Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
Be A Geneticist
Download Be A Geneticist full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Be A Geneticist ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Download or read book Be a Geneticist written by Zelda Salt and published by Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genetics is the study of all the traits and features that are passed from parents to children, from eye color to genetic disorders. Geneticists look at these patterns and use them as to decode and understand the world around us. Geneticists have helped farmers develop better seeds, produce new treatments for certain health conditions, and even create new dog breeds. Geneticists' work is vital to so many different fields, and this book introduces readers to the exciting, cutting-edge STEM career they can have as a geneticist.
Download or read book Medical Genetics written by Lynn B. Jorde and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is one of the few medical genetics texts on a 2-year revision cycle. It provides up-to-date information that can be read, retained, and applied with ease! The 3rd Edition covers pharmacogenomics, the societal implications of technologies, the Human Genome Project, cloning, genetic enhancement, and embryonic stem cell research, new tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes, and more. Mini-summaries, study questions, suggested readings, and a detailed glossary facilitate review of the material. Clinical relevance is demonstrated in over 230 photographs, illustrations, and tables as well as boxes containing patient/family vignettes. Its coverage includes ethical, legal, and social issues and clinical commentary on important genetic diseases. A companion web site offers continuing updates and a wealth of additional features. The smart way to study! Elsevier titles with STUDENT CONSULT will help you master difficult concepts and study more efficiently in print and online! Perform rapid searches. Integrate bonus content from other disciplines. Download text to your handheld device. And a lot more. Each STUDENT CONSULT title comes with full text online, a unique image library, case studies, USMLE style questions, and online note-taking to enhance your learning experience. Your purchase of this book entitles you to access www.studentconsult.com at no extra charge. This innovative web site offers you... Access to the complete text and illustrations of this book. Integration links to bonus content in other STUDENT CONSULT titles. Content clipping for your handheld. An interactive community center with a wealth of additional resources. The more STUDENT CONSULT titles you buy, the more resources you can access online! Look for the STUDENT CONSULT logo on your favorite Elsevier textbooks! Features mini-summaries that appear in bold throughout each chapter. Supplies study questions and suggested readings at the end of each chapter. Contains a detailed glossary at the end of the book. Offers Clinical Commentary boxes that present detailed coverage of the most important genetic diseases and provide examples of modern clinical management. Demonstrates clinical relevance with boxed patient/family vignettes and coverage of ethical, legal, and social issues. Provides visual reinforcement and easy access to key information with over 230 photographs, illustrations, and tables. Includes a companion website with continuing content updates, additional clinical images, and more!
Book Synopsis Medical Genetics at a Glance by : Dorian J. Pritchard
Download or read book Medical Genetics at a Glance written by Dorian J. Pritchard and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medical Genetics at a Glance covers the core scientific principles necessary for an understanding of medical genetics and its clinical applications, while also considering the social implications of genetic disorders. This third edition has been fully updated to include the latest developments in the field, covering the most common genetic anomalies, their diagnosis and management, in clear, concise and revision-friendly sections to complement any health science course. Medical Genetics at a Glance now has a completely revised structure, to make its content even more accessible. Other features include: • Three new chapters on Gene Identification, The Biology of Cancer, and Genomic Approaches to Cancer • A much extended treatment of Biochemical Genetics • A completely revised chapter on The Cell Cycle, explaining principles of biochemistry and genetics which are fundamental to understanding cancer causation • Two new chapters on Cardiac Developmental Pathology • An extended Case Studies section Providing a broad understanding of one of the most rapidly progressing topics in medicine, Medical Genetics at a Glance is perfect for students of medicine, molecular biology, genetics and genetic counselling, and is a previous winner of a BMA Award.
