Time, Love, Memory

English language

Published Feb. 20, 2000

ISBN:
978-0-679-76390-1
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5 stars (4 reviews)

1 edition

Memorable conga lines of flies

5 stars

A wonderful portrait both of the scientist, Seymour Benzer, and the fruit flies he studies as the time of writing. Through genomic tools he connects specific genes as being part of an organism's ability to keep an internal clock, court mates, and form memories. Some of these genes are also part of the human genome, suggesting just how far back in time these genes originated, and how widely spread are the foundations of intelligence.

Review of 'Time, Love, Memory' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

As a researcher having being working on flies for nearly a decade, I found this book is still full of useful information. The stories also have been elegantly told, which is rare in scientific field.

I just have been bothered sometimes by the lack of biological or fly genetics common sense of the author, which is inevitable for a non-fly geneticist. Also, the author is too rumbling in some chapters.

Review of 'Time, Love, Memory' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The book quotes Sydney Brenner with 'I hold the somewhat weaker view that history does exist for the young, but is divided into two epochs: the past two years, and everything that went before' and I'm somewhat guilty of that, as I've never heard of Seymour Benzer before reading this book, even though I always thought to be somewhat interested in science history.

Which having missed that out really is a shame. Benzer was a physicist-turned-molecular biologist-turned-behavioral geneticist and has ties to Feynman, Crick, Sturtevant (of fame for working with TH Morgan) and Delbrück, to just name a few. He did some groundbreaking work on bacteriophages while roaming the molecular biology field, before moving into (and somewhat founding) the field of behavioral genetics, where he worked on mating behavior, circadian rhythms and learning abilities with fruit flies.

The book does a nice job of embedding Benzer into the greater context, …

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