genetics

Presents the life and career of the geneticist who spent many years studying the cells of maize and in 1983 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Explains why biotechnology is a relevant and volatile issue. Begins with a history of biotechnology and its effect on agriculture, medicine, and the environment. Equal space is devoted to discussing the efforts of human-rights advocates, animal-rights advocates, and environmentalists to create definitive governmental regulations for this budding industry.

After the grief of losing her mother to cancer as a teenager, Sarah Gabriel had learned to appreciate "the charms of simple happiness." With a career as a journalist, a home in Oxford, England, a husband, and two young daughters, she was content. But then at age forty-four, she was diagnosed with breast cancer---the result of M18T, an inherited mutation on the BRCA1 gene that had taken the lives of her mother and countless female ancestors. Eating Pomegranates is Gabriel's candid and incredibly intimate story of being forced to acknowledge that while you can try to overcome the loss of a parent, you can never escape your genetic legacy. When she was diagnosed with the same disease that killed her mother, Gabriel began her treatments and wrote her story.

Describes how high school teacher Hans Duncker and shopkeeper Karl Reich created a new bird, the red canary, in 1920s Germany, and became the first people to genetically engineer an organism.

Discusses green fluorescent pigment--GFP--from the jellyfish and its use in other organisms such as rabbits and monkeys in order to track the early stages of cancer and other diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in the hopes that it may lead to a cure.