Gene machine

This exciting story about the race to understand the molecular machine that transforms genes into flesh and blood can be described as an exceptional and wonderful story because of the honest ideas it presents about how science is truly practiced, by humans with all their talents and flaws. Venkatesh Ramakrishnan — the outsider to this race — offers us the perspective of a knowledgeable scientist who has followed the decades-long pursuit to map the million atoms that make up that machine in order to understand the fundamentals of life, pave the way for producing new antibiotics, and share the glory of the Nobel Prize.