Read The Color of North if you are awed by astonishing facts of life, such as the frog that freezes solid each winter and thaws and returns to life in the spring, or the amazing bacteria that survive in scalding temperatures. Read the book if you’re intrigued by information such as the bird that, thanks to a protein that isolates a single electron that acts like a compass, is able to detect north, apparently as a color, as it migrates. Each of these surprising facts, along with essentially every other aspect of life, is made possible by unique proteins in every form of life.

The theme of this engrossing book is highlighted in this brief excerpt: “Inside every living cell, countless proteins go about their business—the business of life. Proteins are the microscopic worker bees of the cell. They are the tiny machines that facilitate nearly all biological functions in every organism that has ever lived. They power our very existence.” 

Read The Color of North if you impressed by incomprehensibly huge numbers. For example, “If one of our cells [our bodies contain roughly 40 trillion cells] was the size of an average American home, it would be filled with about 30 billion proteins, ranging roughly from the size of a grape to that of a watermelon.”

So, how many proteins do you have in your body? Well, if each of your 40 trillion cells contains about 30 billion proteins, that’s obviously a bunch. In plain numbers that means that your body has some 1,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 proteins that manage to make all phases of your life possible. I can’t put my head around a number that huge, can you?

“We are scientists, but we also are storyteller, the authors write early in the book.”  Here’s how they help readers comprehend the size of proteins. While discussing pardaxin, a chemical released by the Red Sea sole to paralyze the jaws of hungry sharks, they write: “Pardaxin is a protein, and, like all proteins, it is invisible to the naked eye. It would take about one million pardaxins, strung side-to-side, to equal the width of the period at the end of this sentence.”

The book clearly describes the chemistry of proteins and a good number of their specific functions. It also includes cutting edge research discoveries capable of improving our environment, our health, and more.

Read The Color of North if you are a scientist or physician. Almost certainly you will find compelling new information in areas you do not regularly follow. Beyond that, from my perspective the book reads better than 99% of all medical and scientific literature, so it serves as an excellent example to follow when writing medical/scientific articles. 

The authors, Shahir S. Rizk and Maggie M. Fink, are also published poets, and they include personal stories and scientific anecdotes throughout the book. At times they dig into scientific issues that will be new territory for non-scientists, but they describe that science in a careful, logical manner to help the reader follow along.

The Color of North: The Molecular Language of Proteins and the Future of Life

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press – May 13, 2025

If this review stimulates your interest in The Color of North, you may want to check out a more customary review of this book. Kirkus wrote a relatively brief one. Click here to read that review.

Earlier I’ve posted other book reviews here. To find them, click here, here, or here.