Book Synopsis Bioinformatics for Geneticists by : Michael R. Barnes
Download or read book Bioinformatics for Geneticists written by Michael R. Barnes and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book illustrates the value of bioinformatics, not simply as a set of tools but rather as a science increasingly essential to navigate and manage the host of information generated by genomics and the availability of completely sequenced genomes. Bioinformatics can be used at all stages of genetics research: to improve study design, to assist in candidate gene identification, to aid data interpretation and management and to shed light on the molecular pathology of disease-causing mutations. Written specifically for geneticists, this book explains the relevance of bioinformatics showing how it may be used to enhance genetic data mining and markedly improve genetic analysis.
Book Synopsis A Short History of Medical Genetics by : Peter S. Harper
Download or read book A Short History of Medical Genetics written by Peter S. Harper and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book traces the development of genetics in medicine from the first descriptions of inherited diseases more than 300 years ago to the new applications resulting from mapping and sequencing the human genome. It follows both the scientific and the medical advances, focusing especially on those of the past 50 years, which have seen the field of medical genetics emerge as one of the foremost and most rapidly changing medical specialties, now influencing the whole of medicine. It also examines the ethical challenges faced by those working in the field, and describes some of the past disasters that have resulted from these being ignored, notably the abuses of eugenics and the catastrophic destruction of genetics in Soviet Russia. This is the first book of its kind; it is clearly and simply written, and will be valuable to all those who have an interest or concern in the development of medical genetics, as well as those actually working in the field. Historians and social scientists will likewise find this book an important foundation for future detailed studies, which are urgently needed."--BOOK JACKET.
Book Synopsis The Genetic Lottery by : Kathryn Paige Harden
Download or read book The Genetic Lottery written by Kathryn Paige Harden and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal society In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health—and in ways that matter for educational and economic success in our current society. In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces readers to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society. Reclaiming genetic science from the legacy of eugenics, this groundbreaking book offers a bold new vision of society where everyone thrives, regardless of how one fares in the genetic lottery.
Download or read book The Gene written by Siddhartha Mukherjee and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History Now includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee’s new book Song of the Cell! From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick” (Elle). “Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself.” —Ken Burns “Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost” (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices. “Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories…[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry” (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome. “A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future” (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. “The Gene is a book we all should read” (USA TODAY).
Download or read book Legacy written by Harry Ostrer MD and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-10 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are the Jews--a race, a people, a religious group? For over a century, non-Jews and Jews alike have tried to identify who they were--first applying the methods of physical anthropology and more recently of population genetics. In Legacy, Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist and authority on the genetics of the Jewish people, explores not only the history of these efforts, but also the insights that genetics has provided about the histories of contemporary Jewish people. Much of the book is told through the lives of scientific pioneers. We meet Russian immigrant Maurice Fishberg; Australian Joseph Jacobs, the leading Jewish anthropologist in fin-de-siècle Europe; Chaim Sheba, a colorful Israeli geneticist and surgeon general of the Israeli Army; and Arthur Mourant, one of the foremost cataloguers of blood groups in the 20th century. As Ostrer describes their work and the work of others, he shows that to look over the genetics of Jewish groups, and to see the history of the Diaspora woven there, is truly a marvel. Here is what happened as the Jews migrated to new places and saw their numbers wax and wane, as they gained and lost adherents and thrived or were buffeted by famine, disease, wars, and persecution. Many of these groups--from North Africa, the Middle East, India--are little-known, and by telling their stories, Ostrer brings them to the forefront at a time when assimilation is literally changing the face of world Jewry. A fascinating blend of history, science, and biography, Legacy offers readers an entirely fresh perspective on the Jewish people and their history. It is as well a cutting-edge portrait of population genetics, a field which may soon take its place as a pillar of group identity alongside shared spirituality, shared social values, and a shared cultural legacy.
