Review: She Has Her Mother's Laugh: What Heredity Is, Is Not, and May Become

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: What Heredity Is, Is Not, and May Become by Carl Zimmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

She Has Her Mother's Laugh by Carl Zimmer is not a quick read, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't read it if you have an interest in genes, genetics, heredity, or genealogy.  In fact, if you have an interest in any of those things, I highly recommend reading this book.  Are there a lot of scientific terms and concepts?  Yes (but come on, how could there not be?)  Zimmer breaks those concepts down using interesting examples so that the book is accessible to the general reader.  

This book takes you beyond what you learned in high school biology.  Some of the things I learned:  Lactose intolerance is more common than tolerance.  Thank goodness I got the right gene for that!  A woman can give birth to a child, with a court-appointed witness, and still have a DNA test show she isn't the mother.  WHAT?  Also, pregnant women will still carry cells and DNA from their child after giving birth.  I took that as a cautionary tale to pick your baby daddy wisely.  Even more mind-blowing....genetic chimeras.  I'm not even going to try to explain it although if you have a calico cat congratulations.  But there are also human chimeras.  Oooo, you'll have to read the book. 

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