Quotes About Genetics

A couple of years ago, I had my DNA sequencing done, and it is all anonymous. When the results came back, my musculature type said, 'most likely to be a sprinter.'

What does gene A do? What does gene B do? What does it do in different contexts? What's its importance? We know the answer to that for a very small number of genes, the ones that made themselves evident many years ago.

So much of the physical world has been explored. But the deluge of data I get to investigate really lets me chart new territory. Genetic data from people living today forms an archaeological record of what happened to their ancestors 10,000 years ago.

Scientists have found the gene for shyness. They would have found it years ago, but it was hiding behind a couple of other genes.

We can do genetics. We can do experiments on fruit flies. We can do experiments on yeast. It's not so easy to do experiments on humans. So, in fact, it helps us, to interpret our own genetic code, to have the genetic code of the other species.

Yes, genes are important for understanding our behavior. Incredibly important - after all, they code for every protein pertinent to brain function, endocrinology, etc., etc. But the regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.

I'm very genetically blessed; I cannot deny it, but I work hard at keeping myself together. Yes, I have nice cheekbones and skinny legs, but I can't take any credit for it.

Hybrids have become an important method for improving productivity or yield in many crops including the self-pollinated crop like rice.

I was depressed at a very young age - mental illness runs in my family, especially on the female side.

You certainly can't prevent all mental health problems - factors like genetics and traumatic life events certainly play a role. But everyone can take steps to improve their mental health and prevent further mental illness.

It's worth knowing more about the complicated environmental and genetic factors that could explain why traumatic brain injuries lead to long-term disabilities in some people and not in others.

I don't think anyone is 'born' an entrepreneur. It is not a genetic thing. But you do need self-confidence, guts and a relentless attitude to life-it's a24/7 treadmill, not a jump-on, jump-off routine.

Scientists have established huge numbers of links between particular diseases and snippets of DNA, but in the great majority of cases, this has not yet been translated into treatments that can help cure patients. These treatments will come - tomorrow, or the day after.

We recognized in 1996 that, with progress in the field of genetics accelerating at a breathtaking pace, we need to ensure that advances in treatment and prevention of disease do not constitute a new basis for discrimination.

As the knowledge around personalized medicine continues to grow, consumers should expect their healthcare providers to begin to incorporate genetic information into their treatments and preventative care.

What is basically just an IQ score has roots in education, socioeconomic status, genetics, and environmental factors. Looking at any one of these roots doesn't give you a full picture of the tree, but it does tell you that a tree is there.

A big tree seemed even more beautiful to me when I imagined thousands of tiny photosynthesis machines inside every leaf. So I went to MIT and worked on bacteria because that's where people knew the most about these switches, how to control the genetics.

Charles Darwin and I and you broke off from the family tree from chimpanzees about five million years ago. They're still our closest genetic kin. We share 98.8 percent of the genes. We share more genes with them than zebras do with horses. And we're also their closest cousin. They have more genetic relation to us than to gorillas.

One of the things about genetics that has become clearer as we've done genomes - as we've worked our way through the evolutionary tree, including humans - is that we're probably much more genetic animals than we want to confess we are.

In the movie 'Star Trek 3: The Return of Spock,' I'm a really bad Klingon, and I really enjoyed playing that - somebody who's totally unscrupulous. It's like he was not genetically equipped to feel compassion or sensitivity. Just outright evil without apology.

When I read about genetics, I see breakthroughs every day. And while I'm trying to learn more about behavioral science, I must say that I don't feel I get tremendous intellectual stimulation from most of the things I read.

All this suggested to me that there are important distinctions to be made when talking about information in DNA. In the first place, it's important to distinguish information defined as "a piece of knowledge known by a person" from information defined as "a sequence of characters or arrangements of something that produce a specific effect." Whereas the first of these two definitions of information doesn't apply to DNA, the

the kind of information that DNA contains, namely, functionally specified information.

How does the sequence of bases on the DNA direct the construction of protein molecules?