Book Synopsis Human Evolutionary Genetics by : Mark Jobling
Download or read book Human Evolutionary Genetics written by Mark Jobling and published by Garland Science. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 1538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human Evolutionary Genetics is a groundbreaking text which for the first time brings together molecular genetics and genomics to the study of the origins and movements of human populations. Starting with an overview of molecular genomics for the non-specialist (which can be a useful review for those with a more genetic background), the book shows h
Book Synopsis Assessing Genetic Risks by : Institute of Medicine
Download or read book Assessing Genetic Risks written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Raising hopes for disease treatment and prevention, but also the specter of discrimination and "designer genes," genetic testing is potentially one of the most socially explosive developments of our time. This book presents a current assessment of this rapidly evolving field, offering principles for actions and research and recommendations on key issues in genetic testing and screening. Advantages of early genetic knowledge are balanced with issues associated with such knowledge: availability of treatment, privacy and discrimination, personal decision-making, public health objectives, cost, and more. Among the important issues covered: Quality control in genetic testing. Appropriate roles for public agencies, private health practitioners, and laboratories. Value-neutral education and counseling for persons considering testing. Use of test results in insurance, employment, and other settings.
Download or read book The Genetic Gods written by John C. Avise and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They mastermind our lives, shaping our features, our health, and our behavior, even in the sacrosanct realms of love and sex, religion, aging, and death. Yet we are the ones who house, perpetuate, and give the promise of immortality to these biological agents, our genetic gods. The link between genes and gods is hardly arbitrary, as the distinguished evolutionary geneticist John Avise reveals in this compelling book. In clear, straightforward terms, Avise reviews recent discoveries in molecular biology, evolutionary genetics, and human genetic engineering, and discusses the relevance of these findings to issues of ultimate concern traditionally reserved for mythology, theology, and religious faith. The book explains how the genetic gods figure in our development--not just our metabolism and physiology, but even our emotional disposition, personality, ethical leanings, and, indeed, religiosity. Yet genes are physical rather than metaphysical entities. Having arisen via an amoral evolutionary process--natural selection--genes have no consciousness, no sentient code of conduct, no reflective concern about the consequences of their actions. It is Avise's contention that current genetic knowledge can inform our attempts to answer typically religious questions--about origins, fate, and meaning. The Genetic Gods challenges us to make the necessary connection between what we know, what we believe, and what we embody. Table of Contents: Preface Prologue 1. The Doctrines of Biological Science 2. Geneses 3. Genetic Maladies 4. Genetic Beneficence 5. Strategies of the Genes 6. Genetic Sovereignty 7. New Lords of Our Genes? 8. Meaning Epilogue Notes Glossary Index Reviews of this book: Our genes, [Avise] says, are responsible not only for how we got here and exist day to day, but also for the core of our being--our personalities and morals. It is our genetic make-up that allows for and formulates our religious belief systems, he argues. Avise does not eschew spirituality but seeks a more informed, less confrontational approach between science and the pulpit. --Science News Reviews of this book: For the general scientific reader, the book is an excellent distillation of a broad and increasingly important field, a course of causation that cannot be ignored. From advising expectant parents to getting innocent people off death row, genetics increasingly dominates our lives. The sections on genetics are expertly written, particularly for those readers without in-depth knowledge. The author explains slowly and carefully just how genetics operates, using multiple metaphors. His genetic discourse proceeds in a neighborly fashion, as one might tell stories while sitting in a rocking chair at a country store. He seems to be invigorated by genes and just can't wait to tell about them. --David W. Hodo, Journal of the American Medical Association Reviews of this book: As a whole, this book is quite informative and stimulating, and sections of it are beautifully written. Indeed, Professor Avise has a real gift for prose and scientific expositions, and I would suspect that he must be a formidable lecturer...At its core, [The Genetic Gods] is a survey, and a very nice one at that, of evolutionary genetics, the field of the author's major research interests. There is a strong sociobiological cast to the arguments, and the work and ideas of E. O. Wilson figure prominently. The presentation of evolutionary genetics is imbedded in a more general discussion of modern human and molecular genetics...However, this book is, most of all, a philosophical treatise that attempts, admittedly with the bias of a biologist, to examine the intersection of