Quotes About Genetics

Paranoid?" she inquired solicitously. "Getting more so by the minute. Having Mad Emperor Yuri in my family tree doesn't help a bit. I'm always wondering if I'm starting to come down with his disease. Can you be paranoid about being paranoid?" She smiled sweetly. "If anyone can, it's you.

the leaves and stems would bush out in the sunlight and eventually bear whatever fruit was their genetic destiny. In this place, probably apples with antlers, thought Leo in mild hysteria, or potatoes with eyes that really winked at you.

Sensitive periods are triggered via the interaction of genetic timing and experience. Sensitive periods are times of rapid learning when thousands of synaptic connections are made each second (Greenough, 1987; ten Cate, 1989). The timing of sensitive periods varies

Exactly right—folded quietly and knitted in right along with the working DNA there is a shadow self. This won't surprise poets. We carry our own genetic doubles, at least in part.

What are the chances that we will one day discover that DNA has absolutely nothing to do with inheritance? They are effectively zero.

The men and women on death row have some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad ideas, and bad luck—which of these quantities, exactly, were they responsible for? No human being stands as author to his own genes or his upbringing, and yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character throughout life.

No human being is responsible for his genes or his upbringing, yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character.

I know of only a few truisms, one being [that] if your parents didn't have children, you won't have children. Another is whenever you make a strength program easier, you will get weaker.

Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.

You want to know the secret of my success? Let me tell you about eugenics.

We do not know, in most cases, how far social failure and success are due to heredity, and how far to environment. But environment is the easier of the two to improve.

In his writings, Dr. Burke-Owens proposed a theory of personality that placed nature over nurture, stating there was no way to change a child's core personality. Not only was the brain hardwired, he proposed, but the soul was as well. There was no way to escape one's personal genetics, despite a healthy environment, and this did not bode well for Frances and Bridget and Vincent.

genetic workup showed I had a BRCA1 mutation, I chose to undergo chemo and have my breasts removed. (That was an aggressive course of action, and I had no regrets. My

I run because I am an animal. I run because it is part of my genetic wiring. I run because millions of years of evolution have left me programmed to run. And, finally, I run because there's no better way to see the sun rise and set.

If a species is subject to repetitive external environmental stimuli over the course of several generations, in time that species will adapt to those stimuli. The genetics of that species will change to support a new internal state, one that will help the species survive that external stimuli for generations to come. This is called survival of the species. It is a linear, slow process for most species.

genes don't create disease; instead, the environment signals the gene to create disease.

So as soon as you think a new thought, you become changed—neurologically, chemically, and genetically. In fact, you can gain thousands of new connections in a matter of seconds from novel learning, new ways of thinking, and fresh experiences. This means that by thought alone, you can personally activate new genes right away. It happens just by changing your mind; it's mind over matter.

It's not the gene that creates disease but the environment that programs our genes to create disease

And fewer than 5 percent of people on the planet are born with some genetic condition—like type 1 diabetes, Down syndrome, or sickle-cell anemia. The other 95 percent of us who develop such a condition acquire it through lifestyle and behaviors.

While the process of genetic evolution can take thousands of years, a gene can successfully alter its expression through a behavior change or a novel experience within minutes, and then it may be passed on to the next generation

The question is no longer whether there is a genetic component to athletic potential and endurance and strength trainability, but exactly which genes are involved and by which mechanisms and pathways they exert their effect.

This is the thing about my sister and I: we've never gotten along, even when we've gotten along. This is what happens when you have parents who fetishize family, and the viscosity of blood relative to water: you resent the force with which they push you together with this person who is, genetics aside, a stranger. And that's what my sister is: a stranger.

Genes aren't designed to make us happy. They design us to make more copies of themselves.

More astonishing, perhaps, is that the variation in DNA among members of the human family is actually larger than the variation between humans and chimpanzees.