Darwinian Detectives: Revealing the Natural History of Genes and GenomesBiology is often viewed today as a bipartisan field, with molecular level genetics guiding us into the future and natural history (including ecology, evolution, and conservation biology,) chaining us to a descriptive scientific past. In Darwinian Detectives, Norman Johnson bridges this divide, revealing how the tried and true tools of natural history make sense of the newest genomic discoveries. Molecular scientists exploring newly sequenced genomes have stumbled upon quite a few surprises, including that only one to ten percent of the genetic material of animals actually codes for genes. What does the remaining 90-99% of the genome do? Why do some organisms have a much lower genome size than their close relatives? What were the genetic changes that were associated with us becoming human? As molecular biologists uncover these and other new mysteries, evolutionary geneticists are searching for answers to such questions. Norman Johnson captures the excitement of the hunt for our own genetic history. Through lively anecdotes, he explores how researchers detect natural selection acting on genes and what this genetic information tells us about human origins. |
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Page vii
... disease that explains the disorder, not even the endemic parasite Plasmodium that causes malaria. Molecular biologists work out that the sickling is usually due to a single amino acid change in the string of amino acids that makes up ...
... disease that explains the disorder, not even the endemic parasite Plasmodium that causes malaria. Molecular biologists work out that the sickling is usually due to a single amino acid change in the string of amino acids that makes up ...
Page xv
... diseases such as malaria. The discussion of how evolutionary geneticists detect different forms of natural selection prepares us well for the subject of the next section: what genetic sequence information can tell us about human origins ...
... diseases such as malaria. The discussion of how evolutionary geneticists detect different forms of natural selection prepares us well for the subject of the next section: what genetic sequence information can tell us about human origins ...
Page xix
... Disease 71 INTERLUDE II: Human Origins and Evolution 83 Finding Our Roots: Did “Eve” Know “Adam”? 89 Who Were the Neanderthals? I of Are We the Third Chimpanzee? 117 What Are the Genetic Differences That Made Us Human? 129 Clicks, Genes ...
... Disease 71 INTERLUDE II: Human Origins and Evolution 83 Finding Our Roots: Did “Eve” Know “Adam”? 89 Who Were the Neanderthals? I of Are We the Third Chimpanzee? 117 What Are the Genetic Differences That Made Us Human? 129 Clicks, Genes ...
Page 6
... Diseases, say “It's a matter of when, not if” a flu pandemic will strike.8 We have experienced flu pandemics before in the not-so-distant past. Between and , influenza killed as many as million people worldwide ...
... Diseases, say “It's a matter of when, not if” a flu pandemic will strike.8 We have experienced flu pandemics before in the not-so-distant past. Between and , influenza killed as many as million people worldwide ...
Page 7
... disease-causing bacteria to many antibiotics is a serious and escalating public health crisis. Many species of these pathogenic bacteria are resistant to multiple antibiotics, including some that had previously been antibiotics of “last ...
... disease-causing bacteria to many antibiotics is a serious and escalating public health crisis. Many species of these pathogenic bacteria are resistant to multiple antibiotics, including some that had previously been antibiotics of “last ...
Contents
3 | |
2 Why Intelligent Design Is Not Science | 17 |
Natural Selection | 37 |
Human Origins and Evolution | 83 |
Notes | 185 |
Glossary | 197 |
References | 201 |
Index | 213 |
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Africa amino acid balancing selection Behe billion nucleotides biology bonobos brain breeds changes chapter chimps chromosome clicks closest relatives colleagues complex correlated Darwin Darwinian deleterious detect disease divergence DNA sequences dogs domesticated effective population size effective population sizes estimate evidence evolutionary biologists evolutionary geneticists evolve exists females FOXP frequency function genes genetic drift genetic variants genome size haplotypes hemoglobin heterozygotes Homo homozygotes human genome human lineage humans and chimpanzees humans and Neanderthals hypothesis individuals insects intelligent design introns Kimura language less maize males mammals mitochondrial DNA mitochondrial Eve modern humans molecular evolution molecules mtDNA natural selection Neanderthals negative selection neutral theory nucleotides occurred organisms origins patterns plants polymorphism positive selection protein pufferfish recent common ancestor regulatory region replacement researchers result scientific scientists silent sites similar species teosinte traits transposable elements vertebrates virus Y chromosome Y-chromosome Y-chromosome Adam