Natural Obsessions
Striving to Unlock the Deepest Secrets of the Cancer Cell
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Narrated by:
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Katie Schorr
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By:
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Natalie Angier
About this listen
As dramatic as The Double Helix and as absorbing as The Soul of a New Machine, Natural Obsessions explores the advanced reaches of molecular biology, the nature of the human cell, and the genes that control cancer. It unforgettably portrays some of the best young scientists in the world, the rewards and discouragements of scientific research, and the very process of scientific inquiry.
©1988 Natalie Angier. Introduction © 1999 by Natalie Angier (P)2023 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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Excellent science tale
- By Neuron on 01-19-15
By: Svante Pääbo
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Time, Love, Memory
- A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior
- By: Jonathan Weiner
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Jonathan Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Beak of the Finch, brings his brilliant reporting skills to the story of Seymour Benzer, the Brooklyn-born maverick scientist whose study of genetics and experiments with fruit fly genes has helped revolutionize or knowledge of the connections between DNA and behavior both animal and human.
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This is a profound science book
- By Timothy A. Smith on 05-12-10
By: Jonathan Weiner
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The Cancer Chronicles
- Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery
- By: George Johnson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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When the woman he loved was diagnosed with a metastatic cancer, science writer George Johnson embarked on a journey to learn everything he could about the disease and the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and combating it. What he discovered is a revolution under way - an explosion of new ideas about what cancer really is and where it comes from. In a provocative and intellectually vibrant exploration, he takes us on an adventure through the history and recent advances of cancer research that will challenge everything you thought you knew about the disease.
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A quick read - hard to put down
- By Digital Dilema on 09-06-13
By: George Johnson
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The Gene
- An Intimate History
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
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It's a Wonderful Book
- By JKC on 06-02-16
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A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- By: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
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In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
- By Philomath on 06-17-17
By: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
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The Exceptions
- Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science
- By: Kate Zernike
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1963, a female student was attending a lecture given by Nobel Prize winner James Watson, then tenured at Harvard. At nineteen, she was struggling to define her future. She had given herself just ten years to fulfill her professional ambitions before starting the family she was expected to have. For women at that time, a future on the usual path of academic science was unimaginable—but during that lecture, young Nancy Hopkins fell in love with the promise of genetics. Confidently believing science to be a pure meritocracy, she embarked on a career.
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Unbelievable and deeply inspiring.
- By Lilit Garibyan on 06-05-23
By: Kate Zernike
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At the Edge of Uncertainty
- 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The atom, the big bang, DNA, natural selection - all are ideas that have revolutionized science; and all were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped in recent years, and in At the Edge of Uncertainty, best-selling author Michael Brooks investigates the new wave of radical insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery.
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All smoke, no fire
- By Kenton on 07-25-15
By: Michael Brooks
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Vagina Obscura
- An Anatomical Voyage
- By: Rachel E. Gross
- Narrated by: Siho Ellsmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means “parts for which you should be ashamed”. Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named for a man. Named, claimed, and shamed: Welcome to the story of the female body, as penned by men. Today, a new generation of (mostly) women scientists is finally redrawing the map. With modern tools and fresh perspectives, they’re looking at the organs traditionally bound up in reproduction—the uterus, ovaries, vagina—and seeing within them a new biology of change and resilience.
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poor narration
- By Jane on 08-23-22
By: Rachel E. Gross
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Hood
- Trailblazer of the Genomics Age
- By: Luke Timmerman, David Baltimore
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Lee Hood did that rarest of things. He enabled scientists to see things they couldn't see before and do things they hadn't dreamed of doing. Scientists can now sequence complete human genomes in a day, setting in motion a revolution that is personalizing medicine. Hood, a son of the American West, was an unlikely candidate to transform biology. But with ferocious drive, he led a team at Caltech that developed the automated DNA sequencer, the tool that paved the way for the Human Genome Project.
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A Revealing Biography
- By Jean on 07-27-17
By: Luke Timmerman, and others
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The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
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Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
What listeners say about Natural Obsessions
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- Natalie
- 04-02-24
Behind the curtain of scientific research
The tale of an intensely competitive race to understand how cancer starts—told by a brilliantly observant writer who spent almost two years in key laboratories documenting not just the step by step scientific advances and setbacks but, most compellingly, the personal lives of the scientists themselves as they struggled to maintain momentum in the face of one of nature’s most difficult and deadly mysteries. I learned a ton of biology but also a lot about human nature and what it takes to be a scientist.
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