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Showing posts with label richard wright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richard wright. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Top 5 Must Reads for Black History Month

Hey Folks:

I just began a very intriguing read and think it's perfectly suited for BHM. While reading I decided to create a list of 'must reads' for this month and beyond, of course.

For Adults:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot 
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.