THE QUEST FOR LIFE IN AMBER ...
THE QUEST FOR LIFE IN AMBER by George Poinar & Roberta Poinar (Addison Wesley: $15; 219 pp.). Amber, a form of fossilized resin, has been used for jewelry since the Stone Age. But amber is also a powerful preservative: When the Poinars investigated the insects and other organisms trapped in the golden-tan material, they discovered the oldest examples of prehistoric DNA. This informal account of the research that underlay “Jurassic Park” reads more like a friendly letter than a science text.