the fundamental premises of evolution and religion. Professor Avise has given us plenty to think about in this book [and]...it was a real pleasure to wrestle with the ideas he was presenting. I would suggest that other readers give it a try. --Charles J. Epstein, Trends in Genetics Reviews of this book: [Avise's] account of the role genes play in shaping the human condition is wholly involving, paying particular attention to issues of reproduction, aging and death. In addition to presenting ample biological information in a form accessible to the nonspecialist, Avise does a superb job of discussing many of the ethical implications that have arisen from our growing knowledge of human genetics. Just a few of the topics covered are genetic engineering, the patenting of life, genetic screening, abortion, human cloning, gene therapy and insurance-related controversies. --Publishers Weekly Reviews of this book: Avise explains thoroughly how evolution operates on a genetic level. His goal is to show that humans can look to this information as a way to answer fundamental questions of life instead of looking to traditional religious beliefs...Avise includes some very interesting discussions of ethical concerns related to genetic issues. --Eric D. Albright, Library Journal This is a splendid account of a subject that affects us all: the breathtaking increase in understanding of human genetics and the insight it provides into human evolution. John Avise speaks with authority of molecular evolutionary genetics and with affecting compassion of what it might mean. --Douglas J. Futuyma, State University of New York at Stony Brook The Genetic Gods is many things. It is a wonderful introduction to modern molecular biology, by a man who knows his subject backwards. It is a stimulating account of the ways in which genetics impinges on human nature--our thinking and our behavior. It is a remarkably level-headed and sympathetic account of the implications of our new findings for traditional and not-so-traditional issues in philosophy and religion. In an age of genetic counseling, cloning, construction of new life forms, the book is worth its weight in gold for this alone. But most of all, it is a huge amount of fun to read--you want to applaud or argue with the author on nigh every page. Highly recommended! --Michael Ruse, University of Guelph The Genetic Gods makes a valuable contribution to the on-going task of sorting out the implications of evolutionary biology and genetics for human self-understanding. Avise addresses, with authority and grace, the most consequential intellectual issues of our time. A challenging and insightful book. --Loyal Rue, Harvard University A wonderfully informative and engaging book. Avise offers a lucid, accessible primer on our genes, angelic and demonic, and examines religious and ethical issues, all too human, now confronted by genetic science. He makes a compelling case that anyone seeking to 'Know Thyself' should study the DNA molecular scriptures, our most ancient and universal legacy. --Dudley Herschbach, Harvard University, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
Book Synopsis Barbara McClintock by : Edith Hope Fine
Download or read book Barbara McClintock written by Edith Hope Fine and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the life and career of the geneticist who spent many years studying the cells of maize and in 1983 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Book Synopsis A Guide to Genetic Counseling by : Wendy R. Uhlmann
Download or read book A Guide to Genetic Counseling written by Wendy R. Uhlmann and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-20 with total page 647 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book devoted exclusively to the principles and practice of genetic counseling—now in a new edition First published in 1998, A Guide to Genetic Counseling quickly became a bestselling and widely recognized text, used nationally and internationally in genetic counseling training programs. Now in its eagerly anticipated Second Edition, it provides a thoroughly revised and comprehensive overview of genetic counseling, focusing on the components, theoretical framework, and unique approach to patient care that are the basis of this profession. The book defines the core competencies and covers the genetic counseling process from case initiation to completion—in addition to addressing global professional issues—with an emphasis on describing fundamental principles and practices. Chapters are written by leaders in the field of genetic counseling and are organized to facilitate academic instruction and skill attainment. They provide the most up-to-date coverage of: The history and practice of genetic counseling Family history Interviewing Case preparation and management Psychosocial counseling Patient education Risk communication and decision-making Medical genetics evaluation Understanding genetic testing Medical documentation Multicultural counseling Ethical and legal issues Student supervision Genetic counseling research Professional development Genetics education and outreach Evolving roles and expanding opportunities Case examples A Guide to Genetic Counseling, Second Edition belongs on the syllabi of all medical and human genetics and genetic counseling training programs. It is an indispensable reference for both students and healthcare professionals working with patients who have or are at risk for genetic conditions.
