Download or read book Identity Politics and the New Genetics written by Katharina Schramm and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Racial and ethnic categories have appeared in recent scientific work in novel ways and in relation to a variety of disciplines: medicine, forensics, population genetics and also developments in popular genealogy. Once again, biology is foregrounded in the discussion of human identity. Of particular importance is the preoccupation with origins and personal discovery and the increasing use of racial and ethnic categories in social policy. This new genetic knowledge, expressed in technology and practice, has the potential to disrupt how race and ethnicity are debated, managed and lived. As such, this volume investigates the ways in which existing social categories are both maintained and transformed at the intersection of the natural (sciences) and the cultural (politics). The contributors include medical researchers, anthropologists, historians of science and sociologists of race relations; together, they explore the new and challenging landscape where biology becomes the stuff of identity.
Download or read book Nature s Thumbprint written by Peter B. Neubauer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the interactive roles of nature and nurture in psychological and physical development, Neubauer and Neubauer show how each person is greater than the sum of his or her parts. They discuss how temperament, tastes and skills unfold throughout life and the need for this to remain unimpeded.
Download or read book Theology Disability and the New Genetics written by John Swinton and published by Bloomsbury T&T Clark. This book was released on 2007-08-21 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique text which focuses on the theory and practice of the church, as it engages with the complex issues that are emerging in response to new genetic technology.
Download or read book Anthropology and the New Genetics written by Gísli Pálsson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-02 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad, fresh perspective on how genetic research redefines what it means to be human.
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 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.
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?
Download or read book Experiencing the New Genetics written by Kaja Finkler and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2000-02-24 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiencing the New Genetics will lead scholars and general readers alike to question how far genetic inheritance affects our selves and our future.
Download or read book The End of Genetics written by David B. Goldstein and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent plea for a broader understanding and awareness of the unconsidered dangers of new genetic technologies Since 2010 it has been possible to determine a person's genetic makeup in a matter of days at an accessible cost for many millions of people. Along with this technological breakthrough there has emerged a movement to use this information to help prospective parents "eliminate preventable genetic disease." As the prospect of systematically excluding the appearance of unwanted mutations in our children comes within reach, David B. Goldstein examines the possible consequences from these types of choices. Engaging and accessible, this clarion call for responsible and informed stewardship of the human genome provides an overview of what we do and do not know about human genetics and looks at some of the complex, yet largely unexplored, issues we must be most careful about as we move into an era of increasing numbers of parents exercising direct control over the genomes of their children.
Download or read book CyberGenetics written by Anna Harris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-28 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Online genetic testing services are increasingly being offered to consumers who are becoming exposed to, and knowledgeable about, new kinds of genetic technologies, as the launch of a 23andme genetic testing product in the UK testifies. Genetic research breakthroughs, cheek swabbing forensic pathologists and celebrities discovering their ancestral roots are littered throughout the North American, European and Australasian media landscapes. Genetic testing is now capturing the attention, and imagination, of hundreds of thousands of people who can not only buy genetic tests online, but can also go online to find relatives, share their results with strangers, sign up for personal DNA-based musical scores, and take part in research. This book critically examines this market of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing from a social science perspective, asking, what happens when genetics goes online? With a focus on genetic testing for disease, the book is about the new social arrangements which emerge when a traditionally clinical practice (genetic testing) is taken into new spaces (the internet). It examines the intersections of new genetics and new media by drawing from three different fields: internet studies; the sociology of health; and science and technology studies. While there has been a surge of research activity concerning DTC genetic testing, particularly in sociology, ethics and law, this is the first scholarly monograph on the topic, and the first book which brings together the social study of genetics and the social study of digital technologies. This book thus not only offers a new overview of this field, but also offers a unique contribution by attending to the digital, and by drawing upon empirical examples from our own research of DTC genetic testing websites (using online methods) and in-depth interviews in the United Kingdom with people using healthcare services.
Download or read book Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is growing enthusiasm in the scientific community about the prospect of mapping and sequencing the human genome, a monumental project that will have far-reaching consequences for medicine, biology, technology, and other fields. But how will such an effort be organized and funded? How will we develop the new technologies that are needed? What new legal, social, and ethical questions will be raised? Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome is a blueprint for this proposed project. The authors offer a highly readable explanation of the technical aspects of genetic mapping and sequencing, and they recommend specific interim and long-range research goals, organizational strategies, and funding levels. They also outline some of the legal and social questions that might arise and urge their early consideration by policymakers.
Download or read book Genome written by Matt Ridley and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ridley leaps from chromosome to chromosome in a handy summation of our ever increasing understanding of the roles that genes play in disease, behavior, sexual differences, and even intelligence. . . . . He addresses not only the ethical quandaries faced by contemporary scientists but the reductionist danger in equating inheritability with inevitability.” — The New Yorker The genome's been mapped. But what does it mean? Matt Ridley’s Genome is the book that explains it all: what it is, how it works, and what it portends for the future Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life. Genome offers extraordinary insight into the ramifications of this incredible breakthrough. By picking one newly discovered gene from each pair of chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine. From Huntington's disease to cancer, from the applications of gene therapy to the horrors of eugenics, Ridley probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome. It will help you understand what this scientific milestone means for you, for your children, and for humankind.
