Drosopholist extraordinaire Ralph Greenspan will be signing copies of his latest books at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press booth (Booth 207) at the Neuroscience Meeting in San Diego, Monday, November 5 at 2 PM. Greenspan is probably best known for his book “Fly Pushing: The Theory and Practice of Drosophila Genetics”. This book teaches the essentials of working with flies and does so in an impressively readable and engaging manner. Ralph’s recent book, “An Introduction to Nervous Systems” has been met with rave reviews (read Nature’s, Nature Neuroscience’s and Bioessay’s). It’s a wonderful primer for Neuroscientists, teaching the principles of nervous systems from an evolutionary viewpoint, starting with the simplest single-celled organisms and adding complexity up to the level of invertebrates like flies. And because that wasn’t enough work, Ralph has also served as an editor, along with Geoffrey North, on a contributed monograph on “Invertebrate Neurobiology”, which gives an up-to-date snapshot of the state of this rapidly expanding field.

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And since I’m writing about Ralph’s books, I can’t resist including one of my favorite parts, the excerpt from “Love on the Fly” by Dani S. Grady that starts off “Fly Pushing”:

O Genotype, O Phenotype,
This kiss had better last her;
He’s off to see his other love,
Drosophila melanogaster.

So come by the booth and meet Ralph, and say, “Hi”, as I should be there as well.