Stephen S. Hall

Snakes: you either find them endlessly fascinating or are petrified of them.

Snakes have been maligned ever since the beginning and the story of the Garden of Eden. We can understand why: even today many humans die by snakebite or constriction. They represent a significant danger in the environment.

Yet, as with all living creatures, they exist for reasons, fill ecological niches, and, as we are learning, are incredibly adaptable and interesting in their biology and behaviors.

In Slither: How show more Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World (galley received as part of early review program), Stephen Hall compellingly describes the history of herpetology, how herpetologists old and new became easily obsessed with snakes, and explores many of the aspects of snake biology which prominently feature in present research. Throughout the work he also includes stories of the “snake road,” often featuring local cultures and communities and the ways they fear, respect, and revere snakes.

In this book I learned garter snakes are actually venomous with decently potent venom; they’re just unable to envenomate humans with their bite. Considering how many garter snakes used to live in my old house in Illinois, it was still not a little unsettling, and yet the cohabitation we experienced did not lead to any real harm.

The author does well in this book at encouraging at least a respect for the compelling biology of snakes: we have already developed certain kinds of medicine on the basis of how certain forms of snake venom work, and who knows what other treatments may be made possible through similar such forms of research. Scientists have only recently really deeply explored snakes and their biology, and there’s a lot which can still be learned in this discipline. There’s much to be learned regarding snake venom, their metabolism, how they sense the world, how they reproduce, how they move, and, yes, as can be seen with pythons in Florida, how well they can adapt to different environments.

But there’s also a darker note throughout the book: everyone, from lay people to scientists, are noting how there seem to be fewer snakes around these days. And this is not even in comparison with many generations ago: it seems to be a quite recent phenomenon. Sure, many people may not feel too sad if snakes go extinct. But we do well to respect and honor snakes and their role in our ecosystems, and in general work to encourage better stewardship of the world with which we have been entrusted. show less

So, when will stem cells come into widespread medical use? If you answer twenty years from now, you'd be wrong by about 60 years--they first became widely used in the 1960's! Only they were called "bone marrow transplants." Today thousands of them are done every year.

Hall has written a dozen so excellent books on medicine, biotechnology and molecular biology, and this is one of the best. Here he recounts the development of the idea that aging in humans can be scientifically understood and show more modified. He starts off with the wonderful story of the Hayflick limit with an account of his first interview with him and brings this maverick character to life. How often are the big ideas discovered by rogues and rebels--fearless men?

He covers a very wide swath of current developments in the cutting edge of biology and medicine--telomeres, stem cells, transplants, cloning, and aging--all told in enough depth that you can't help but learn something, even if you are pretty well informed. The history, the personalities, and the ideas are all here.

One thing I appreciated is that Hall makes no pretense about being disinterested in the subject--he takes some of it personally, and is not afraid to relate what his gut is telling him. He is partisan in the best sense of the word. He unflinchingly challenges the idealistic "bioethicists" who have lately ejected such nonsense into the public space, pretending to a certainty only a bishop could appreciate.

Hall also relates in some detail the evolution of the stem cell/cloning debate that has resulted in the policy that federal money can go to research only on the 70 embryonic stem cell lines already in existence, now known to be more like 6. And none of them suitable for therapeutic for humans because they are grown on a substrate of mouse cells and their viruses. The yokels and theologians have managed to set back this important avenue for improving human health by who knows how many decades... Sad to think we'll be looking for progress to the South Koreans, who recently generated human embryonic cell lines by nuclear transfer. Americans have yet to duplicate this

The quality of Hall's prose, and the nature of the subject itself, conspire to produce a book that I found very hard to put down. A terrific read! show less

A decent entry in the pop-science canon, this book reads how you’d expect: an expanded hot take, sprinkled with some science-y surprises, with the tone set to “mildly intriguing” and the pace set at “keep it rolling.” It’s not a book that lingers in the mind, but it delivers what it’s meant to deliver.

I will say that I was one of those people who had assumed snakes were evolutionarily quite simple, and I no longer see them that way. A few of those info-nuggets have even stuck show more with me so, you know, well done. show less

Fascinating. I knew little about snakes, so I have learned a great deal. Amazing creatures, so dive in. Some of the last chapters felt a bit "puffed up", as if there was a page count minimum, but not a reason to forego the book. Learn and dispel your fears. Or at least put them in perspective.