Saturday, May 23, 2020

Genome - Matt Ridley

Subtitle: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

I've been working through my collection of DNA related books while staying home. This book was published several years ago so it is a bit out of date but still a great introduction to each chromosome.  Written after the mapping of the complete human genome, the author explains gene discoveries related to each chromosome and the science story behind each one.  A great read and a revealing, inspiring look at what genetics hold for the future.

Quotes/Notes:
Intro - "...twenty-two pair are in approximate order by size, from largest(1) to smallest (22)...in size the X comes between 7 and 8 ...whereas Y is the smallest."
"Imagine that the genome is a book.
            23 chapters, called chromosomes
            Each chapter contains several thousand stories called genes
            Each story is made up of paragraphs called exons, interrupted by advertisements called introns
            Each paragraph is made up of words, called codons
            Each word is written in letters called bases. "
 Chr 2 - "Apart from the fusion of Chr 2 visible differences between chimp and humans chrs are few and tiny. ...we are to a 98% approximation chimpanzees."
Chr 4 - Huntington's disease - first completely dominant human genetic disease to come to light.  a Long Island group in twelve generations of this pedigree more than a thousand cases of the disease...all descended from two brothers who emigrated from Suffolk in 1630.
Chr 7 - Instinct - the most startling evidence for a language instinct comes from a series of natural experiments in which children imposed grammatical rules upon language that lacked them.  ...pidgin language that became a creole in Hawaii in next generation.
Chr X and Y - Conflict - sex-chr drive - statistics - since females have two X chrs, 3/4's of all sex chrs are Xs.  Therefore, the X chr is 3 times as likely to evolve the ability to take pot shots at the Y.
Chr 8 - Aug 1986 murder in Leicestershire used DNA for the first time in history to exonerate a suspect (Pitchfork case)
Chr 14 - at the end of the chr there occurs a repated stretch of meaningless text the word TTAGGG repeated again and again about two thousand times.  ...known as a telomere.  Its presence enables the DNA copying devices to get started without cutting short any sens-containing text.  

Published: 2013  Read: May 2020  Genre: Science

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