BOW Genome: Conflict

The body is viewed as a servant to genes acting as a victim, plaything, battleground and vehicle. If an X chromosome is inherited from the father, the child would be a girl and if a Y chromosome is inherited from the father, the child would be a boy. A gene called DAX is on the X chormosome and the gene SRY is found on the Y chormosome which is responsible for masculine traits. One SRY defeats one DAX, but two DAXes defeat one SRY. Since females are XX and males are XY, three-quarters of all sex chromosomes are X's and one quarter Y's. Therefore, Y is vulnerable to attack by a newly evolved X gene. SRY is one of the fastest evolving genes which restores balance  to the X chromosome.   A test was done on fruit flies to increase the strength of male semen. It became so strong that the female fly died because the semen became too toxic. The placenta is seen as a parasitic takeover of the mother's body by paternal genes in the fetus. Holland beleieved that peacocks eveolved long tials to seduce females since females became more resistant to being seduced. Sexual selection is due to resistance to genes.

BOW Genome: Intelligence

Genes are not there to cause diseases. Most genes are repeated, however, the number of time of repetitions affects how we will become either we have the disease or not. For some it is the presence of the gene too many times and for others, it is the lack there of. Plomin was curious whether there was a gene for intelligence and gathered DNA samples from children with an IQ approximately 160. He found that there was a gene can IGF2R which lies in the middle of the gene. At a later time, it was recognized that there were many different kinds of intelligence such as musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, etc. In a test with twins, it was shown that there is a correlation of IQ regardless of being reared together or apart. Two vital thigns that are proved in this chapter is that genetic influences are not frozen when you are born and environmental influences does affect our intelligence. 

BOW Genome: Introduction

The human genome comprises of twenty three pairs of chromosomes all of which are arranged from largest to smallest with the exception of chromosome pair number twenty three. Haig believed that each chromosome plays a different or specific role in determining who we are. Each set of chromosome, one from the mother and one from the father, has approximately thirty thousand to eighty thousand genes. the organization of chromosomes are broken into genes which are then broken into exons, then introns, codons, and finally bases. The DNA would go through replication, and translation to end up with a double helix. It woudl also be transcribed by RNA to create proteins. Many mutations are neither harmful nor beneficial.