For

Lloyd and Yvonne Penney

Wonderful Human Beings

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, Inco’s Creighton Mine, Laurentian University (including its Neuroscience Research Group), and York University all really exist. However, all the characters in this novel are entirely the product of my imagination. They are not meant to bear any resemblance to the actual people who hold or have held positions with these or any other organizations.

For anthropological and paleontological advice, I thank Michael K. Brett-Surman, Ph.D., and Rick Potts, Ph.D., both of the National Museum of natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Philip Lieberman, Ph.D., Brown University; Robin Ridington, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia; Gary J. Sawyer [no relation] and Ian Tattersall, Ph.D., both of the American Museum of natural History; Milford H. Wolpoff, Ph.D., University of Michigan, and the various experts listed in the Acknowledgments to my earlier book, Hominids.

For advice on genetics and disease, I thank George R. Carmody, Ph.D., Department of biology, Carleton University; Peter Halasz; Hassan Masum, a Ph.D. candidate at Carleton; Alison Sinclair, Ph.D.; and Edward Willett. For advice on the other medical matter that figures in the plot, I thank endocrinologist Christopher Kovacs, M.D., Health Sciences Centre, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

For information about and access to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, I thank Art McDonald, Ph.D., and J. Duncan Hepburn, Ph.D.