The Misunderstood Gene

The Misunderstood Gene PDF Author: Michel Morange
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674003361
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
At a time when the complete human genome has been sequenced and when seemingly every week feature news stories describe genes that may be responsible for personality, intelligence, even happiness, Michel Morange gives us a book that demystifies the power of modern genetics. The Misunderstood Gene takes us on an easily comprehensible tour of the most recent findings in molecular biology to show us how--and if--genes contribute to biological processes and complex human behaviors. As Morange explains, if molecular biologists had to designate one category of molecules as essential to life, it would be proteins and their multiple functions, not DNA and genes. Genes are the centerpiece of modern biology because they can be modified. But they are only the memory that life invented so that proteins could be efficiently reproduced. Morange shows us that there is far more richness and meaning in the structure and interactions of proteins than in all the theoretical speculations on the role of genes. The Misunderstood Gene makes it clear that we do not have to choose between rigid genetic determinism and fearful rejection of any specific role for genes in development or behavior. Both are true, but at different levels of organization. Morange agrees with those who say "we are not in our genes." But he also wants us to understand that we are not without our genes, either. We are going to have to make do with them, and this book will show us how.

The Ingenuity of Genes

The Ingenuity of Genes PDF Author: Laurianne Geffroy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782749155883
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description


Genes and Ingenuity

Genes and Ingenuity PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Genetic engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 678

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Book Description
Report of an inquiry concerned with two broad issues: the patenting of genetic materials and technologies, and the exploitation of these patents and the distinction that can and possibly should be made between discoveries and inventions when referring to claims over genetic sequences.

Genes and Ingenuity

Genes and Ingenuity PDF Author: Australia. Law Reform Commission
Publisher: Virago Press
ISBN:
Category : Genes
Languages : en
Pages : 690

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Book Description
Report of an inquiry concerned with two broad issues: the patenting of genetic materials and technologies, and the exploitation of these patents and the distinction that can and possibly should be made between discoveries and inventions when referring to claims over genetic sequences.

Ingenious Genes

Ingenious Genes PDF Author: Roger Sansom
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262297264
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
A proposal for a new model of the evolution of gene regulation networks and development that draws on work from artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind. Each of us is a collection of more than ten trillion cells, busy performing tasks crucial to our continued existence. Gene regulation networks, consisting of a subset of genes called transcription factors, control cellular activity, producing the right gene activities for the many situations that the multiplicity of cells in our bodies face. Genes working together make up a truly ingenious system. In this book, Roger Sansom investigates how gene regulation works and how such a refined but simple system evolved. Sansom describes in detail two frameworks for understanding gene regulation. The first, developed by the theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, holds that gene regulation networks are fundamentally systems that repeat patterns of gene expression. Sansom finds Kauffman's framework an inadequate explanation for how cells overcome the difficulty of development. Sansom proposes an alternative: the connectionist framework. Drawing on work from artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind, he argues that the key lies in how multiple transcription factors combine to regulate a single gene, acting in a way that is qualitatively consistent. This allows the expression of genes to be finely tuned to the variable microenvironments of cells. Because of the nature of both development and its evolution, we can gain insight into the developmental process when we identify gene regulation networks as the controllers of development. The ingenuity of genes is explained by how gene regulation networks evolve to control development.

Hacking the Code of Life

Hacking the Code of Life PDF Author: Nessa Carey
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785784986
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
'An excellent, brisk guide to what is likely to happen as opposed to the fantastically remote.' - Los Angeles Review of Books In 2018 the world woke up to gene editing with a storm of controversy over twin girls born in China with genetic changes deliberately introduced by scientists - changes they will pass on to their own offspring. Genetic modification (GM) has been with us for 45 years now, but the new system known as CRISPR or gene editing can manipulate the genes of almost any organism with a degree of precision, ease and speed that we could only dream of ten years ago. But is it ethical to change the genetic material of organisms in a way that might be passed on to future generations? If a person is suffering from a lethal genetic disease, is it unethical to deny them this option? Who controls the application of this technology, when it makes 'biohacking' - perhaps of one's own genome - a real possibility? Nessa Carey's book is a thrilling and timely snapshot of a cutting-edge technology that will radically alter our futures and the way we prevent disease. 'A focused snapshot of a brave new world.' - Nature 'A brisk, accessible primer on the fast-moving field, a clear-eyed look at a technology that is already driving major scientific advances - and raising complex ethical questions.' - Emily Anthes, Undark

The Secret Life of Genes

The Secret Life of Genes PDF Author: Derek Harvey
Publisher: Firefly Books
ISBN: 9780228101758
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
An illustrated introduction to genetics. The Secret Life of Genes is the story of genetic science and how it makes each of us unique. It spans the discovery of the gene and the all-encompassing role it plays in biology: from controlling the inner workings of cells and the development of embryos, through patterns of inheritance, to the evolution of new forms of life. From there developed the vast and boundless field of genetic science and research. Readers will get a sneak peek into the Human Genome Project, the international scientific research project with the goal of determining the sequence of nucleotide base pairs that make up human DNA. From this, scientists identified and mapped all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint, and opened a Pandora's box of secrets: the hidden workings of the human genome; how gene switching, junk DNA, and genetic mutation might be affecting our everyday lives; and why patents are soaring for genetic inventions. The Secret Life of Genes is written in accessible language and organized for easy comprehension. It opens with the basics and the key theories, goes on to describe DNA sequencing and what we can do with it. It then looks at the history of the world's DNA and gives readers an exciting glimpse of the future of the field.

The Genome Factor

The Genome Factor PDF Author: Dalton Conley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183163
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
"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."--

The Gene

The Gene PDF Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476733538
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
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).

The Language of God

The Language of God PDF Author: Francis Collins
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847396151
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Dr Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists, working at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God. How does he reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable? In THE LANGUAGE OF GOD he explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes the reader on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry and biology -- indeed, reason itself -- are not incompatible with belief. His book is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean?

The Ingenuity Gap

The Ingenuity Gap PDF Author: Thomas Homer-Dixon
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307375862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
“Human beings have been smart enough to turn nature to their ends, generate vast wealth for themselves, and double their average life span. But are they smart enough to solve the problems of the 21st century?” -- Thomas Homer-Dixon In The Ingenuity Gap, Thomas Homer-Dixon, "global guru" (the Toronto Star), asks: is our world becoming too complex, too fast-paced to manage? The challenges facing us converge, intertwine, and remain largely beyond our ken. Most of suspect the "experts don't really know what's going on; that as a species we've released forces that are neither managed nor manageable. We are fast approaching a time when we may no longer be able to control a world that increasingly exceeds our grasp. This is "the ingenuity gap" -- the term coined by Thomas Homer-Dixon -- the critical gap between our need for practical, innovative ideas to solve complex problems and our actual supply of those ideas. Through gripping narrative stories and incidents that exemplify his arguments, he takes us on a world tour that begins with a heartstopping description of the tragic crash of United Airlines Flight 232 from Denver to Chicago and includes Las Vegas in its desert, a wilderness beach in British Columbia, and his solitary search for a little girl in Patna, India. He shows how, in our complex world, while poor countries are particularly vulnerable to ingenuity gaps, our own rich countries are not immune, and we are caught between a requirement for ingenuity and an increasingly uncertain supply. When the gap widens, political disintegration and violent upheaval can result, reaching into our own economies and daily lives in subtle ways. In compelling, lucid, prose, he makes real the problems we face and suggests how we might overcome them.