Quotes About Genetics

New mutations don't create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.

Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.

And when he finally plotted it all up, there it was: the number of cell types in an organism did indeed scale roughly as the square root of the number of genes it had.

But while our children learn from watching how we react to challenge and recover from crisis, they are not us. Genetics and temperament play a role in determining which coping skills come most easily to us. We naturally lean in to our strengths. An extroverted parent may reach for enthusiasm first, while an introverted child may opt for creativity. Both can be equally effective in solving problems.

For him the tragedy of Homo sapiens is that the least fit to survive breed the most.

You'd better leave your chromosomes at the door.

All blue-eyed people are mutants. The first ones appeared as recently as 5,000 years ago.

A single sperm contains 37.5 MB of DNA information. One ejaculation represents a data transfer of 15,875 GB

All influenza viruses mutate constantly

virus has only one function: to replicate itself.

Influenza is an RNA virus. So are HIV and the coronavirus.

Avery was attacking the most fundamental questions of immunology and, ultimately, genetics. From each failed experiment he learned, perhaps not much but something. And what he was learning went beyond how to fine-tune an experiment. What he was learning from his failures had large ramifications that applied to entire fields of knowledge. One could argue that none of Avery's experiments failed.

Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?

Simple determinism, whether of the genetic or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will.

Any living cell carries with it the experience of a billion years of experimentation by its ancestors.

Every minute, every second, the pattern of genes being expressed in your brain changes, often in direct or indirect response to events outside the body. Genes are the mechanisms of experience.

Diabetes is passed that way -- over and down, like a knight in chess.

They needed her mind, but only in the genetic scheme of things.

The amount of DNA not coding for RNA, sometimes called junk DNA (a dangerous term for something one does not understand), is also much greater in eukaryotes.

Children do take after their parents, of course. But the rearrangement of the inherited qualities and defects is done so strangely that only one of a pair of qualities which seemed inseparable in a parent may turn up in the child; and it may be blended with a defect of the other parent that had once seemed incompatible with it.

Some planets evolved genetic structures roughly similar to Earth's, incorporating some if not all the nucleotides involved in terrestrial genetics (perhaps not coincidentally, the intelligent species of these planets have been known to consume humans from time to time;

apparently mutiny is in the DNA, like eye color or a tendency toward irritable bowels.

Dr. Gitsen did genetic typing of some of the Dalasýslans," Marce said. "Do you know what she found?" "Inbreeding?" "No," Marce said. "Well, yes.

At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, You can't make a race horse of a pig. Samuel replies, No, but you can make a very fast pig.