Classical genetics

The first negative aspect to the world of GATTACA would be that those chosen to be one’s partner seemed to be solely based on the other person’s genetic sequence and their “ranking.” When Irene goes to sequence Jerome’s (Vincent’s) hair and gets the sequence back, the person working at the sequencing booth tells her that Jerome’s “rating” is a 9.3 and that he is “quite the catch.” By saying this,…

focused studies on certain organisms like the Galapagos Island finches have played a large role in our knowledge today about biological evolution, natural selection and descent with modification. Over many generations and an extended period of time the genetic change of an organism is bound to happen, these changes are called biological evolution. Scientists have studied these changes and how they occur for many years, all starting with Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands.…

introduced in order to fulfill our cultures supply needs for food. Genetically Modified Organisms can be crops that have a modified DNA sequence that is superior than naturally occurring plants. Abbie Goldbas states that, “Gmos are organisms whose genetic makeups have been changed by mutating, inserting, or deleting…

how much genetic variance can account for the variations of cognition that are observed in the human population (Plomin et al, 2013). Over the years, we have in some ways learned an immense amount about intelligence, yet when reading even the most recent reports it appears that we know hardly anything at all. One thing that most scientists can agree upon, is that fact that intelligence is a polygenic…

Frances English 212 23 July 2016 Personalized Medicine: Classifying Data for use in the Clinical Setting In the past 10 years, the area of genetics has undergone a huge transformation, and many discoveries regarding our DNA, genome, and other aspects of our development have been made. The developments of new technologies, which can sequence our entire genetic sequence in very short periods of time, have caused a major influx of data to the medical field. Researchers are now beginning to think…

The “Pointless” Artificial Creation The matter of cloning reached a peak when CEO of BioArts International, Lou Hawthorne, announced to his company that they were no longer offering dog-cloning services by giving demand of cloning for a an uninterested market and unethical competition between international markets as one of the reasons for the stoppage. A similar situation of total disregard to organism creation through laboratorial procedures was observed in Ehrlich’s article talking about the…

Many people realize that sleep plays a vital role in maintaining a healthy body, but many times they put it at the bottom of their priority list due to the hectic life style of today’s society. It has been known that factors such as your health, age, gender, etc. have played a big influence on how much sleep you need in order to function well the following day. Scientist are now pointing at two factors that influence how much sleep you need: sleep need, the amount of sleep you need in order to…

We started off Wednesday, knowing we would be covering a topic that was completely new to pretty much everyone attending. We were covering transposable elements. These were first discovered by Barbara McClintock in corn kernels. She noticed that the corn kernels were either colored, or plain- but once in a while they were spotted. Most scientists at the time assumed that the chromosome for color had been repressed or had broken off. However, Dr. McClintock felt that if the chromosome had been…

Richard Dawkins is a well-known biologist and a writer who takes after Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was the man who originally discovered the possibility of natural selection. Scott LaFee is a science writer who believes that Dawkin’s work proves that he is very similar to Charles Darwin. “Richard Dawkins, the 68-year-old English biologist and best-selling author, whose rousing defense and explanations of evolution have earned him international admiration, the enduring enmity of creationists…

When it comes to determining the ethicality for a human being to alter a fellow human’s DNA in the hopes of eradicating genetic disorders, every individual is going to have a different opinion on the matter. This idea is observed in the two articles; “Gene Therapy: Human Germline Genetic Modifications– Assessing the Scientific, Socio-ethical and Religious Issues” by Qiana Matthews, PhD and David Curiel, MD, PhD and “Gene Therapy: Theoretical and Bioethics Concepts” written by Kevin Smith, PhD.…