Awards: AAAS Kavli Award

Your DNA is not a blueprint. Day by day, week by week, your genes are in a conversation with your surroundings. Your neighbors, your family, your feelings of loneliness: They don’t just get under your skin, they get into the control rooms of your cells. Inside the new social science of genetics. …

There was a boy named Gary here, in 1984. He carved his name into the bark of an aspen tree, and, next to that, the name of his lover, Lori. Then, hedging his bets against beavers and beetles, fires and foresters, he did it again. And again. And again. …