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Title:
Seeds of life : from Aristotle to Da Vinci, from shark's teeth to frog's pants, the long and strange quest to discover where babies come from / Edward Dolnick.
Author:
Dolnick, Edward, 1952- author.
Publication Information:
New York : Basic Books, [2017]
Call Number:
QP251 .D59 2017
Abstract:
"Why cracking the code of human conception took centuries of wild theories, misogynist blunders, and ludicrous mistakes. Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from. Taking a page from investigative thrillers, acclaimed science writer Edward Dolnick looks to these early scientists as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not 'failed' male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs. A witty and rousing history of science, The Seeds of Life presents our greatest scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices-to uncover how and where we come from"-- Provided by publisher.
ISBN:
9780465082957
Physical Description:
ix, 309 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Contents:
Prologue: England in the early 1630s -- Part one: Peering into the body. Onward to glory ; Hidden in deep night ; Swallowing stones and drinking dew ; Unmoored in time ; "Double, double toil and trouble" ; Door A or door B? -- Part two: The search for the egg. Missing: one universe (reward to finder) ; Sharks' teeth and cows' eggs ; The egg, at last ; A world in a drop of water ; "Animals of the semen" -- Part three: Russian dolls. Dolls within dolls ; The message in God's fine print ; Sea of troubles ; The rabbit woman of Godliman ; "All in pieces, all coherence gone" ; The cathedral that built itself ; A vase in silhouette -- Part four: The clockwork topples and a new theory rises. Frogs in silk pants ; A drop of venom ; The craze of the century ; "I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open" ; The nose of the Sphinx ; "The game is afoot" ; Caught!
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