De Extinction And The Genomics Revolution

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De-Extinction and the Genomics Revolution

Author : Amy Lynn Fletcher
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030257894
Total Pages : 84 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis De-Extinction and the Genomics Revolution by : Amy Lynn Fletcher

Download or read book De-Extinction and the Genomics Revolution written by Amy Lynn Fletcher and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the cultural history and politics of de-extinction, an approach to wildlife conservation that seeks to use advanced biotechnologies for genetic rescue, crisis interventions, and even species resurrections. It demonstrates how the genomic revolution creates new possibilities for human transformation of nature and accelerates the arrival of the era of life-on demand. Fletcher combines a summative overview of the modern progress in biology and biotechnology that has brought us to this moment and evaluates the relationship between de-extinction and provocative contemporary ideas such as rewilding, eco-modernism, and the Anthropocene. Overall, the book contends that de-extinction, as reported in the public sphere, shifts between the demands of science and spectacle and draws upon our ongoing fascination with lost worlds, Frankenstein’s monster, woolly mammoths, and dinosaurs.

How to Clone a Mammoth

Author : Beth Shapiro
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691173117
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Clone a Mammoth by : Beth Shapiro

Download or read book How to Clone a Mammoth written by Beth Shapiro and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider's view on bringing extinct species back to life Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? The science says yes. In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist and pioneer in "ancient DNA" research, walks readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. From deciding which species should be restored, to sequencing their genomes, to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild, Shapiro vividly explores the extraordinary cutting-edge science that is being used—today—to resurrect the past. Journeying to far-flung Siberian locales in search of ice age bones and delving into her own research—as well as those of fellow experts such as Svante Paabo, George Church, and Craig Venter—Shapiro considers de-extinction's practical benefits and ethical challenges. Would de-extinction change the way we live? Is this really cloning? What are the costs and risks? And what is the ultimate goal? Using DNA collected from remains as a genetic blueprint, scientists aim to engineer extinct traits--traits that evolved by natural selection over thousands of years—into living organisms. But rather than viewing de-extinction as a way to restore one particular species, Shapiro argues that the overarching goal should be the revitalization and stabilization of contemporary ecosystems. For example, elephants with genes modified to express mammoth traits could expand into the Arctic, re-establishing lost productivity to the tundra ecosystem. Looking at the very real and compelling science behind an idea once seen as science fiction, How to Clone a Mammoth demonstrates how de-extinction will redefine conservation's future.

The Genome Factor

Author : Dalton Conley
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691183163
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Genome Factor by : Dalton Conley

Download or read book The Genome Factor written by Dalton Conley and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For a century, social scientists have avoided genetics like the plague. But in the past decade, a small but intrepid group of economists, political scientists, and sociologists have harnessed the genomics revolution to paint a more complete picture of human social life than ever before. The Genome Factor describes the latest astonishing discoveries being made at the scientific frontier where genomics and the social sciences intersect. The Genome Factor reveals that there are real genetic differences by racial ancestry--but ones that don't conform to what we call black, white, or Latino. Genes explain a significant share of who gets ahead in society and who does not, but instead of giving rise to a genotocracy, genes often act as engines of mobility that counter social disadvantage. An increasing number of us are marrying partners with similar education levels as ourselves, but genetically speaking, humans are mixing it up more than ever before with respect to mating and reproduction. These are just a few of the many findings presented in this illuminating and entertaining book, which also tackles controversial topics such as genetically personalized education and the future of reproduction in a world where more and more of us are taking advantage of cheap genotyping services like 23andMe to find out what our genes may hold in store for ourselves and our children. The Genome Factor shows how genomics is transforming the social sciences--and how social scientists are integrating both nature and nurture into a unified, comprehensive understanding of human behavior at both the individual and society-wide levels."--

Reordering Life

Author : Stephen Hilgartner
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026233867X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Reordering Life by : Stephen Hilgartner

