The genome is the text of life. Its ink is the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a heteropolimer of four nucleotides (guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine). It encodes the instructions to make work all known living organisms (and viruses). It was isolated at first in 1869 for Friedrich Miescher and at the early 50s of the 20 […]
When the general media report news about genetics, there is a deplorable tendency towards gene determinism. Headlines in the vein of “Gene for X discovered”—where X is anything from a physical trait to a complex behavior—are regrettably common, and almost always incorrect. That’s why I face this article with some trepidation. Because, you see, there […]
It is interesting how some ideas get stuck in our minds even long after it is proved that they are incorrect or incomplete. Haeckel’s Recapitulation Theory, which states that during the embryological development of an organism it undergoes through different stages recalling the evolutionary history of its ancestors (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny), is considered obsolete nowadays […]
The advances in molecular biology and the so called post-genomic era, have improved significantly the fight against many human diseases, in some cases almost leading to their eradication. However, there are still regions of our planet were people suffer from infections and other causes of mortality which are easily avoided in the most developed countries […]
From the genetic point of view, when should a man be more interested in caring for his sister’s children than his wife’s? A quantitative analysis of Alan Rogers, University of Utah, shows that this behaviour should be the choice in populations where adultery is common or permitted. In the animal world, males caring for offspring […]
In biology few issues are as basic as the division and classification of living things. Despite the differences shown by taxa that occupy each of the categories, all living things have a common ancestor and characteristics that unite them. Since Linnaeus (in 1735) to the newest division created by Cavalier-Smith (in the late twentieth century) […]