A River Divided - George Paxinos

. .

Résumé :
A River Divided follows Evelyn, a geneticist and amateur archeologist, who discovers a tomb while vacationing in Israel. Believing she has found the remains of Christ, she attempts to revive the DNA found preserved at the site so that she can clone Him. But with human cloning being both illegal and unprecedented, she takes the risk of carrying the embryo herself. Though more a scientist than a zealot, she wants to do everything to bring Him back to the world. If her experiment were successful, the consequence could be the salvation of a dying Earth. The result of her daring discovery is the birth of identical twins Christopher and Jos?, who are raised apart and unaware of each other's existence- one in the affluent suburbs of Sydney and the other in the slums of Buenos Aires. As different artists would sculpt different statues from the same block of marble, different environments produce different characters out of the same DNA. The twins are destined to clash, adversaries in an almighty battle for the Amazon. Science and idealism are woven together in this novel about the search for meaning, for love, and for an understanding of what is important for us both as individuals and as actors in the environment.

Biographie:
GEORGE PAXINOS studied at Berkeley, McGill and Yale and is Professor of Medical Sciences at Neuroscience Research Australia and The University of New South Wales, Sydney. He was President of the Australian Neuroscience Society and the World Congress of Neuroscience.He has identified and named more brain areas than anyone in history and published 57 books-his first, The Rat Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates, being the most cited publication in neuroscience and, for decades, the third most cited science book of all time. His Atlas of the Human Brain received awards from the Association of American Publishers and the British Medical Association. His atlases and concepts of brain organization are used by most scientists working on the relationship between the brain and cognition, emotion, motivation and thought, including neurologic or psychiatric diseases such as Alzheimer's and depression.He is a cyclist and environmental activist who has often been defeated by the government. Twenty-one years in the making, A River Divided is his answer. The story came to George when a friend suggested he visit Santiago de Compostela, where it's said St James' remains are buried. He thought of harvesting DNA from the remains to produce a clone, but then thought: why not from someone far greater? The research for his book took George to Jerusalem and Masada, The Vatican, the Brazilian Amazon and Buenos Aires where he learned the tango.