Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Eccentric Choices: A Fictionalized Account of Botanical Pioneers

Eccentric Choices: A Fictionalized Account of Botanical Pioneers

Clapham, David

Paperback

Historical FictionLiterary Fiction

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1663265216
ISBN13: 9781663265210
Publisher: iUniverse
Pages: 306
Weight: 0.78
Height: 0.69 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

How is life in a lab where people in the early twentieth century are making hugely significant biological discoveries?

This fictionalized account opens in 1922 with the fourteen-year-old Len La Cour arriving at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, located in an outer London suburb. The institution is directed by Dr Bateson, a pioneer plant geneticist. He appoints Len as technician because he is the only candidate who can spell microscope. Many of the staff are women, owing to the shortage of male scientists following the Great War, and they create a 'domesticated' working atmosphere, encouraging each other to follow up on their own ideas rather than those passed down from above. Dr Bateson's secretary, librarian, and researcher, Caroline Pellew, takes care of Len and helps him engage with other staff, including Cyril Darlington, who makes outstanding discoveries about chromosomes; J. B. S. Haldane, an eminent evolutionist; and the congenitally deaf and dumb Herbert Osterstock, a plant illustrator. Darlington and Haldane both require scientific enemies as work stimuli. A member of the governing body, A. G. Tansley, an ecological pioneer, introduces Freudian psychology to Britain ahead of the medicals. Rose Scott-Moncrieff, working with Haldane, shows that genes determine enzyme activity.

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Clapham, David

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Historical Fiction

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