{"product_id":"multiplicity","title":"Multiplicity","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe awe-inspiring, little-known story of Nobel laureate Frances Arnold’s discovery of directed enzyme evolution—and how it was sparked by reading Jorge Luis Borges.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1976, a young engineering student   from Princeton, Frances Arnold, happened upon Jorge Luis Borges’s short story   “The Library of Babel” while in Madrid.    The tale recounts a vast honeycomb of a library that contains all the   answers to the mysteries of humanity. Little did Arnold know that the story   would change the course of her life—and the course of science.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eMultiplicity\u003c\/i\u003e, Telmo Pievani explores her journey and the significance—and   scientific potential—of Borges’s legendary library and others like it. The   famous evolutionist John Maynard Smith, for instance, had fantasized about   the existence of a similar enormous library full of proteins rather than   books. And in 1995 the philosopher of mind Daniel Dennett would devise a   library no less confounding: one that collects all possible genomes, or all   possible combinations of the nucleotide bases of DNA. Why? Because by   comparing all the proteins, genomes, and plants and animals that exist and   have existed throughout evolution, what is finally revealed is possibility—what   \u003ci\u003edoesn’t\u003c\/i\u003e exist but \u003ci\u003ecould\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Arnold, the concept of such a library ultimately led to the discovery of   the directed evolution of enzymes: a way of using nature’s own method to   produce new and better enzymes. The revolutionary idea transformed protein   chemistry and biotechnology and earned her the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in   2018. With literary echoes ranging from Borges to Italo Calvino, this slim   book tells her brilliant story.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499205206389,"sku":"9780262054638","price":26.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780262054638.jpg?v=1786694522","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/multiplicity","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}