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Genetics
and hard inheritance the scientific importance
Three significant impacts | Conclusion | Terminology
I. There is no more important area of scientific research as it affects humans due to many recent breakthroughs:
1953, DNA's structure co- discovered by five people
1989, The Human Genome Project
1999, cloning of a sheep embryo (the sheep is now deceased)
2004, RNAi suppression of DNA genotypes
Second significant impact
on each of the chromosomes an arrangment of genes was revealed to be a sequence of paired nitrogen bases that code for specific amino acids, or turn on, or turn off the capacity of RNA to edit, translate, and assemble proteins.
- therapy for diseases with manufactured genes is commonplace
- food with GMOs, genetically modified organisms
- genetic engineering
Third significant impact
III. So dangerously misunderstood
genotype: is very implicated in evolution and disease
phenotype is so crucially implicated in Eugenics movements
triple helix is so important to understanding buffer's role in ecology
"The Unseen Genome: Beyond DNA," genetic vs. epigenetic considerations
First significant impact
So that with respect to genetics, the means to know, what we do with this knowledge and the body of knowledge itself, are each changing in ways that will alter our identity, our social order, and our environment. *
- Human genome
- Genes are not what they appear to be:
- Lewontin, The Triple Helix
- Keller, The Century of the Gene
- Immunity and resistance to disease
- Margulis and the Origins of Eukaryotic cells
- The secrets of the X chromosome in humans
- Are genes better seen as a duet or a trio of players?
- Human Genome Project is the ongoing, three decade old effort to identify, map and describe the location of all the genes in the human cell nuclei , although genes are found outside the nuclei of cells in the mitochondria.
Genotype
DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid
-- inheritable molecule having four distinct nitrogen bases:
- A, is for Adenine
- T, is for Thymine
- C, is for Cytosine
- G, is for Guanine
Bases always pair:
A=T
C=G
In binary code, it is as if:
00 = 11
01 = 10
Where: A = 00, T= 11 and that C = 01 and G = 10 and where ones pair with zeros.
In RNA, ribonucleic acid, U, is for Uracil and it replaces C.
