Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

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The TP53 gene on chromosome 17 suppresses cancer cells, while oncogenes stimulate cell growth and can cause cancer if kept switched on, while TP53 can cause cancer when kept switched off. Other mutator genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2 contribute to breast cancer. a b c d e f g h i j Coyne, Jerry (27 April 2000). "Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley". London Review of Books. 22 (9). Nature vs. Nurture is a false dichotomy. Any mo Genetically modified food has become very controversial despite many benefits. Partly this is for agricultural practices that some modifications encourage such as increased pesticide use. On the other hand increased productivity and nutrition can save many lives particularly in developing countries. Modified animals such as chimeric mice facilitate the testing of human genes to find out how they work. This can lead to new disease treatments which may be quite traditional such as altered diet. A baby chimpanzee would be as socially confused if reared by human beings as Tarzan would be if reared by chimps.

This chapter examines the so-called "immortality" of the genetic code - i.e. how is it that genetic code can remain as precise as it has been for 50 billion copyings since the dawn of life? Part of the answer is in the protein enzyme telomerase, lying on chromosome 14 and coded by the gene TEP1. I really enjoyed this book, and appreciated it, because it explained basic genetics better than anything else I've ever read. Of course I haven't read Siddhartha Mukherjee's book, but I still suspect this book is better for the genetic novice. Of course, it's 20 years old, but most of what it covers is probably still true. entertainment, глупава езотерика и таблоидни биографии. На този фон наличието на стабилна литература за еволюция, рационализъм, скептицизъм и науката in general остава някъде назад. Прекалено назад. For nearly a century social scientists managed to persuade thinkers of many kinds that biological causality was determinism while environmental causality preserved free will; and that animals had instincts, but human beings did not. Chromosome X and Y – Conflict As for the content, WOW! Changed the way I think about evolution & heredity (duh), human biology, history, & psychology, disease, medicine, food, sexuality, instinct, intelligence, personality, behavior, EVERYTHING. Eye-opening in a way that encourages wonder rather than only prescribing answers.

Genome

Would you want to be tested for an incurable disease? Huntington’s patients face this choice and soon Alzheimer’s patients may as well. Genetic screening is also a controversial issue because of the potential inappropriate use of information by insurance companies and employers. While the specific details of biological life are extremely parochial to earth (the use of nucleotides and amino acids), that life is powered using digital information may have been inevitable as there is only one way to do a calculation. ↩ Ridley, Matthew White (1983). Mating system of the pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 52225811. [ permanent dead link] The book is broken into twenty-three chapters corresponding to a given chromosome,[ 2] and each chapter highlights a specific gene native to that chromosome. The chapter titles range from conflict to intelligence, highlighting that the genetic landscape has a nebulous and important impact on our lives. A firm believer of the simultaneous forces of nature and nurture, Ridley has little patience for behaviorists, and stresses that genetic effects from physiology to psychology are pervasive but also complex. He likens the relationship between the limits of human choice and genes to the development of a picture: different hues can applied, the contrast can be adjusted, but regardless of the photographic developer, the image will not come out as a monkey (with human DNA that is). Our chromosomes in full glory This book is along the same lines as Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. The best thing I can do to review these two books together is list what I think their pros and cons are:

Pierre-Simon de LaPlace once mused that if, as a good Newtonian, he could know the positions and the motions of every atom in the universe, he could predict the future. Or rather, he suspected that he could not know the future, but he wondered why not. As always when reading popular science books, as well as becoming enthusiastic and wishing to retrain as an astrophysicist or quantum mechanic for instance, I am very interested in the 'rhetoric' of discourses, what emerges between the lines - often very powerful assumptions and values relating to conceptualising 'human nature'. In the case of biology, neuroscience etc. it strikes me as not at all right that one of the assumptions seems to be treating the hard, material attributes of human animalism on the same logical level as the wider discourses of humanity: thus for instance the nature-nurture division (itself making the same logically precarious distinction) leads at worst to quanitfying the relative influence of each 'side'. The are always ideological and political implication, too, not only within the production of science popularisation but within scientific enterprises generally.Short-term stressors cause an immediate increase in epinephrine and norepinephrine, the hormones that make the heart beat faster, the feet go cold. These hormones prepare the body for ‘fight or flight’ in an emergency. Stressors that last for longer activate a different pathway that results in a much slower, but more persistent increase in cortisol. One of cortisol’s most surprising effects is that it suppresses the working of the immune system.

Blood groups can give us insights into the history of human migrations and since 1990 they have found an entirely new role: they promise understanding of how and why our genes are all so different. They hold the key to human polymorphism. Every time the chromosome is copied, a little bit of the telomere is left off. After a few hundred copyings, the chromosome is getting so short at the end that meaningful genes are in danger of being left off. In your body t he telomeres are shortening at the rate of about thirty-one ‘letters’ a year– more in some tissues. That is why cells grow old and cease to thrive beyond a certain age. Why are babies so noisy? Blame interlocus contest evolution. Consider babies crying out for food or milk. Parents value a signal of how hungry their children are so that they can feed them appropriately (and safeguard their genes of course). Children also value a signal that they can use to mediate their dietary requirements. So will children cry at a rate which expresses their true hunger (the hidden information) or will they have incentive to cry “too much”, and if so why? Let’s imagine the following signalling game. The book, while informative and intellectually stimulating, encourages us to ask very difficult questions that result from such issues. Rather than the detached scientist studying life through a microscope, Ridley actively engages with life, challenging and observing and questioning. Instead of the coldly yet carefully studied discourse on genetics it could have been, the book joins human life and genetics together in a compassionate way. Ridley delves into other contentious political topics as well, such as media hysteria over Mad Cow Disease, eugenics, genetic screening, sex, evolutionary psychology, and luddism. Ridley has a unique, but extremely compelling views on all these topics, and that's where this book really shines. One of the points Ridley quite clearly makes in a couple of places is that your genes belong to you alone, and you alone have the right to decide who you want to share it with. However, you really have to wait for the last few chapters of the book for his to really get started.

Melatonin is made from serotonin, so serotonin levels drop as it gets used up in melatonin manufacture.

The very combination that is most beneficial in your generation guarantees you some susceptible children. Never ending genetic diversity of blood types I happen to be using calories as the unit of cost/benefit, but one could use an even more general “survival points” or “evolutionary fitness score”, etc. ↩ Dirt contains bacteria, especially mycobacteria, which stimulate one part of the immune system, whereas routine vaccination stimulates a different part of the immune system. A really great introduction to genetics. One of my friends, who studied chemistry in college, recommended the book to me. The book is divided into 23 chapters, representing the 23 different sets of chromosomes in the human body. The concept fascinated me, and I thought that if the author had enough of a sense of humor to write a book this way, why not give it a try? Ridley chooses the gene D4DR which codes for the manufacture of dopamine and is located on the short arm of chromosome 11. Interactions between dopamine, serotonin and other serotonin neurochemistry are lightly covered.Telomere: its presence enables the DNA-copying devices to get started without cutting short any sense-containing ‘text’. Like an aglet, the little plastic bit on the end of a shoelace, it stops the end of the chromosome from fraying.