Blueprints

The chapters trace the people who worked out how traits pass from one generation to the next. They open with Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel, then follow Hugo de Vries, Friedrich Miescher, George Beadle, Edward L. Tatum, Oswald Avery, James Watson and Francis Crick, along with others.

The chapter list also includes Stanley L. Miller, Manfred Eigen and Carl L. Woese, so the story extends beyond the discovery of genetic material into questions about the origins of life and the wider tree of living things.