This book is the culmination of an enormous undertaking. 9,000 addresses were selected from random geographical locations. The participants, aged 18 to 55 years, completed an hour and a half interview about their sexual practices. Anyone interested in human sexuality will want to learn about the results from this study. Although this book does not go into the depth or detail of "The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the Unites States," this book is more user-friendly. This book is a must for therapists who deal not only with sexulaity issuess but also relationship issues. Previous research has demonstrated that all couples have arguments about work, money and sex. Thus, it is essential to learn what the actual sexual practices of couples are and this book is a tool with a wealth of information.

Given the raft of weirdos who over the years have chosen Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) for their subject, it is a welcome addition to have a serious book by a real scientist who has actually excavated at the site for several years. Tiwanaku is a favorite focus for loonies ranging from the Von Daniken "extra terrestrials are responsible for all the great human achievements of the past" school to the New Age mystic Shirley Maclain's Out on a Limb [Out of your mind!] school. While not explicitly addressing the wacko theories, Kolata's book shows how, contrary to their implicit racism, the indigenous people of the Titicaca basin were more than ingenious enough to come up with ways to contruct major monuments, carve incredible fantastic stone sculptures, and make the high arid plain of the altiplano bloom with potatoes, tubers and quinoa. These people had indoor plumbing and public sewage systems 1500 years ago! The Tiwanaku is a bit simplistic and general for the Andean or archaeological specialist; it is more appropriate for the first year University student or educated layman. Nonetheless, it brings together the current general state of knowledge about this important civilization in a highly readable fashion.

As a biochemistry major I was very excited about reading this book. I expected it to have in depth details on cloning and mention true clones such as identical twins. What a disappointment. The book went on and on for numerous pages about the ethical ramifications of cloning (yes, those exact same ethical ramifications TV and newspapers dealt with ad nauseam). Which yes, are important, but not enough to drone on about especially after readers have heard them all 10 times before. I actually found myself sighing and rolling my eyes over some of the ethical stances that were mentioned because they were so silly. I continued reading the book for a while in hopes that it would get better. It didn't. I finally threw the book under my bed (the black hole of bookdom) without ever finishing it.

Clone: The Road to Dolly... is an interesting book outlining the research that contributed to the creation of the first mammalian clone and its philosophical implications.

There is much in the book to recommend it. It places the work in its correct historical context by describing the chain of discoveries, beginning with those in the early part of this century, that eventually led to Dolly.

However, the book is needlessly sensationalistic in the way it describes science and scientists, seeming to draw parallels with the worlds of power politics and showbiz. Science is really a more subdued and low-key affair - as exemplified by the very lab that created Dolly.

My major objection is that the book appears to take as its underlying assumption that the public (or a large segment) is opposed to science and treats its acheivements with profound suspicion. I agree that there exists a vocal minority that thinks this way and may have its roots in various fundamentalist movements. However, the majority of people that I have met, while frequently poorly informed, are not antagonistic to science, but rather are interested in enjoying the fruits of its labor. This may be why, as the book says, while various self-styled experts debate the ethics of cloning, infertile couples are lining up for possible medical applications. It is only when the public is either denied the benefits of science, or is not educated about what these benefits may be, that it grows resentful. This issue seems to have been overlooked. On the other hand, comparisons with the atomic bomb are abundant, though meaningless. The bomb has killed thousands and was created for that express purpose. Cloning has created very little and destroyed nothing, except a few egos.

Fortuneately, although the book begins grimly, it seems to end on a fairly optimistic note, moving away from its opening notions that cloning is an evil, dirty business.

The bottom line is that whatever else it may do, cloning does not undermine human dignity. A person's dignity arises from his or her actions, not whether they were born as a twin, testtube baby or clone. We would do well to remember that. To my mind, the most profound line in this book full of lines that compete for that honor is one attributed to a Scottish farmer who says, in some perplexity, 'I don't understand the big deal. A sheep is still a sheep.'

