How to grow a human

Introduction: My brain in a dish Chapter 1. Pieces of life : Cells past and present-- Chapter 2. What love has to do with it : Growing humans the old-fashioned way-- First Interlude. The human superorganism : How cells became communities-- Chapter 3. Immortal flesh : How tissues were grown outside the body-- Second Interlude. Heroes and villains : The microbiome, immunity and cancer-- Chapter 4. Twisting fate : How to reprogramme a cell-- Chapter 5. The spare parts factory : Making tissues and organs from reprogrammed cells-- Chapter 6. Flesh of my flesh : Questioning the future of sex and reproduction-- Chapter 7. Hideous progeny? The futures of growing humans-- Third Interlude. Philosophy of the lonely mind : Can a brain exist in a dish?-- Chapter 8. Return of the meatware : Coming to terms with our fleshy selves.--

; A cutting-edge examination of what it means to be human and to have a 'self' in the face of new scientific developments in cloning, gene-splicing and neural downloading. After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons - essentially mini-brains - Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity's deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves. In an age when we are increasingly encouraged to regard the 'self' as an abstract sequence of genetic information, or as a pattern of neural activity that might be 'downloaded' to a computer, I return us to the body - to flesh and blood - and anchor a conception of personhood in this unique and ephemeral mortal coil. How to Build a Human brings us back to ourselves - but in doing so, it challenges old preconceptions and values. It asks us to rethink how we exist in the world.