 Hachette audio presents the violinists thumb and other lost tales of love war and genius as written by our genetic code written by Sam Keen read by Henry Leiva Disclaimer the print version of the violinists thumb contains a number of extra notes on fun and unusual topics For reasons of continuity and clarity the audiobook does not include these notes But please do consult the print version if you would like to read them Life therefore may be considered a DNA chain reaction Maxim de frunk Kamenetsky unraveling DNA introduction This might as well come out upfront first paragraph This is a book about DNA about digging up stories buried in your DNA for thousands even millions of years and Using DNA to solve mysteries about human beings whose solutions once seemed lost forever And yes, I'm writing this book despite the fact that my father's name is Jean as is my mother's name Jean G E N E and Jean J E A N Jean and Jean Keen Beyond being sing-song absurd My parents names led to a lot of playground jabs over the years My every fault and foible was traced to my jeans and when I did something idiotic People smirked that my jeans made me do it that my parents passing on their jeans necessarily involved sex didn't help The taunts were doubly barbed utterly unanswerable Bottom line is I dreaded learning about DNA and genes and science classes growing up because I knew some Witticism would be coming within about two seconds of the teacher turning her back And if it wasn't coming some wiseacre was thinking it Some of that Pavlovian trepidation always stayed with me even when or especially when I began to grasp how Potent a substance DNA is I got over the jibes by high school But the word Jean still evoked a lot of simultaneous responses some agreeable some not On the one hand DNA excites me. There's no bolder topic in science than genetics No field that promises to push science forward to the same degree I don't mean just the common and commonly overblown promises of medical cures either DNA has revitalized every field in biology and remade the very study of human beings At the same time whenever someone starts digging into our basic human bio Sample complete ready to