Looking for an accessible guide to cloning together with sex, scandal, a putative hoax, a fraud claim, counterclaims, industrial secrets and a cast of maverick scientists and myths that makes for a greatly entertaining true story ? To find a single book which has the potential to affect one's ideas and thoughts as to what it means to be human is a rarity, but some readers might be so affected by this work. Thematically weaving between the key historical developments leading to claims for the first cloning success using adult tissue and discussions of the moral ethics of whether and why such research be conducted, Kolata's account of the making of 'Dolly' the sheep reminded me of Watson's 'The Double helix'. Not only do we read here about the manipulation of genetic material outside the realms of human replication and fertility, we are continually provoked with the wider issues relating to food production processess, the social responsibilies of the research scientist, and the role of science journalism in informing public opinion.We are also exposed to the less attractive side of running the day-to-day life of the research laboratory - the struggle with grant competition; peer pressure, review and publication demands; conference attendance and institutional sponsor politics. Kolata provides all of this in a very well written and researched book including frank (and seemingly) honest biographies of the leading players in the 'road to Dolly'. The story as presented here covers a period of just over one hundred years following Weismann's discovery of the 'loss of information' with subsequent cellular differentiations of dividing tissue. Within twenty years or so the role of the cell nucleus had been determined, and by 1938, Spemann's 'Embryonic Development and Induction' proposed the very nuclear transplant experiment that was to succeed some 60 years later. The first successful accounts of this technique involved the use of the embryonic frog tissue in the 1950s by Briggs & King, but the older, more differentiated cell' nuclei proved harder to handle and maintain. In the early 1960s, Gurdon succeeds with the transfer of what were thought to be adult, fully differentiated cells taken from amphibian intestines. At about the same time as these developments were unfolding, the first symposia to address the possibility of cloning and its implications for ethics had taken place. The end of the 1960s had seen the advent of gene isolation (though curiously little is said about the discovery of DNA itself and the significance of the newly founded growth area of molecular biology) and within the next ten years we had moved from the in vitro fertilisation of mice to Louise Brown, born in 1978. That same year saw the publication of a non-fiction book claiming that the real-life 'rich, eccentric Max' has himself cloned with the assistance of a World renown scientist known by the pseudonym 'Darwin' with the assistance of a seventeen year old virgin called 'sparrow', who gives birth to a healthy baby boy. I would recommend reading Kolata for her retelling of the Rorvik (1978) story if for no other reason. The following year saw Illmensee claim to have cloned the first mice using the nucleus of embryonic stem cells and, again, we are both entertained and informed by Kolata's telling of this most remarkable tale of intrigue and collegiate suspicion of happenings in the laboratory. It was not until the 1980s` and 90s that successful sheep, cow and eventually monkey cloning was to be completed (all still using embryonic nuclear material transfer) at least suggesting that there was no in principle reason to believe adult cloning to be beyond possibility. However, very few scientists apparently held this latter belief - and these few were not encouraged to pursue their ideas. Now suitably brought up to speed with our history of embryology, experimental biology techniques and the sweat involved in conducting seemingly unglamorous basic laboratory science, we are finally introduced to Ian Wilmut, whose research group were to achieve what to many was still 'biologically impossible'. Wilmut and his colleage Campbell postulated that the problem of cloning transplants was perhaps with tranfering the nuclear DNA at such a time inappropriate to the natural activity phases of the cell cycle. Campbell determined that the so colled G0 (G-nought) phase of the cell cycle was one of synchrony and, combined with the technique of halting induced by nutritional deprivation, thought that it was during this period that cell 'reprogramming' would be more likely successful. In March, 1996 the first clones of a mammal (sheep) were born using differentiated embryonic cell nuclei, but their announcement was largely lost to the wider world outside that of a handful of agricultural scientists. However, in July of the same year, the first sheep cloned from the fully-differentiated cell nuclei of adult tissue was born to Wilmut's lab. However, the news that was to reach the world over had first to wait out a period of great secrecy and gossip-mongering. The (true) story is revealed lucidly here, and provides another reason to read Kolata's book. And yes, in this account she was named for Dolly Parton.

