The American public, government, and the news media continually grapple with myriad policy issues related to science and technology, including global warming, energy, stem-cell research, health care, childhood autism, food safety, and genetics, to name a few. Journalists have typically bridged the gap between scientists and the public, but the times now call for more engagement from the experts.

What woman hasn't said to her husband: "You should just feel the pain of giving birth!" In this book, Turner describes how the male seahorse's brood pouch bulges like a balloon: "It puffs in and out, in and out, like the cheeks of a trumpet player. The seahorse pumps with his tail, bending and folding like a jackknife, working hard to give birth ... The mother seahorse waits nearby. She does nothing to help the father or the babies." The book does have beautiful pictures of sea horses and their neighbors throughout.

Broadly speaking, this book is about understanding the universe through geometry — an approach that was embraced by the ancient Greek mathematicians, as well as by Albert Einstein in crafting his general theory of relativity. More specifically, this is the story of how an esoteric bit of geometry found its way into the center of string theory, where it now offers a startling new picture of the universe, which, if true, would be even more startling.

This is the story of the Human Genome Project from its origins, through the race to order the three billion subunits of DNA, to the surprises emerging as scientists seek to exploit the molecule of heredity. Based on years of original interviews and reporting in the inner circles of biological science, "Drawing the Map of Life" is the first account to deal in depth with the intellectual roots of the project, the motivations that drove it, and the hype that often masked genuine triumphs.