Experimental Man

DAVID EWING DUNCAN is the Chief Correspondent on public radio's Biotech Nation and a commentator on NPR's Morning Edition. He's a contributing editor and columnist for Conde Nast Portfolio, and a former contributing editor for Discover and Wired. He was a freelance producer and correspondent for ABC's Nightline and a correspondent with NOVA. He has written for National Geographic, Fortune, the Atlantic, Harper's, and many others. He's the author of several books, including Calendar, an international bestseller published in 19 languages. He is the Director of the Center for Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley and is a sought-after speaker. He has won numerous awards, including an AAAS Science Journalism Award.

Experimental Man Index. Introduction. A fish and mercury story. Your host. Checkup with my internist (the plan and three rules). 1. GENES. Not a genetic virgin. Predicting the future. I'm doomed. Or not. A tale of two brothers. My gene pool (mother, father, brother and daughter). Rollo the Viking and me. My dinosaur DNA. You show me yours, I'll show you mine. Genes-'r' us. Ready for prime time? 2. ENVIRONMENT. Light my fire. Three-thousand-mile trail of blood. Idyllic childhood in Kansas, except for the toxic waste dump. Hotspot on the Hudson. Whose body burden? Do my genes protect me? Immortal cells bathed in mercury. The rise of envirogenetics. 3. BRAIN. The incredible shrinking brain. Remembering the moon over the mountain, forget the blonde. A brain half my age. High anxiety and the saber-toothed editor. Does my brain believe in God? Greed, gambling, and why my brain loves Dodgeball, the movie. Building a new superbrain. Meta-neuroscience and the elusive whole. 4. BODY. Prediction: Heart attack in 2017? Raging Lipids. Bumps on my kidneys. ...oh no! Life at 122 (the gene that regulates forever). Epilogue: Eternity. Experimental Children. Acknowledgments. Notes. Glossary. Experimental Man Online. Index.