" The Life Project is a book filled with people fighting incredible odds, of important discoveries from unexpected places, of determination, dedication and compassion. Searching in libraries, laboratories and living rooms, talking with geneticists, economists, epidemiologists and statisticians, science writer Helen Pearson spent five years piecing together the story of an extraordinary project, and the scientists who created and sustained it, and the remarkable findings that have emerged from it. Beginning as a survey of babies just after the Second World War, it now includes over 70,000 people, from teenagers to pensioners. These unique studies of individual lives are the envy of scientists around the world for their scope and detail, and yet they remain almost unknown by the rest of us. The Life Project reveals how studying who we are and how we develop u gathering information on birth weight, school work, ambitions, class, health and wealth u has enraptured scientists, shaped public policy and generated ideas that are now received wisdom. Perhaps most importantly, they have thrown vital light on how childhood and inequality influence the course of our lives. Written with great verve and sensitivity, this is the astonishing tale of the best-kept secret in British science - and, ultimately, a way to better understand our country and ourselves.".