Book Synopsis A Troublesome Inheritance by : Nicholas Wade
Download or read book A Troublesome Inheritance written by Nicholas Wade and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story Fewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from one another. For this understandable reason, the idea has been banished from polite academic conversation. Arguing that race is more than just a social construct can get a scholar run out of town, or at least off campus, on a rail. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years—to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes. Race is not a bright-line distinction; by definition it means that the more human populations are kept apart, the more they evolve their own distinct traits under the selective pressure known as Darwinian evolution. For many thousands of years, most human populations stayed where they were and grew distinct, not just in outward appearance but in deeper senses as well. Wade, the longtime journalist covering genetic advances for The New York Times, draws widely on the work of scientists who have made crucial breakthroughs in establishing the reality of recent human evolution. The most provocative claims in this book involve the genetic basis of human social habits. What we might call middle-class social traits—thrift, docility, nonviolence—have been slowly but surely inculcated genetically within agrarian societies, Wade argues. These “values” obviously had a strong cultural component, but Wade points to evidence that agrarian societies evolved away from hunter-gatherer societies in some crucial respects. Also controversial are his findings regarding the genetic basis of traits we associate with intelligence, such as literacy and numeracy, in certain ethnic populations, including the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews. Wade believes deeply in the fundamental equality of all human peoples. He also believes that science is best served by pursuing the truth without fear, and if his mission to arrive at a coherent summa of what the new genetic science does and does not tell us about race and human history leads straight into a minefield, then so be it. This will not be the last word on the subject, but it will begin a powerful and overdue conversation.
Book Synopsis Who We Are and How We Got Here by : David Reich
Download or read book Who We Are and How We Got Here written by David Reich and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past few years have seen a revolution in our ability to map whole genome DNA from ancient humans. With the ancient DNA revolution, combined with rapid genome mapping of present human populations, has come remarkable insights into our past. This important new data has clarified and added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up some remarkable surprises. The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations existing today are mixes of ancient ones, as well as in many cases carrying a genetic component from Neanderthals, and, in some populations, Denisovans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what the genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising ancestry. Gone are old ideas of any kind of racial 'purity', or even deep and ancient divides between peoples. Instead, we are finding a rich variety of mixtures. Reich describes the cutting-edge findings from the past few years, and also considers the sensitivities involved in tracing ancestry, with science sometimes jostling with politics and tradition. He brings an important wider message: that we should celebrate our rich diversity, and recognize that every one of us is the result of a long history of migration and intermixing of ancient peoples, which we carry as ghosts in our DNA. What will we discover next?
Book Synopsis Insect Biology in The Future by : Michael Locke
Download or read book Insect Biology in The Future written by Michael Locke and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-12-02 with total page 995 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insect Biology in the Future: ""VBW 80"" contains essays presented to Sir Vincent Wigglesworth during his 80th year. Wigglesworth is fairly designated as the founding father and remarkable leader of insect physiology. His papers and other works significantly contribute to this field of study. This book, dedicated to him, underlines the value of insect material in approaching a wide spectrum of biological issues. The essays in this book tackle the insects' physiology, including their evolution and dominance. The papers also discuss the various avenues of water loss and gain as interrelated components of overall water balance in land arthropods. This reference suggests possible areas for further research mainly at the whole animal level. It also describes the fat body, hemolymph, endocrine control of vitellogenin synthesis, reproduction, growth, hormones, chemistry, defense, and survival of insects. Other topics of importance include cell communication and pattern formation in insects; plant-insect interaction; and insecticides.
Book Synopsis She Has Her Mother's Laugh by : Carl Zimmer
Download or read book She Has Her Mother's Laugh written by Carl Zimmer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist "Science book of the year"—The Guardian One of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018 One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2018 One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 “Extraordinary”—New York Times Book Review "Magisterial"—The Atlantic "Engrossing"—Wired "Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year"—Minneapolis Star-Tribune Celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities... But, Zimmer writes, “Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are—our appearance, our height, our penchants—in inconceivably subtle ways.” Heredity isn’t just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors—using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates—but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer’s lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world’s best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.