Download or read book Reordering Life written by Stephen Hilgartner and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-05-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the regimes governing biological research changed during the genomics revolution, focusing on the Human Genome Project. The rise of genomics engendered intense struggle over the control of knowledge. In Reordering Life, Stephen Hilgartner examines the “genomics revolution” and develops a novel approach to studying the dynamics of change in knowledge and control. Hilgartner focuses on the Human Genome Project (HGP)—the symbolic and scientific centerpiece of the emerging field—showing how problems of governance arose in concert with new knowledge and technology. Using a theoretical framework that analyzes “knowledge control regimes,” Hilgartner investigates change in how control was secured, contested, allocated, resisted, justified, and reshaped as biological knowledge was transformed. Beyond illuminating genomics, Reordering Life sheds new light on broader issues about secrecy and openness in science, data access and ownership, and the politics of research communities. Drawing on real-time interviews and observations made during the HGP, Reordering Life describes the sociotechnical challenges and contentious issues that the genomics community faced throughout the project. Hilgartner analyzes how laboratories control access to data, biomaterials, plans, preliminary results, and rumors; compares conflicting visions of how to impose coordinating mechanisms; examines the repeated destabilization and restabilization of the regimes governing genome databases; and examines the fierce competition between the publicly funded HGP and the private company Celera Genomics. The result is at once a path-breaking study of a self-consciously revolutionary science, and a provocative analysis of how knowledge and control are reconfigured during transformative scientific change.

The Epochal Event

Author : Zoltán Boldizsár Simon
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 303047805X
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis The Epochal Event by : Zoltán Boldizsár Simon

Download or read book The Epochal Event written by Zoltán Boldizsár Simon and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a unique attempt to capture the growing societal experience of living in an age unlike anything the world has ever seen. Fueled by the perception of acquiring unprecedented powers through technologies that entangle the human and the natural worlds, human beings have become agents of a new kind of transformative event. The ongoing sixth mass extinction of species, the prospect of a technological singularity, and the potential crossing of planetary boundaries are expected to trigger transformations on a planetary scale that we deem catastrophic and try to avoid. In making sense of these prospects, Simon’s book sketches the rise of a new epochal thinking, introduces the epochal event as an emerging category of a renewed historical thought, and makes the case for the necessity of bringing together the work of the human and the natural sciences in developing knowledge of a more-than-human world.

What Is Extinction?

Author : Joshua Schuster
Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
ISBN 13 : 1531501664
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis What Is Extinction? by : Joshua Schuster

Download or read book What Is Extinction? written by Joshua Schuster and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2023-02-21 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life on Earth is facing a mass extinction event of our own making. Human activity is changing the biology and the meaning of extinction. What Is Extinction? examines several key moments that have come to define the terms of extinction over the past two centuries, exploring instances of animal and human finitude and the cultural forms used to document and interpret these events. Offering a critical theory for the critically endangered, Joshua Schuster proposes that different discourses of limits and lastness appear in specific extinction events over time as a response to changing attitudes toward species frailty. Understanding these extinction events also involves examining what happens when the conceptual and cultural forms used to account for species finitude are pressed to their limits as well. Schuster provides close readings of several case studies of extinction that bring together environmental humanities and multispecies methods with media-specific analyses at the terminus of life. What Is Extinction? delves into the development of last animal photography, the anthropological and psychoanalytic fascination with human origins and ends, the invention of new literary genres of last fictions, the rise of new extreme biopolitics in the Third Reich that attempted to change the meaning of extinction, and the current pursuit of de-extinction technologies. Schuster offers timely interpretations of how definitions and visions of extinction have changed in the past and continue to change in the present.

Conservation Genetics in the Age of Genomics

Author : George Amato
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231502311
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Conservation Genetics in the Age of Genomics by : George Amato

Download or read book Conservation Genetics in the Age of Genomics written by George Amato and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-07 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genome sequencing enables scientists to study genes over time and to test the genetic variability of any form of life, from bacteria to mammals. Thanks to advances in molecular genetics, scientists can now determine an animal's degree of inbreeding or compare genetic variation of a captive species to wild or natural populations. Mapping an organism's genetic makeup recasts such terms as biodiversity and species and enables the conservation of rare or threatened species, populations, and genes. By introducing a new paradigm for studying and preserving life at a variety of levels, genomics offers solutions to previously intractable problems in understanding the biology of complex organisms and creates new tools for preserving the patterns and processes of life on this planet. Featuring a number of high-profile researchers, this volume introduces the use of molecular genetics in conservation biology and provides a historical perspective on the opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies. It discusses zoo-, museum-, and herbarium-based biological collections, which have expanded over the past decade, and covers the promises and problems of genomic and reproductive technology. The collection concludes with the philosophical and legal issues of conservation genetics and their potential effects on public policy.

