‘The Secret Body’ Daniel M. Davis

“How the New Science of the Human Body is Changing the Way We Live”, read in July 2025

One of the most striking parts of The Secret Body, is Davis’s ‘football field and aliens’ analogy in the introduction. Imagine aliens watching a football game from space with special telescopes. They see people running around, others cheering, and observe the net occasionally bulging — but it doesn’t make complete sense. It’s only when someone — or in Davis’ words a young, curious, researcher — figures out that the ball being passed between the footballers is what is causing the net to bulge, the cheering, the entire game itself. The pieces click into place. To me, this metaphor encapsulated Davis’ key insight. Our understanding of the human body is often full of clues, but lacking in unifying clarity. Davis goes on to prove that confusion today is what sparks new discovery, having the power to change the entire manner in which we interpret what we see biologically.

He also criticises the way we currently analyse the human body. “We tend to study the human body in silos” he writes, suggesting a split between each specialised field of categorisation. “There will be a myriad of ways to categorise human health, and everyone will fall short of one thing in the categorisation of normal versus abnormal”. As someone who is fascinated by how we quantify health, this very phrase seemed highly representative. Our metrics bleed into health insurance policies, hiring people and most importantly, our self worth. Davis highlighted how biology is moving towards avoiding stark “normal” and “abnormal” divisions, a radical redefining.

The story which I was most drawn to despite reading it early was the jellyfish scientist in Japan — Osamu Shimomura. He spent his mornings collecting jellyfish, — with his wife, also a researcher — and his afternoons chasing the answers to his question: why do jellyfish glow green? GFP (green fluorescent protein), was the reason, and it became the foundation for a myriad of future research. Scientists would go on to use it as a ‘tag’ to track movement inside living cells.

Years later, Douglas Prasher and Martin Chalfie used it to make bacteria glow green too. I remember being mostly fascinated by Prasher’s story, who was able to clone the GFP gene, but ultimately left science due to a lack of funding and ended up working in a car dealership — eventually being left out of the 3-people-only Nobel prize. Davis makes the message clear — science isn’t always fair.

I loved each discussion about super-resolution microscopy. The idea that a Nobel winning microscope was prototyped in a living room was something which I admired in stark contrast to institutional, expected science. I was so intrigued I am considering conducting much more personal research on super resolution microscopes. The final chapters ventured into bigger questions. We can now read our genomes, alter our cells and understand our brains in such complex detail. Such advancements bring consequences. For example, if people learn they carry genes for lethal diseases without presenting with any current symptoms, their whole lives — and insurance- are altered immediately. This book succeeded in explaining how biology is already changing how we subconsciously live.

In Davis’ words “I will not be afraid to speculate and challenge”. This book invited me to do just that. More specifically, to welcome complexity and challenge what we consider to be “normal”.

I would 100% recommend you give it a read.