Biologists P. B. and J. S. Medawar take on a challenging task: introducing readers to the central problems of life science and showing their profound relevance to our daily lives. They do so with verve, correcting from essay to essay our common misconceptions about the nature of things. For one, they write, "It is a popular fallacy that chewing gum regains its flavor if removed from the mouth and parked, say, under a chair. What is regained is not the flavor but the ability to taste the flavor as sensory adaptation wears off." You'll learn a great deal about such adaptations, to say nothing of recombinant DNA research, biogenetics, and eugenics, oncology, transplantation, environmental change, and animal rights, among dozens of other topics.