The Last of Its Kind

Author : Gísli Pálsson
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691230994
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last of Its Kind by : Gísli Pálsson

Download or read book The Last of Its Kind written by Gísli Pálsson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How an iconic bird’s final days exposed the reality of human-caused extinction The great auk is one of the most tragic and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed in Iceland in 1844. Gísli Pálsson draws on firsthand accounts from the Icelanders who hunted the last great auks to bring to life a bygone age of Victorian scientific exploration while offering vital insights into the extinction of species. Pálsson vividly recounts how British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton set out for Iceland to collect specimens only to discover that the great auks were already gone. At the time, the Victorian world viewed extinction as an impossibility or trivialized it as a natural phenomenon. Pálsson chronicles how Wolley and Newton documented the fate of the last birds through interviews with the men who killed them, and how the naturalists’ Icelandic journey opened their eyes to the disappearance of species as a subject of scientific concern—and as something that could be caused by humans. Blending a richly evocative narrative with rare, unpublished material as well as insights from ornithology, anthropology, and Pálsson’s own North Atlantic travels, The Last of Its Kind reveals how the saga of the great auk opens a window onto the human causes of mass extinction.

De-Extinction

Author : Fouad Sabry
Publisher : One Billion Knowledgeable
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (661 download)

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Book Synopsis De-Extinction by : Fouad Sabry

Download or read book De-Extinction written by Fouad Sabry and published by One Billion Knowledgeable. This book was released on 2022-10-05 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Is De-Extinction The process of creating an organism that either resembles or really is an extinct species is referred to as de-extinction. There are a few different approaches one might use while carrying out the process of de-extinction. Cloning is the approach that has received the most attention, although genome editing and selective breeding are two other options that have been studied. Techniques quite similar to these have been used on several endangered animals in the aim of increasing the genetic diversity of those populations. Cloning is the only one of these three methods that can produce an animal with the exact identical genetic make-up as the original. There are benefits and drawbacks associated with the process of de-extinction, which range from scientific and technical improvements to moral and ethical concerns. How You Will Benefit (I) Insights, and validations about the following topics: Chapter 1: De-extinction Chapter 2: Aurochs Chapter 3: Cloning Chapter 4: Mammoth Chapter 5: Quagga Chapter 6: Breeding back Chapter 7: Commercial animal cloning Chapter 8: Columbian mammoth Chapter 9: Quagga Project Chapter 10: Heinz Heck Chapter 11: Pleistocene rewilding Chapter 12: Frozen zoo Chapter 13: Endling Chapter 14: Woolly mammoth Chapter 15: Revival of the woolly mammoth Chapter 16: Molecular paleontology Chapter 17: Uruz Project Chapter 18: How to Clone a Mammoth Chapter 19: Necrofauna Chapter 20: Revive and Restore Chapter 21: Colossal Biosciences (II) Answering the public top questions about de-extinction. (III) Real world examples for the usage of de-extinction in many fields. (IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of de-extinction' technologies. Who This Book Is For Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of de-extinction.

Genomic Politics

Author : Jennifer Hochschild
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197550738
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis Genomic Politics by : Jennifer Hochschild

Download or read book Genomic Politics written by Jennifer Hochschild and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking analysis of how the genomic revolution is transforming American society and creating new social divisions - some along racial lines - that promise to fundamentally shape American politics for years to come.The emergence of genomic science in the last quarter century has revolutionized medicine, the justice system, and our very understanding of who we are. We use genomics to determine guilt and exonerate the convicted; devise new medicines; test embryos; and discover our ethnic and national roots. Onemight think that, given these advances, most would favor the availability of genomic tools. Yet as Jennifer Hochschild explains in Genomic Politics , the uses of genomic science are both politically charged and hotly contested.The political divisions around genomics do not follow the usual left-right ideological divides that dominate most of American politics. Through four controversial innovations resulting from genomic science - genetically modified medicines that target African-Americans, who are demographically moresusceptible to heart disease; the use of DNA evidence in the criminal justice system; the current ancestry craze; and the use of genetic tests in prenatal exams - Hochschild reveals how the phenomenon is polarizing America in novel ways. Advocates of genomic science argue that these applicationswill make life better, but their opponents respond by pointing out the potential for misuse - from racial profiling to "selecting out" fetuses that gene tests show to have conditions like Down's Syndrome. Hochschild's central message is that the divide hinges on answers to two questions: Howsignificant are genetic factors in explaining human traits and behaviors? And what is the right balance between risk acceptance and risk avoidance for a society grappling with innovations arising from genomic science? A deeply researched and original analysis of the politics surrounding one of thesignal issues of our times, this is essential reading for anyone interested in how the genetics revolution is reshaping society.

Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood

Author : Charlotte Wrigley
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452968985
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (529 download)

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Book Synopsis Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood by : Charlotte Wrigley

Download or read book Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood written by Charlotte Wrigley and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring one of the greatest potential contributors to climate change—thawing permafrost—and the anxiety of extinction on an increasingly hostile planet Climate scientists point to permafrost as a “ticking time bomb” for the planet, and from the Arctic, apocalyptic narratives proliferate on the devastating effects permafrost thaw poses to human survival. In Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood, Charlotte Wrigley considers how permafrost—and its disappearance—redefines extinction to be a lack of continuity, both material and social, and something that affects not only life on earth but nonlife, too. Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood approaches the topic of thawing permafrost and the wild new economies and mitigation strategies forming in the far north through a study of the Sakha Republic, Russia’s largest region, and its capital city Yakutsk, which is the coldest city in the world and built on permafrost. Wrigley examines people who are creating commerce out of thawing permafrost, including scientists wishing to recreate the prehistoric “Mammoth steppe” ecosystem by eventually rewilding resurrected woolly mammoths, Indigenous people who forage the tundra for exposed mammoth bodies to sell their tusks, and government officials hoping to keep their city standing as the ground collapses under it. Warming begets thawing begets economic activity— and as a result, permafrost becomes discontinuous, both as land and as a social category, in ways that have implications for the entire planet. Discontinuity, Wrigley shows, eventually evolves into extinction. Offering a new way of defining extinction through the concept of “discontinuity,” Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood presents a meditative and story-focused engagement with permafrost as more than just frozen ground.

Literary Animal Studies and the Climate Crisis

Author : Sune Borkfelt
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 303111020X
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (311 download)

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Book Synopsis Literary Animal Studies and the Climate Crisis by : Sune Borkfelt

Download or read book Literary Animal Studies and the Climate Crisis written by Sune Borkfelt and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary Animal Studies and the Climate Crisis connects insights from the field of literary animal studies with the urgent issues of climate change and environmental degradation, and features considerations of new interventions by literature in relation to these pressing questions and debates. This volume informs academic debates in terms of how nonhuman animals figure in our cultural imagination of topics such as climate change, extinction, animal otherness, the posthuman, and environmental crises. Using a diverse set of methodologies, each chapter presents relevant cases which discuss the various aspects of these interstices. This volume is an intersection between literary animal studies and climate fiction intended as an interdisciplinary intervention that speaks to the global climate debate and is thus relevant across the environmental humanities.

The Genetics Revolution

Author : Rose Morgan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313059861
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis The Genetics Revolution by : Rose Morgan

Download or read book The Genetics Revolution written by Rose Morgan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-11-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What will our lives be like fifty years from now? What will we know about ourselves as humans, and how will that affect our lives? It's impossible to know the future for certain, but one thing we do know—perhaps nothing will alter our future more than the Genetics Revolution of the past thirty-five years. This book clarifies the history and examines the possible impact of five major areas of genetic research: The Human Genome Project and genetic engineering, In vitro fertilization (IVF) and the technology of reproduction, The Human Genome Diversity Project, which is studying the variation of the human genome, Embryonic stem-cell research, Cloning. All of these areas of research produce two reactions among the general public—hope for the improvement of people's lives, and fear of science out of control. The Genetics Revolution examines the scientific, social, and political impacts of the genetics on everyday life—in the past, in the present, and in the future. Each specific topic is contained within its own chapter for ease in accessing specific information. This is an ideal resource for students, teachers, and others preparing research papers. In addition, it integrates science and social science topics in a way that supports topics in the school curricula. The book contains documented, current information that both supports and challenges current thinking about genetics.

