5 stars (Readable and Thorough, An Excellent Reference) - I am a layman with a serious interest in biology. I read science news, especially in Nature and Scientific American, and I often find that I don't have enough background to understand articles at the level at which I want to understand them. I bought this book hoping to get that background, and I wasn't disappointed. For example, once the human genome was sequenced, it appeared that there were far too few genes for an organism as complex as ourselves. But investigation shows that most genes occur in segments and that the messenger RNA must be cut and spliced before the protein can be formed. Often there are two or more ways the RNA may be spliced. So that one gene can specify more than one protein. Another problem is that the genome seemed to consist mostly of sections that don't code for proteins; these were called "junk". But it turns out that some RNA sequences have catalytic and regulatory roles, roles which used to be considered the bailiwick of proteins alone. Articles about topics such as these used to confuse me thoroughly, but after reading this book I find them much clearer. This book benefits from a great many illustrations and I recommend that you go through each one as you would a worked problem in a math text. Observe how the pieces fit together, how a particular group of atoms enhances or inhibits a reaction. The practice will help you to understand other things you will read later. I called this a "reference" for good reason: I assume that I will come across many future articles which will send me back to it to fill in some background. ... Benjamin Cummings :: Science & Molecular Biology :: Science&Mathematics :: Science :: Molecular genetics :: Molecular Biology :: Life Sciences - Genetics & Genomics :: Life Sciences - :: Molecular Biology of the Gene- Fifth Edition
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