The Decision Tree - by Thomas Goetz

The Choice is up to you....


Good health is the most important aspect of our life, but we seldom pay much attention to it till we fall sick. In this insightful book 'The Decision Tree', Thomas Goetz shows us why we should take control of our health and how this can have a significantly better outcome than just depending on our doctor. All our life, we have been taught that 'Doctor knows best' and we listen (even if we don't follow) to the doctor's advice. However Goetz show us that in this new era of Personalized Medicine, we need to take the decision making into our hands since neither the healthcare system nor the doctors are incentivized properly to focus on the preventive care that is critical.

How do we do this? That is the strategy that Goetz explains to us in this book using his 'Decision Tree' concept. The book is divided into three parts (a) Prediction & Prevention (b) Diagnosis & Detection (c) Care & Treatment. The first part focuses on how the recent advances in genomics can now start providing us the right basic data of our predispositions but still how difficult it is for us to change our habits even if we know that they are harmful. The second part concentrates on the screening and diagnosis tests - with the benefits and pitfalls and the third part targets the approaches to treatment efforts and how people are grouping together to find better ways of treating their diseases. In this time of enhanced privacy concerns I was thrilled to see web sites like www.patientslikeme.com and www.curetogether.com taking advantage of the internet to discover common solutions for those afflicted with similar diseases.

This book has made a significant change to how I view my health planning and I believe it will do the same to any reader who takes the effort to read the book. I would strongly recommend that you do.

Whole Earth Discipline - An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand

Turn the Greens Blue?

'Global warming' is a hot subject these days. For many decades the environmentalists more well known as the 'Greens' were ridiculed as 'anti progress' and leftists. Now when they have been finally proved right, the Greens seem to have lost their way. As a well known environmentalist, Stewart Brand explores where the Greens are going wrong and why they should trust Science more. Brand is keen to show us how Urbanization is Green, Nuclear Power is Green and Genetic Engineering is Green. This is the focus of the first part of the book. The book also traces the Green movement and is filled with references to various publications over the last three decades.

The second part of the book explores how we can take care of the Earth and examines possible global scale nature infrastructure initiatives that can reverse global warming.Brand is ready to acknowledge his mistakes and would like the rest of the Greens also to do so. If not he would like to see some of the Greens split away to become Green-Blues and develop the Green movement in a different direction.

The book was interesting and thought provoking. I was impressed with the coverage on the benefits of Genetically Engineered plants and the various measures that can be taken to improve the conditions on Earth. He exposes the damage caused by the fears of the traditional Greens in opposing genetic engineering. But I would have liked to see a more deeper analysis of some of the conclusions - especially the safety aspects and waste clean up of Nuclear Energy. Brand seems to rely too much of quotes and references and avoid science fundamentals in this case.

I liked the author's summary at the end:

"Ecological balance is too important for sentiment. It requires Science.
The health of natural infrastructure is too compromised for passivity. It requires Engineering.
What we call natural and what we call human are inseparable. We live one life."

How to build a Dinosaur (the science of reverse evolution) by Jack Horman

Hello - I am a T-Rex....

What happens when Paleontology converges with Molecular Biology? Advances in molecular biology now allows us to make changes to the genetic code - the 'language of life'. Paleontology gives us glimpses of extinct animals. The authors of this book challenges the reader to consider the possibility of changing the genome of an existing embryo say that of a chicken and enticing it to 'remember' its past and develop characteristics of its ancestors - such as teeth, tail etc. And since birds are descendent from Dinosaurs, theoretically you can now go back in time step by step and slowly but surely create a Dinosaur.

It is an intriguing concept and the authors do an excellent job of asking the right questions - can we do it? should we do it? what are the benefits? What are the disadvantages? The book also covers the basic science very well and in simple terms explains the principles involved.

The title of the book is slightly misleading since we are far away from actually being able to create a Dinosaur. Many challenges still remain but the possibility of being able to do this in the next 10 to 20 years is very real. More importantly the book will give the reader a better idea of the various possibilities, that a proper understanding of the genetic code will provide humanity.

Open: An autobiography by Andre Agassi

"An Outlier's life Opened'"

Andre Agassi is an outlier. His autobiography ‘Open’ appears to be a frank and honest narrative from the heart of champion. Malcolm Gladwell (author of Outliers) would be glad to read this - it substantiates a lot of what Malcolm has wrote on what creates outliers.

I don’t usually read autobiographies - so it is difficult for me to compare this with others. Nevertheless I would not hesitate to recommend this book to readers - it is inspirational and has many lessons for all professionals. What does it take to be successful and then how do you handle success? Agassi’s life is a lesson to all of us.

It is so surprising that the media initially highlighted Agassi’s confession of his ‘drug experience’ when the book was published. However, thankfully that is only a few pages and in no way is the important part of this book. Everybody makes mistakes and hopefully Andre got his ‘catharsis’ by the confession. But there are much more important insights one can learn from this book. I would invite all to read this and find out for yourselves.

The best confession that I liked is when Agassi says in the last page of the book that he ‘was late in discovering the magic of books’ and that is what he would put near the top of his list on what he would want his children to avoid. I wonder why none of the media quoted this?

Loot by Sharon Waxman - The battle over the stolen treasures of the ancient world

Looters keepers, Losers weepers?

When we look with amazement and wonder at the antiques in the Louvre, British Museum, Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, we seldom ponder on how they were collected and the stories behind the acquisitions of those pieces. Now in this detailed book ‘Loot’ , Sharon Waxman tells us the fight (both legal and political) that is going on between the countries like Egypt, Italy, Greece and Turkey from where many of the antiquities came from, and the museums where they currently reside. We get a glimpse of the life behind the museum’s staid facade, the trade in stolen antiquities and how the museums are now being forced to give back many prized pieces to the countries they were stolen from.

However, the book is not a one sided version - it also explains the great value being provided to society by these museums, not only in educating the public, protecting the antiques from destruction and vandalism, but also in research, excavations and studies that have given so much insight into many old civilizations and cultures. But times are changing and old colonies are now independent democracies who feel the need to demand back what was ‘stolen’ or removed from their temples, tombs and other archaeological sites over the last few hundred years. The challenges undergone by the four museums that I have mentioned above are covered in full detail.

Some of the important disputed antiques whose ‘stories' are covered in this book are ‘The Rosetta Stone’, ‘The bust of Nefertiti’, ‘Zodiac ceiling of Danderah’, ‘Sculpture of Ankhaf’ from Egypt, ‘The Lydian Hoard’ from Turkey, ‘The Euphronios Krater’, ‘The Elgin Marbles, from Greece, ‘The Victorious Youth’, ‘Statue of Aphrodite’, from Italy as well as many others.

The museums that seem to have been affected most seriously are the Getty museum and the Metropolitan Art, who have been forced to return many valuable antiques to the country of origin. The Louvre and the British Museum seem to be holding out better, though it remains to be seen how long they can withstand the pressure.

With a good mix of the stories behind many of the prized antiques as well as the important players in this drama such as the museum curators, collectors, dealers and the politicians, the book provides a lively narration of a subject which typically does not get much coverage. However the drawback of the book is that the narrative is often too long, points keep getting repeated and the author seems to lose focus at many places.