The Molecular Biology of Development

The sumptuous feast of modern biology provides a banquet so vast that it can easily give mental indigestion to the hungry and inquiring mind. To aid digestion, to stir the flow of juices, and to promote calm reflection, a small glass of distilled liqueur is needed: spirituous, laced with the aromatics of learning, and sweetened a little with the sugar of wit. This small book by Professor Bonner is just what the doctor ordered. In 1963-1964 James Bonner, Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, served as Eastman Visiting Professor at Oxford University. On that unhurried scene Bonner wrote his short book on an important theme central to all biology: how does it come about that from the fertilized ovum the fully developed organism, whether pea or tiger, rose or man, comes into being? Theory says, and it can be proved, that apart from the products of meiosis,