is considered invasive in another. Pearce bolsters his argument by pointing out how shaky some of the statistics and numbers used to vilify invasives are.

It's a persuasive argument. I'm not convinced it should be taken whole cloth (as it could easily slide to "Oh, well, nature will recover so let's go ahead and build this new farm or whatever"), but nuances are certainly needed for conservation efforts.

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Review: Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America

Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America by William Souder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A pleasure to read. Previously I was dimly aware of Audubon's background beyond the acclaimed naturalist who painted life-size birds (if you ever get to see the original size of the folios, they are *massive). Who knew that he was a bastard son of a sea captain (inb4 "Hey should this be shoved at Lin-Manuel Miranda?") and self-trained naturalist could go toe-to-toe with European zoologists and then some, yet at the same time build up his persona as a roguish American frontiersmen with embellishments and some outright zoological fabrications (the description of rattlesnakes as tree-dwellers, for example)?

I would have liked to see some of the prints referenced (especially those in the chapters' epigraphs), but there are plenty of other books for that.

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