I first learned about the 1918 Influenza pandemic in 1998 when I read a newspaper article about the anniversary of the episode. I was fascinated that so many people could be killed by the flu! Today, we consider the flu a minor inconvenience, not a life-threatening disease. So, I was very interested to read this book. Gina Kolata is a good story teller -- she plays up the "medical thriller" aspect of the story. The story takes you from Philadelphia to Alaksa to Washington DC, and all the time, Kolata -- the journalist that she is -- makes you feel as if you are right there. I was disappointed, however, that the coverage of the actual events of 1918 was confined to the first chapter only. I had hoped to read more in-depth, personal stories about the people who were killed by the flu, and the affect that it had on those who survived. For the most part, the characterization of the flu pandmic is sweeping and general. The remainder of the book deals with the search for the virus that caused the 1918 flu, and the efforts to create a vaccine against it.

It amazed me how thoroughly the 1918 epidemic penetrated American life but how quickly it was forgotten. I first heard about it on an PBS's American Experience, and was given the book shortly thereafter as a gift.

"Flu" has all the scientific details you might expect to be included in such a study: how the disease spread, how it mutated, and how scientists went about identifying it. This is all done in a really interesting way and read like a detective story, which is what it was in fact.

More interesting was the book's treatment of the human factor in the efforts to fight the disease. "Flu" shows how political concerns, personal experience of politician and scientist alike, and even interpersonal relationships still shape the odds of finding a cure.

Overall, "Flu" is a fascinating study of a little-known episode in American history.

I could not put this book down. Gina Kolata does a fantastic job of telling the history of the flu. She presented stories within the story of the flu. One of the most fascinating parts of the book was about Johan Hultin who came to America from Sweden to attend Iowa University and how life's twists and turns brought him to a destiny of studying the flu virus.
The 1918 flu pandemic was of personal interest also, because our family history contains a victim of the 1918 flu. Kolata's book opens up a understanding of what it must have been like to have lived in that time. I would highly recommend to anyone in genealogy who has an ancestor that passed away at an early age due to this influenza.
Definiely a important history to think about for years past and years to come, especially in light of the SARS outbreak originating in the Guangdong provice in China. I was especially intrigued when I read the section about the 1968 Hong Kong flu. It too originated in the same province that supplies 80% of Hong Kong's chickens.

By Bill Marsano. This book. like an exercise session, has a hopeful start, a bang-up finish and plenty of tedium in-between. And there are two things you should know right away: 1., it's not going to give you a fitness program and 2, the only person searching fvcor fitness here is the authors. It's about the myths, misconception of business of the fitness field.

A science writer for The New York Times, she starts well by demonstrating her journalistic response to Heart Waves, a new fitness program pitched by a puiblicist. It's a proprietary regimen--a product. You have to pay to participate at specific places. Suspicious--these things come along about as often as diet plans--Kolata investigates.

And what she finds is a lot of mumbo-jumbo about heart waves and natural rhythms that is designed to fleece the public. The program's creator has had his medical license lifted in New York and New Jersey; he is married to the CEO of the for-profit organization that is the program's biggest promotor; and the study proclaiming amazing results is pronounced poppycock by professional statisticians.

She ends well, too, closing with interesting and occasionally (wryly) amusing details about the history of weight-lifting and body-building (and their great rivalry); food supplements (generally useless; unaccountably, she's not up to date on ephedra, recently implicated in some deaths), and the business aspect of fitness. For example, she sees her daughter become a certified personal trainer, in less than two weeks, simply by buying an American Council on Exercise home-study guide (based on a book only 160 pages long!) and passing a multiple-choice test (price: $200)--without ever having trained anyone in her life. Want to become a Spinning instructor? You can earn certification (about $300) in a single day!

The middle sags, badly, because Kolata is an exercise junkie. I began to suspect as much when she discussed an early aerobics program that recommended persons in "very poor" condition (unable to run a mile in 12 minutes) should START getting fit by walking one mile in 13.5 minutes every day for five days. That, Kolata says, "does not sound particularly extreme." I beg to differ.

