N.luchnik why i'm like dad

N.LUCHNIK

Why I'm Like Dad

Mir Publishers
MOSCOW

ABOUT THE B O O K Why do cats give birth to kittens, lions to lion-cubs, and rabbits to baby rabbits? Why do human children, too, not only outwardly look like their parents, but also resemble them in character and disposition? Why are twins as like as two peas or quite different? Why are some babies born monsters? Can man remake animals and plants to order? Questions like those are the field of this book. It describes the quests that led to major discoveries in genetics, and the obstacles encountered by researches, and tells about the scientists who study heredity, and how to change it. The author, a prominent biologist himself, takes the reader to research laboratories, farm fields, and hospitals, opening up before him the whole broad field of modern genetics. Why I'm Like Dad received the award of the USSR Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (Znaniye) for the best popular science writing in 1967.

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Luchnik

Why I'm Like Dad
Translated from by Yuri Shirokov the Russian

Translation by C. H.

Edited

Creighton

Mir Publishers

Moscow

First published 1971 Second edition 1978

© E n g l i s h translation, Mir Publishers, 1978 II a nmMiiii'KO \t n.v,n:e

Contents

PROLOGUE

7
7

The Professor v the Canon

POSTHUMOUS FAME

13

The Great Mystery 13 Vesicles and Cells 15 The Academy Sponsors a Contest 19 Academies and Science 24 Johann Becomes Gregor 27 Laws of Nature 31 The Game of Dice 35 A Mad Hypothesis 39 The Abbot of St. Thomas' Monastery 44 Sixteen Years On 48

FLIES AND ELEPHANTS

52
55

Like in a Film 52 The Dance of the Chromosomes The Halving Process 57 Hypothesis Becomes Theory 59 The Vinegar Fly (52 The Map of Heredity GC. Show Me a Gene 70 How Does It Happen? 77

THE LAWS OF VARIETY

81

The Story of a Suicide 81 An