Elizabeth Sbovoda in Undark:
Who isn’t obsessed with metamorphosis? From the children’s classic “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” who gorges himself to fuel his dramatic shape-shift, to legless tadpoles that grow to hop over 20 times their body length, we’re transfixed by creatures that appear in one guise, then transform overnight into something else. It’s the closest thing to magic that hard-and-fast biology can conjure.
In “Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History,” science historian Oren Harman indulges our collective obsession and expands its frontiers in startling ways. Inspired by the impending birth of his own third child, Harman explores the striking minutiae of biological change, mining his research to reflect more broadly on personal and social transformation. “Moons sliver, seeds sprout, empires rise and crumble,” he writes. “Everything in the world around us, including our bodies, is in flux.”
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