Can genes determine which fifty-year-old will succumb to Alzheimer’s, which citizen will turn out on voting day, and which child will be marked for a life of crime? Yes, according to the Internet, a few scientific studies, and some in the biotechnology industry who should know better. Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber gather a team of genetic experts to argue that treating genes as the holy grail of our physical being is a patently unscientific endeavor. Genetic Explanations urges...

A preeminent geneticist, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in medicine, hunts the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes to answer the biggest question of them all: how did our ancestors become human?Neanderthal Man tells the riveting personal and scientific story of the quest to use ancient DNA to unlock the secrets of human evolution. Beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genom...

Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a novel kind of 'systemic' thinking. This volume integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework. Taking a broad sweep through history and across scientific disciplines, the authors examine the appearance of key concepts such as auto...

Crisscrossing the continent, a renowned geneticist provides a groundbreaking examination of America through its DNA.The best-selling author of The Seven Daughters of Eve now turns his sights on the United States, one of the most genetically variegated countries in the world. From the blue-blooded pockets of old-WASP New England to the vast tribal lands of the Navajo, Bryan Sykes takes us on a historical genetic tour, interviewing genealogists, geneticists, anthropologists,...

Steve Jones’s highly acclaimed, double prize-winning, bestselling first book is now fully revised to cover all the new genetic breakthroughs from GM food to Dolly the sheep. ’An essential sightseer’s guide to our own genetic terrain.’ Peter Tallack, Sunday Telegraph’Superb and stimulating…an exhilarating trip around the double spiral of DNA, a rush of gravity-defying concepts and wild swerves of the scientific imagination.’ J.G. Ballard, Daily Telegraph’Not so much divinati...

Send in the clones! On second thought, maybe not.CAN IT READ MY MIND?WILL IT BE EVIL?HOW DO I STOP IT?Find out the answers to these and other burning questions in this funny, informative, and ingenious book from two bioengineering experts who show you how to survive—and thrive—in a new age of truly weird science.For decades, science fiction has been alerting us to the wonders and perils of our biotech future—from the prospects of gene therapy to the pit...

A landmark book by the senior science writer at Time magazine introduces us to a medical breakthrough that can save our lives.Few people know much about stem cell research beyond the ethical questions raised by using embryos. But in the last decade, stem cell research has made huge advances toward eliminating some of our most intractable diseases. Now this sweeping and accessible book introduces us to this cutting-edge science that will revolutionize medic...

Over the past decade, a group of prolific and innovative evolutionary biologists has sought to reinvent historical linguistics through the use of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analysis, treating cognates like genes and conceptualizing the spread of languages in terms of the diffusion of viruses. Using these techniques, researchers claim to have located the origin of the Indo-European language family in Neolithic Anatolia, challenging the near-consensus view that it emerged in the gras...

The definitive insider's history of the genetic revolution--significantly updated to reflect the discoveries of the last decade.James D. Watson, the Nobel laureate whose pioneering work helped unlock the mystery of DNA's structure, charts the greatest scientific journey of our time, from the discovery of the double helix to today's controversies to what the future may hold. Updated to include new findings in gene editing, epigenetics, agricultural chemistry, as wel...

This book was written for graduate and medical students, as well as clinicians and postdoctoral researchers. It describes the theory of alternative pre-mRNA splicing intwelve introductory chapters and then introduces protocols and their theoretical background relevant for experimental research. These 43 practical chapters cover: Basic methods, Detection of splicing events, Analysis of alternative pre-mRNA splicing in vitro and in vivo, Manipulation of splicing events, and Bioinforma...

The first of its kind, this reference gives a comprehensive but concise introduction to epigenetics before covering the many interactions between hormone regulation and epigenetics at all levels. The contents are very well structured with no overlaps between chapters, and each one features supplementary material for use in presentations. Throughout, major emphasis is placed on pathological conditions, aiming at the many physiologists and developmental biologists who are familiar with the i...

Bringing together nanoscience with stem cell and bacterial cell biology, this thesis is truly interdisciplinary in scope. It shows that the creation of superparamagnetic nanoparticles inside a protein coat, followed by chemical functionalisation of the protein surface, provides a novel methodology for cell magnetisation using incubation times as short as one minute. Crucially, stem cell proliferation and multi-lineage differentiation capacity is not impaired after labelling. Due to the uns...