The Seeds of Life
Book description
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…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Seeds of Life as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Here's a simple question: when did people learn exactly where babies come from?
As a historian and father of three, I'm
embarrassed to say it never occurred to me to ask, despite all the times I've
spent tracing the lives of people in the past and all the pre-natal visits I
joined my wife for. The answer is it was shockingly recent.
Until the late nineteenth century, the only certainties were that sex sometimes led to pregnancy, that women had a monthly cycle that was somehow involved, and that men contributed a fluid "seed."
Everyone knows that ultrasounds are a…
If you love The Seeds of Life...
From One Cell
Everybody knows that all animals—bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and people—start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?
FROM ONE CELL is a dive…
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