Bøger af Nessa Carey

'A book that would have had Darwin swooning - anyone seriously interested in who we are and how we function should read this.' Guardian At the beginning of this century enormous progress had been made in genetics. The Human Genome Project finished sequencing human DNA. It seemed it was only a matter of time until we had all the answers to the secrets of life on this planet.The cutting-edge of biology, however, is telling us that we still don't even know all of the questions.How is it that, despite each cell in your body carrying exactly the same DNA, you don't have teeth growing out of your eyeballs or toenails on your liver? How is it that identical twins share exactly the same DNA and yet can exhibit dramatic differences in the way that they live and grow?It turns out that cells read the genetic code in DNA more like a script to be interpreted than a mould that replicates the same result each time. This is epigenetics and it's the fastest-moving field in biology today.The Epigenetics Revolution traces the thrilling path this discipline has taken over the last twenty years. Biologist Nessa Carey deftly explains such diverse phenomena as how queen bees and ants control their colonies, why tortoiseshell cats are always female, why some plants need a period of cold before they can flower, why we age, develop disease and become addicted to drugs, and much more. Most excitingly, Carey reveals the amazing possibilities for humankind that epigenetics offers for us all - and in the surprisingly near future.

The new scientific field, epigenetics, is revolutionizing our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. Epigenetic ideas help explain why mapping an organism's genetic code is simply not enough to determine how it develops or acts, and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying some of the key scientific investigations and breakthroughs in this field over the past twenty years, Nessa Carey paints a broad intellectual canvas that readers of science and medicine will find both fascinating and promising. Her book helps us discover how we are much more than the sum of our genetic codes.

The cutting-edge science that will revolutionise the way we prevent disease

For decades after the identification of the structure of DNA, scientists focused only on genes, the regions of the genome that contain codes for the production of proteins. Other regions that make up 98 percent of the human genome were dismissed as "e;junk,"e; sequences that serve no purpose. But researchers have recently discovered variations and modulations in this junk DNA that are involved with a number of intractable diseases. Our increasing knowledge of junk DNA has led to innovative research and treatment approaches that may finally ameliorate some of these conditions.Junk DNA can play vital and unanticipated roles in the control of gene expression, from fine-tuning individual genes to switching off entire chromosomes. These functions have forced scientists to revisit the very meaning of the word "e;gene"e; and have engendered a spirited scientific battle over whether or not this genomic "e;nonsense"e; is the source of human biological complexity. Drawing on her experience with leading scientific investigators in Europe and North America, Nessa Carey provides a clear and compelling introduction to junk DNA and its critical involvement in phenomena as diverse as genetic diseases, viral infections, sex determination in mammals, and evolution. We are only now unlocking the secrets of junk DNA, and Nessa Carey's book is an essential resource for navigating the history and controversies of this fast-growing, hotly disputed field.