Behavioural genetics

In philosophy, an often debated question involves whether or not the dead can be “wronged”. Slander is mostly agreed to be wrong, regardless of the character of the dead. However, could genetic testing have the same result? One great example is Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln fascinated physicians because of his remarkable stature (6’, 4”) which has been possibly linked to Marfan syndrome. Abraham Lincoln was unusually tall as a child and his extremities were disproportionately to his overall height;…

- Humans manipulate the genetic code in the DNA for a number of reasons - The first is to ensure the survivability of future generations of the human population and that they are healthy and benefit the population. Therefore, minimising the risk of passing on faulty alleles to future generations that causes genetically caused diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Having genetically cause diseases leads to a low life expectancy, increased health issues in the population which could be increased if…

process of altering an existing gene in the DNA and inserting it into cells in an organism to fix genetic disorders or diseases. In humans, gene therapy is the process in which some of the defect cells or the cells carrying the disease are removed from the body (eg. lung cells in a Cystic Fibrosis patient) in order to harvest their DNA. The base sequence of their DNA is then altered to remove the genetic disorder by deconstructing and reconstructing DNA through techniques such as PCR, ligation…

Mammal cloning is when a mature somatic cell is removed by researchers from an animal that they wish to produce with genetically the same information as the parents. The purpose is to produce a clone with the same genetic material as the individual from which the genetic material is taken from. They use different techniques for mammal cloning. The techniques used foe mammal cloning are embryo splitting and somatic cell nuclear transfer. Embryo splitting is used in sheep for effective traits…

Chapters 1 to 10 Overview A History of Genetics by A.H. Sturtevant provides a brief history of work prior to Mendel and the author’s firsthand account of the events and research that helped shape the field of genetics. Early on, various hypotheses were beginning to be formulated by scientists such as Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Darwin. These include pangenesis, hybridization, and human inheritance which provided Mendel with some ideas to develop his own understanding of heredity. Also, the…

Do we really have free will? I thought I knew, but I don’t know for sure anymore. A cursory look at our experiences lead us to believe that it seems our actions, words, and decisions just appear spontaneously, out of nowhere. So much so, in fact, that it sometimes seems to us that we are merely observing what comes out of our mouths, helplessly watching ourselves act, as if it were someone else. But isn’t this just a trick of perspective? An existential sleight of hand? Our conscious selves are…

If a positive correlation is found between aggressive behaviour in adopted children and aggressive behaviour in their biological parents, a genetic effect is implied. However, if a positive correlation is found between the adoptee’s aggressive behaviour and the rearing family, then an environmental effect is implied. Although, research by Hutchings and Medinick suggests that environmental factors do not play a role in aggressive behaviour, as they found when looking at 14,000 adoptions in…

For many decades, linkage analysis has been well-established and shown to be an effective tool for studying the complex quantitative traits. Despite of its great successes, this approach has great weakness because it only captures limited allelic diversity existing in two parental lines and also limited in low genomic resolution (Borevitz and Nordborg 2003). To address this issue, GWAS utilizing diverse germplasm collections and recombination events that have been accumulated during the…

The CRISPR/Cas9 system is a system currently being studied for use as a genetic modification method. It was discovered by scientists working with bacterial cells. It was discovered that bacterial cells utilize a defense system in which they identify viruses that are invading and “chop up” their DNA. This defense mechanism is composed of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats found within the genome of bacteria. This is the origin of the CRISRP acronym. These CRISPR sequences…

The genetic disorder known as Cystic Fibrosis affects about 30,000 people in the us and about 70,000 in the world. The disorder can cause people to have many problems such as difficulty breathing, difficulty digesting food, and many other problems with the lung, pancreas, and many other parts in your body. The disease is caused by a defective gene called the CFTR gene. These genes code to produce CFTR proteins which are used to transport water and particles into or out of cells. This helps…