It is a rather basic, chemical—mechanical, step-by-step process. From simple asymmetry can grow intricate pattern. The environment that a child experiences is as much a consequence of the child’s genes as it is of external factors: the child seeks out and creates his or her own environment. If she is of a mechanical bent, she practises mechanical skills; if a bookworm, she seeks out books. The genes may create an appetite, not an aptitude. Chromosome 7 – Instinct Females gradually evolve so that they are turned off, not on, by the displays of males of their own species. Sexual selection is thus an expression of sexual antagonism between genes for seduction and genes for resistance. Serotonin levels are not innate and inflexible. They are themselves the product of social status. The higher your self-esteem and social rank relative to those around you, the higher your serotonin level is. 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:

When an electrical nerve signal reaches a synapse, it must transfer to a chemical signal, like a train passenger catching a ferry across a sea channel, before resuming its electrical journey.

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Ridley contemplates evolutionary psychology using the genes SRY on the Y chromosome, and DAX1 and Xq28 on the X chromosome. The theory of genetic conflict and evolution is debated using the rhetorical question, are we bodies containing genes, or genes in bodies? His stereotypically regressive views on sex and gender (which include not only a complete denial that trans people exist, but also views on gender roles and things boys inherently like versus things girls inherently like so comically extreme and poorly defended I would have believed them to be satire in any other context) are considerably more grating, and make me question whether the score I gave Red Queen—which is, after all, entirely about those things—wasn't a result of an excess of faith in humanity and red wine. 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.

For example the average speaker knows 20-35K English words, and yet we can produce an infinite variety of works. ↩ Before the human genome was sequenced, scientists had expected to find around 80-100K genes, whereas they instead found between 20-30K. Why was the estimate off by a factor of four? Partly we may have underestimated the combinatorial value of genes,[ 8] but more importantly we did not understand that the transcriptional potential of a cell can be affected by external or environmental factors. The study of these factors is known as epigenetics. The first chapter begins with a quote from Alexander Pope on the cycle of life. The very broad topic "Life" is also the topic of the chapter. Ridley discusses the history of the gene briefly, including our " last universal common ancestor". Other genes then interpret all this information and make ever more complicated appendages and organs.

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When the human genome was declared complete in 2003, one may have been forgiven for asking question, which human was the human genome sequenced from? Does it even make sense to say there is a single human genome given the staggering genetic diversity that exists? The Humane Genome Project used a collection of several individuals, although “[m]uch of the sequence (>70%) of the reference genome produced by the public HGP came from a single anonymous male donor from Buffalo, New York (code name RP11).” Could we imagine a “representative” genome, in the same way that we can think of a representative Canadian (average height, weight, income, life expectancy, etc)? The answer is no, because there are some aspects of our genome which have no stable equilibrium: their dynamics will perpetually remain in flux. Blood type is an excellent example of this. People that are blood type A (they have two A blood-type genes) have superior resistance to cholera than individuals with blood-type B. So why doesn’t the gene which encodes for blood type B die out? It turns out individuals with blood type AB have an even better resistance to disease. However, a couple with the “best” blood type (AB) will produce 25% of their offspring with blood type AA. In other words: 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. ↩ Melatonin is made from serotonin, so serotonin levels drop as it gets used up in melatonin manufacture. There are one billion words in the book, which makes it longer than 5,000 volumes the size of this one, or as long as 800 Bibles. Arguably, more damage has been done by false negatives (true genes that have been prematurely ruled out on inadequate data) than by false positives (suspicions of a link that later prove unfounded).

A baby chimpanzee would be as socially confused if reared by human beings as Tarzan would be if reared by chimps. The idea of genes in conflict with each other, the notion of the genome as a sort of battlefield between parental genes and childhood genes, or between male genes and female genes, is a little-known story outside a small group of evolutionary biologists. Yet it has profoundly shaken the philosophical foundations of biology. Chromosome 9 – Disease Each story is made up of paragraphs, called EXONS, which are interrupted by advertisements called INTRONS. 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?I wish I could give this book 6 stars! It's really fantastic, and I want to recommend it to EVERYONE, but in my heart I know the tone would bore some of my friends... I suggest thinking of the author/narrator as a cool guy you'd be friends with telling you all this information, instead of a nerdy/haughty *scientist* ...He's not a scientist, he's a writer & former editor, & this isn't a textbook, but it could be--he's done his research & includes all his references. Just slightly out-of-date (published in 1999) since genetics is such a fast-progressing area of knowledge but overall not "dated" or off-base. 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. 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.

Well sourced: The notes at the end reveal that Ridley is on top of the latest academic research and writing. Each chapter has about 20 citations from within a few years that the books were published. The most important lesson from the book is repeated over and over again, "Genes are not there to cause diseases." Gene mutations can lead to disease, and sometimes there is a balancing effect between resistance to one disease at the expense of being susceptible to another disease. The human genome is a book. By reading it carefully from beginning to end, taking due account of anomalies like imprinting, a skilful technician could make a complete human body.

Genome

The whole serotonin system is about biological determinism. Your chances of becoming a criminal are affected by your brain chemistry. But that does not mean, as it is usually assumed to mean, that your behaviour is socially immutable. Quite the reverse: your brain chemistry is determined by the social signals to which you are exposed. Biology determines behaviour yet is determined by society. Tarzan, for instance, would not learn to speak, and a human-reared chimp would not learn precisely how to appease dominant animals and intimidate subordinates, to make tree nests or to fish for termites. The biologist Jerry Coyne, writing in the London Review of Books, criticises Genome as "at once instructive and infuriating. For each nugget of science, Ridley also includes an error or misrepresentation. Some of these derive from poor scholarship: others from his political agenda." [3] For example, Coyne mentions Ridley's incorrect claim that "half of your IQ is inherited"; [3] that Ridley assumes that the marker used by Robert Plomin, IGF2R, is the purported "intelligence gene" [3] that it marks; and that social influences on behaviour [always] work by switching genes on and off, something that Coyne states is "occasionally true". [3] Coyne argues that Ridley is an "implacable" [3] genetic determinist, denying the influence of the environment, and calling his politics "right-wing". [3] He calls the book's structure "eccentric" [3] and "bizarre", [3] the chapters matching the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, and notes that Genome is the third of Ridley's books that "tries to popularise" evolutionary psychology. [3] Marriage counsellors, too, report good results from encouraging their clients to accept that they cannot change their partners’ irritating habits – because they are probably innate – but must find ways to live with them. Huntington's chorea is used to discuss the use of a particular sequence on Chromosome Four to cause traumatic health consequences. The search for the chromosomal source of this and other related diseases is discussed through the work of Nancy Wexler, someone who may have inherited the gene but who turns to scientific work to study it in others.