Download or read book Mapping Humanity written by Joshua Z. Rappoport and published by BenBella Books. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A good companion for those with a science background interested in learning more about human genetics." —Booklist Thanks to the popularity of personal genetic testing services, it's now easier than ever to get information about our own unique DNA—but who does this information really benefit? And, as genome editing and gene therapy transform the healthcare landscape, what do we gain—and what might we give up in return? Inside each of your cells is the nucleus, a small structure that contains all of the genetic information encoded by the DNA inside, your genome. Not long ago, the first human genome was sequenced at a cost of nearly $3 billion; now, this same test can be done for about $1,000. This new accessibility of genome sequence information creates huge potential for advances in how we understand and treat disease, among other things. It also raises significant concerns regarding ethics and personal privacy. In Mapping Humanity: How Modern Genetics Is Changing Criminal Justice, Personalized Medicine, and Our Identities, cellular biology expert Joshua Z. Rappoport provides a detailed look at how the explosion in genetic information as a result of cutting-edge technologies is changing our lives and our world. Inside, discover: • An in-depth look at how your personal genome creates the unique individual that you are • How doctors are using DNA sequencing to identify the underlying genetic causes of disease • Why the field of gene therapy offers amazing potential for medical breakthroughs—and why it's taking so long • The fantastic potential—and troubling concerns—surrounding genome editing • The real impact—and validity—of popular personal genetic testing products, such as 23andMe • Details of how molecular biology and DNA are changing the criminal justice system • Facts you should know about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) Throughout, in compelling, accessible prose, Rappoport explores the societal, ethical, and economic impacts of this new era. Offering a framework for balancing the potential risks and benefits of genetic information technologies and genetic engineering, Mapping Humanity is an indispensable guide to navigating the possibilities and perils of our gene-centric future.
Download or read book Handbook of Epigenetics written by Trygve O Tollefsbol and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2017-07-10 with total page 684 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Handbook of Epigenetics: The New Molecular and Medical Genetics, Second Edition, provides a comprehensive analysis of epigenetics, from basic biology, to clinical application. Epigenetics is considered by many to be the new genetics in that many biological phenomena are controlled, not through gene mutations, but rather through reversible and heritable epigenetic processes. These epigenetic processes range from DNA methylation to prions. The biological processes impacted by epigenetics are vast and encompass effects in lower organisms and humans that include tissue and organ regeneration, X-chromosome inactivation, stem cell differentiation, genomic imprinting, and aging. The first edition of this important work received excellent reviews; the second edition continues its comprehensive coverage adding more current research and new topics based on customer and reader reviews, including new discoveries, approved therapeutics, and clinical trials. From molecular mechanisms and epigenetic technology, to discoveries in human disease and clinical epigenetics, the nature and applications of the science is presented for those with interests ranging from the fundamental basis of epigenetics, to therapeutic interventions for epigenetic-based disorders. - Timely and comprehensive collection of fully up-to-date reviews on epigenetics that are organized into one volume and written by leading figures in the field - Covers the latest advances in many different areas of epigenetics, ranging from basic aspects, to technologies, to clinical medicine - Written at a verbal and technical level that can be understood by scientists and college students - Updated to include new epigenetic discoveries, newly approved therapeutics, and clinical trials
Download or read book Brenner s Encyclopedia of Genetics written by Stanley Maloy and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-03-03 with total page 4360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The explosion of the field of genetics over the last decade, with the new technologies that have stimulated research, suggests that a new sort of reference work is needed to keep pace with such a fast-moving and interdisciplinary field. Brenner's Encyclopedia of Genetics, Second Edition, Seven Volume Set, builds on the foundation of the first edition by addressing many of the key subfields of genetics that were just in their infancy when the first edition was published. The currency and accessibility of this foundational content will be unrivalled, making this work useful for scientists and non-scientists alike. Featuring relatively short entries on genetics topics written by experts in that topic, Brenner's Encyclopedia of Genetics, Second Edition, Seven Volume Set provides an effective way to quickly learn about any aspect of genetics, from Abortive Transduction to Zygotes. Adding to its utility, the work provides short entries that briefly define key terms, and a guide to additional reading and relevant websites for further study. Many of the entries include figures to explain difficult concepts. Key terms in related areas such as biochemistry, cell, and molecular biology are also included, and there are entries that describe historical figures in genetics, providing insights into their careers and discoveries. This 7-volume set represents a 25% expansion from the first edition, with over 1600 articles encompassing this burgeoning field Thoroughly up-to-date, with many new topics and subfields covered that were in their infancy or not inexistence at the time of the first edition. Timely coverage of emergent areas such as epigenetics, personalized genomic medicine, pharmacogenetics, and genetic enhancement technologies Interdisciplinary and global in its outlook, as befits the field of genetics Brief articles, written by experts in the field, which not only discuss, define, and explain key elements of the field, but also provide definition of key terms, suggestions for further reading, and biographical sketches of the key people in the history of genetics
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 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.
