Before the hydrogen bomb indelibly associated radioactivity with death, many chemists, physicians, botanists, and geneticists believed that radium might hold the secret to life. Physicists and chemists early on described the wondrous new element in lifelike terms such as "decay" and "half-life," and made frequent references to the "natural selection" and "evolution" of the elements. Meanwhile, biologists of the period used radium in experiments aimed at elucidating some of the most basic phenomena of life, including metabolism and mutation.
From the creation of half-living microbes in the test tube to charting the earliest histories of genetic engineering, Radium and the Secret of Life highlights previously unknown interconnections between the history of the early radioactive sciences and the sciences of heredity. Equating the transmutation of radium with the biological transmutation of living species, biologists saw in metabolism and mutation properties that reminded them of the new element. These initially provocative metaphoric links between radium and life proved remarkably productive and ultimately led to key biological insights into the origin of life, the nature of heredity, and the structure of the gene. Radium and the Secret of Life recovers a forgotten history of the connections between radioactivity and the life sciences that existed long before the dawn of molecular biology.
Before the hydrogen bomb indelibly associated radioactivity with death, many chemists, physicians, botanists, and geneticists believed that radium might hold the secret to life. Physicists and chemists early on described the wondrous new element in lifelike terms such as "decay" and "half-life," and made frequent references to the "natural selection" and "evolution" of the elements. Meanwhile, biologists of the period used radium in experiments aimed at elucidating some of the most basic phenomena of life, including metabolism and mutation.
From the creation of half-living microbes in the test tube to charting the earliest histories of genetic engineering, Radium and the Secret of Life highlights previously unknown interconnections between the history of the early radioactive sciences and the sciences of heredity. Equating the transmutation of radium with the biological transmutation of living species, biologists saw in metabolism and mutation properties that reminded them of the new element. These initially provocative metaphoric links between radium and life proved remarkably productive and ultimately led to key biological insights into the origin of life, the nature of heredity, and the structure of the gene. Radium and the Secret of Life recovers a forgotten history of the connections between radioactivity and the life sciences that existed long before the dawn of molecular biology.
Luis A. Campos is associate professor of the history of science at the University of New Mexico.
"Radium and the Secret of Life probes the experimental and
metaphorical connections between transmutation and mutation. As
that coupling makes clear, it was a book waiting to be written.
Campos provides a deeply researched, engagingly written, and
provocatively argued history of this potent conjunction, and how it
disintegrated so fully as to be nearly forgotten."--Angela Creager,
author of Life Atomic
"Radium and the Secret of Life is as much a history of ideas as it
is a history of particular investigators and their work, and Campos
weaves together these two threads in a way that is both convincing
and engaging. This approach situates Radium and the Secret of Life
amid a larger discussion of ionizing radiation that has recently
flourished in the history of science, technology, and medicine,
including Angela Creager's Life Atomic, Matthew Lavine's The First
Atomic Age, and Martin V. Melosi's Atomic Age America. A common
challenge faced by all of these historians, and well-handled by
Campos in the first chapter of Radium and the Secret of Life, is to
help readers understand how people in the past thought about a
force that is powerful, yet largely imperceptible."-- "Journal of
the History of Medicine"
"In revealing previously unknown connections between the sciences
of radioactivity and heredity, Radium and the Secret of Life
demonstrates the remarkable productivity of metaphor in generating
new understandings and approaches between disciplines, and invites
us to reconsider our understanding of what it means to be alive."--
"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences"
"Radium and the Secret of Life uncovers the impact of radium in yet
another realm, showing the transformative presence of radium in the
history of biology and, in particular, in the early history of
genetics."-- "Distillations"
"Campos' interest is firmly in intellectual history, and the way
ideas spread between disciplines, laboratories, and the past and
present. By focusing on a particular element, Campos convincingly
puts what may traditionally be considered an object of the physical
sciences at the center of a history of biology. Therefore, while
historians of twentieth century biology are Campos' main audience,
the book will be of interest to those with an interest in the
history of physics, radioactivity, and inquiries into the origins
of life. And while Campos does not engage directly with emerging
scholarship on 'new materialism', Radium and the Secret of Life
implicitly demonstrates its relevance to historians of life
sciences. . . . In revealing previously unknown connections between
the sciences of radioactivity and heredity, Radium and the Secret
of Life demonstrates the remarkable productivity of metaphor in
generating new understandings and approaches between disciplines,
and invites us to reconsider our understanding of what it means to
be alive."-- "History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences"
"In his meticulously researched Radium and the Secret of Life,
Campos recounts the often-giddy response to this newfound
nightlight on the periodic table. Radium's novel properties, Campos
shows, were a surprising source of scientific energy and
experimentation. Biologists, for example, constructed metaphors
that likened radium and life that fueled new findings about
genetics, heredity, and evolution. Ultimately, however, the toll
the element took on radiation researchers (like Marie Curie) and
women who painting radium numbers on watch dials provided a darker
counterpoint to a time before the hydrogen bomb would equate radium
not with life but with death."-- "Colloquy"
"Working within the metaphor that radium's role in biology
underwent a series of transmutations akin to a radioactive decay
chain, Campos uses four case studies to illustrate how radium
served as a vitalizing agent, a growth stimulant, a mutagen, and,
finally, a radiobiological tool before being eclipsed by other
techniques. Radium and the Secret of Life is engagingly written and
well referenced and contains appropriate illustrations."-- "Isis"
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