Sensuous Life

About the Book

A Prologue announces the discovery of pages from an old book buried under the sand at Silver Beach, sometime in the near future. The pages still readable refer to prolonged life in space, pieces of flesh dropping from heaven, the return to Earth of a piece of Pioneer 10, crystalline humanity, skeletons in glass, all in a jumble of pure science, alchemy, and space travel. Later it was shown to be a saga involving two journalists seeking stories for their respective national papers, who provide new answers to some of life´s problems in a suspense narrative describing their whirlwind adventures with modern biology. The outcome is a new and satisfying exposition of what it is to be alive. The story begins with a weird discovery in a bat infested cave in Africa. The group of fossil hunters are, an info-technocrat, a medical practitioner, a neurologist, an auto-mechanic, and Sepp a young journalist, all of whom are involved in some way wth the events that must be investigated. The mysterious artifacts from the cave resembling jewels, may be ancient compacted proteins. The problem is they appear to give out light signals, a fact which is kept secret when Sepp is invited to give a talk on local TV in Knappin City, North America. Now the investigations are more like a detective novel in which the clues are answers to scientific questions. Medics and biologists use Alberto’s Restaurant for talking shop. A good place for Sepp to pick the brains of scientists on the subject proteins. Nadine, a rival journalist comes into the picture and a conflict of interests develop, complicated by the gradual development of an erotic romance in which duty, truth, and loyalty are at stake. Nad has a story about odd lumps of glass found in volcanic regions in the South. They contain chunks of animal/human tissues. Sepp educates himself further by a visit to Darwin School, and amusing discussion with the neurology department of the hospital. Meantime the world is dismayed by the apparent disappearance of its favourite astronaut; his whereabouts becomes one of Sepp’s assignments. Commander Brissot, Space Agency, leads an inquiry. Nad is more interested in researching traditional story telling among the peoples of South America. A highly amusing TV programme ,‘What Is A Chemical?’ influences the whole course of subsequent investigations as it introduces Democritus and Atomism. Sepp launches into further studies of his glowing jewels. An extraordinary event occurs when the rock-chippers have the chance of an expedition to Nepal, to investigate a region bursting with fossils. Now they find a whole being entombed in ice or something like glass, which has to be reported and delivered to the authorities thus wrecking chances of further exploration. On returning, Nad reports more vitrified pieces of tissues; furthermore they are not confined to one region; they are being picked up further North. Rumour has it children are playing with them in Knappin. To confound the issue the frozen corpse is not a corpse, but a human something else. The various ministries and institutes are called upon to arrange public discussions as to any dangerous threat. Terrorists get wind of the happenings and try to exploit them in confromtation with the people. Friendly advice and technical assistance finally yield remarkable solutions to the phenomena, and the discovery how human sensual life is translated into sensuous life in the protein world; that sensuality and sensuousness in humans are one. The odyssey began in a cave and fin ished in a cave: but the detective work continued into a battle of wits. However, the mysteries solved, Nad concentrates on researching AgeStop, a product in a brewery, which is another protein story. Sepp delves deeper into why we are human; perhaps a cyber story. It all ends with passionate and sometimes

About the Author

Early work in London on penicillin, and in Leicester on proteins of wool fibres (Ph.D London), brought the author a Fellowship to the Biochemistry Department, Cambridge University, Supervisor in Chemistry at Clare College and a second (Ph.D), There followed a period as First Fellow of the Rockefeller Institute For Medical Research, New York where in the tradition of Emil Fischer, automatic amino acid and peptide analysis, and protein sequencing was developed. The years rolled by with the result he gained enjoyable and valuable experience as the second Senior EMBO Fellow in Berlin, in industry (Arthur Guinness), and as Prof, of Biochemistry and Acting Dean during the founding of a new Medical School in Ghana, West Africa. His field of research has always been the structure and function of biological molecules, Now retired he writes and enjoys more music .