Just as CD players, personal computers, and HDTVs were prohibitively expensive when they were first released, so too was the cost of sequencing the entire genome of an individual. In 2003 that feat was accomplished for the staggering amount of $437,000,000 after 13 years of work. Today, CD players are ubiquitous and cheap; HDTVs are steadily entering the realm of affordability; and so, too, has the cost of sequencing a genome fallen precipitously. It will still set you back $1,000,000 and two months of time, but that is a tremendous savings over just five years ago.

MIT's Kresge Auditorium, site of the conference

No big announcements or publicity stunts at the first day of EmTech, which is what Technology Reviews Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT is now being called. Thats certainly not to say nothing happened.

The ability to spoon down ice cream or chug a milkshake might not seem like an evolutionary advantage in our weight-conscious society. But scientists say that 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, around the time dairy farming began in Northern Europe, natural selection encouraged the spread of a genetic mutation that enabled adults to digest the sugars in milk. Those with the new gene-lactase-had a nutritional advantage over those who lacked it, so they proliferated, along with the mutation.

When I first learned about the structure of DNA in an undergraduate genetics class, my instructor-a British scientist and feminist-hammered one point into our heads: James Watson and Francis Crick did not discover the famous double helix alone. The x-ray photograph that led to their breakthrough came from the lab of a little known King's College scientist named Rosalind Franklin. No one gave her credit for her work, my instructor said, so Franklin died in scientific obscurity.

The Human Genome Project was launched in the mid-1980s, and with it came a new era of science: One fiercely divided between those fighting for patents and profits, and those fighting for free exchange of information. In her new book, The Gene Masters, Ingrid Wickelgren tells the lively story of the race to sequence and control the human genome. In a style that's often elegant and exciting, she chronicles one of the most important scientific ventures in recent history with the right mix of action, drama, and good hard science.