The Year of the Genome

Author : Gerald Weissmann
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780805072921
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (729 download)

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Book Synopsis The Year of the Genome by : Gerald Weissmann

Download or read book The Year of the Genome written by Gerald Weissmann and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From stem cells to alternative medicine to the mapping of the genome, a lively and stimulating stroll through today’s great scientific breakthroughs Over the course of one year (2000–01), celebrated essayist and research physician Gerald Weissmann documented the modern age of enlightenment, charting its scientific marvels and new plagues. His diary of “the year of the genome” takes us on a literary exploration of laboratories and beyond to see the impact on human life and culture of Dolly the sheep, mad cow disease, RU 486, the Human Genome Project, AIDS drugs, and a score of other current developments. Whether calling on Ralph Waldo Emerson to explain Craig Venter’s drive to unravel the genome or tracing the effect of Rachel Carson’s legacy on the spread of malaria around the world, Weissmann is an invaluable interpreter of the genetic revolution.

Transducing the Genome

Author : Gary Zweiger
Publisher : Schaum's Outline Series
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Transducing the Genome by : Gary Zweiger

Download or read book Transducing the Genome written by Gary Zweiger and published by Schaum's Outline Series. This book was released on 2001 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important book, a scientist gives an inside account of the historic paradigm shift underway in the life sciences as a result of The Human Genome Project, and provides a philosophical framework in which to understand biology and medicine as information sciences.

Genetics and the Extinction of Species

Author : Laura Landweber
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 069122403X
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Genetics and the Extinction of Species by : Laura Landweber

Download or read book Genetics and the Extinction of Species written by Laura Landweber and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Darwin's Origin of Species and Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species have been the cornerstones of modern evolutionary and population genetic theory for the past hundred years, but in the twenty-first century, biologists will face graver problems of extinction. In this collection, a team of leading biologists demonstrates why the burgeoning field of conservation biology must continue to rely on the insights of population genetics if we are to preserve the diversity of living species. Technological and theoretical developments throughout the 1990s have allowed for important new insights into how populations have evolved in response to past selection pressures, while providing a broad new understanding of the genetic structure of natural populations. The authors explore these advances and argue for the applicability of new genetic methods in conservation biology. The volume covers such topics as the reasons for extinctions, the best ways to measure biodiversity, and the benefits and drawbacks of policies like captive breeding. Genetics and the Extinction of Species is a rich source of information for biologists and policymakers who want to learn more about the host of tools, theories, and approaches available for conserving biodiversity. In addition to the editors, the contributors to the volume are William Amos, Rebecca Cann, Kathryn Rodriguez-Clark, Leslie Douglas, Leonard Freed, Paul Harvey, Kent Holsinger, Russell Lande, and Helen Steers.

Genomes and What to Make of Them

Author : Barry Barnes
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226172961
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Genomes and What to Make of Them by : Barry Barnes

Download or read book Genomes and What to Make of Them written by Barry Barnes and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The announcement in 2003 that the Human Genome Project had completed its map of the entire human genome was heralded as a stunning scientific breakthrough: our first full picture of the basic building blocks of human life. Since then, boasts about the benefits—and warnings of the dangers—of genomics have remained front-page news, with everyone agreeing that genomics has the potential to radically alter life as we know it. For the nonscientist, the claims and counterclaims are dizzying—what does it really mean to understand the genome? Barry Barnes and John Dupré offer an answer to that question and much more in Genomes and What to Make of Them, a clear and lively account of the genomic revolution and its promise. The book opens with a brief history of the science of genetics and genomics, from Mendel to Watson and Crick and all the way up to Craig Venter; from there the authors delve into the use of genomics in determining evolutionary paths—and what it can tell us, for example, about how far we really have come from our ape ancestors. Barnes and Dupré then consider both the power and risks of genetics, from the economic potential of plant genomes to overblown claims that certain human genes can be directly tied to such traits as intelligence or homosexuality. Ultimately, the authors argue, we are now living with a new knowledge as powerful in its way as nuclear physics, and the stark choices that face us—between biological warfare and gene therapy, a new eugenics or a new agricultural revolution—will demand the full engagement of both scientists and citizens. Written in straightforward language but without denying the complexity of the issues, Genomes and What to Make of Them is both an up-to-date primer and a blueprint for the future.