Cat's Cradle

One of my favorite novels is Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Written in 1963, it is a ridiculous over-the-top science fiction book that satirizes science, religion, war, politics, the end of the world, and midgets. One of the more amazing things is that Vonnegut describes a fictional discovery of "ice-nine." A single molecule of this substance can "teach" molecules of normal liquid water to arrange themselves as ice-nine. It is as if one molecule of ice can seed water molecules to become that exact form of ice. This, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what a prion does. I doubt this was the first time anyone proposed this idea, but I was amazed when I realized that Vonnegut in science fiction imagined a mechanism that decades later elucidated previously inexplicable diseases. In any case, Cat's Cradle is a really entertaining, thought-provoking, and highly recommended book.