I'm a "professional" walker--I've made numerous long-distance walks in England and Italy and published walking articles in major consumer magazines. I walk daily for transportaion in Manhattan. Family and friends generally refuse to walk with me--they can't keep up. And I'm doing only 3.5 mph; 4.5 is nearly one-third faster and a whole lot harder. I've done 4.5 on a treadmill, but only after weeks of training up, and it's exhausting. If you doubt me, head for the nearest high-school
track. It'll be 440 yards a lap, so four laps equal a mile. Take along a stop watch, water, and a friend with a cell phone that has 911 on speed-dial. Unless you're in top shape, you don't have a prayer.

In time, Kolata admits to her zealotry. She's hooked on Spinning, also a proprietary fitness product that is "taught" in "classes" by "instructors" for substantial fees. Spinning is based on the stationary exercise bike but practiced in small, dark rooms, accompanied by videos (Mount Everest is a Kolata favorite) and sometimes candles and deafening music. The basic mood is frenzy--she speaks of sessions so crazed that sweat puddled on the floor.

And once is not enough: Kolata drags us to one spinning class after another. Her writing is workmanlike at best, and she relies on the present tense, so there are no stylistic pleasures to lighten this section. She is simply fascinated with herself.

Other information from the middle section is helpful (if frustrating) and easily summarized. It's this: almost everything you have ever heard about exercise (speed training, slow training, interval training, weight-loss, body-sculpting, effects on longevity, general health and disease-resistance, nutrition, vitamins, heart rates, etc.) is false, unproven, unprovable, folklore, arbitrary or some combination thereof. Current best advice, she says, is to walk 20 minutes a day (it doesn't even have to be all at one time) five days a week (would it have been too hard to credit this? to say how fast?). That, current wisdom says, will get you in as good shape as exercise can--anything more has no real effect.

Therefore, if you're going to go the extra mile(s), Kolata says, there's only one reason to do it: enjoyment.

This is an excellent book about the science that underlies the guidelines and advice that permeate the field of physical fitness. There are several ways to judge a book and three of them that apply to this book are its readability, new information, and insight. Gina Kolata writes clearly and does an excellent job mixing history, journalism, science, and personal experience. The book provides great information about the origins of many beliefs about fitness and how they have changed over time. It also shows how ambiguous modern knowledge about fitness really is. Finally, the book provides insight into things such as why some people are exercise junkies and other quit after a couple of months, why some people experience exercise euphoria and others don't, and the simple fact that bodies respond differently to exercise. The chapter regarding the fitness industry was revealing in a manner similar to Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and the chapters regarding the "Mt. Everest spinning event" were engrossing enough to make me skip my evening run.

New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata provides an insightful look at the mythos of exercise. Ms. Kolata is a participant who enjoys working out, but a claim led her to wonder what is the supporting scientific evidence vs. the health industry distortions. Ms. Kolata includes a comparative historical perspective re exercise beliefs over the ages so that readers can see how the ancients compare with other generations to include the information age. The author shreds several of the leading accepted theories from the gospels that low-intensity exercise burns the most fat and that stretching must come before the workout to prevent pulls, etc. Adding to the account is a terse look at the promotion of food and food supplements to lose weight and increase muscle definition.

ULTIMATE FITNESS: THE QUEST FOR TRUTH ABOUT EXERCISE AND HEALTH is more than a simple expose because Gina Kolata cares deeply about her subject that comes across as genuine especially when she tells her personal anecdotals and those of her daughter. The book is easy to read, can be put down and leisurely returned to, and does not j'accuse us couch potatoes for failing to save ourselves. Instead even us out of shape, overweight, non-exercisers will find this nonfiction work pleasurable to follow as Ms. Kolata makes it clear that the benefit of exercise at least to her is not losing weight, feeling healthier and fitter, but is in the active participation of playing the game.

Harriet Klausner