Library Catalog
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
The Mutant Project by
An anthropologist visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: Whose values are guiding gene editing experiments? And what does this new era of scientific inquiry mean for the future of the human species? "That rare kind of scholarship that is also a page-turner." --Britt Wray, author ofRise of the Necrofauna At a conference in Hong Kong in November 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced that he had created the first genetically modified babies--twin girls named Lulu and Nana--sending shockwaves around the world. A year later, a Chinese court sentenced Dr. He to three years in prison for "illegal medical practice." As scientists elsewhere start to catch up with China's vast genetic research program, gene editing is fueling an innovation economy that threatens to widen racial and economic inequality. Fundamental questions about science, health, and social justice are at stake: Who gets access to gene editing technologies? As countries loosen regulations around the globe, from the U.S. to Indonesia, can we shape research agendas to promote an ethical and fair society? Eben Kirksey takes us on a groundbreaking journey to meet the key scientists, lobbyists, and entrepreneurs who are bringing cutting-edge genetic engineering tools like CRISPR--created by Nobel Prize-winning biochemists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier--to your local clinic. He also ventures beyond the scientific echo chamber, talking to disabled scholars, doctors, hackers, chronically-ill patients, and activists who have alternative visions of a genetically modified future for humanity. The Mutant Project empowers us to ask the right questions, uncover the truth, and navigate this brave new world.
Call Number: QH442 .K55 2020
Blueprint by
In 'Blueprint', behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality--the blueprint that makes us who we are. This, says Plomin, is a game-changer. It calls for a radical rethinking of what makes us who were are.
Call Number: QH438.7 .P64 2018
She Has Her Mother's Laugh by
2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist "Science book of the year"--The Guardian One of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018 One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2018 One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 "Extraordinary"--New York Times Book Review "Magisterial"--The Atlantic "Engrossing"--Wired "Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year"--Minneapolis Star-Tribune Celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities... But, Zimmer writes, "Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways." Heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.
Call Number: QH431 .Z53 2018
The Gene by
The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies--a fascinating history of the gene and "a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick" (Elle). "Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself." -Ken Burns "Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost" (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices. "Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories...[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry" (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee's own family--with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness--reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation--from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome. "A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are--and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future" (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. "The Gene is a book we all should read" (USA TODAY).
Call Number: RB155 .M85 2016
Human Diversity by
"Human diversity, with its myriad of different conditions involving biology, psychology, and social structures, remains one of the biggest challenges--and opportunities--facing the species. With many government and private firms now having diversity or equality officers, programmes or committees, it is clear that human diversity is a cornerstone of policy-making at the very highest echelons. All this points to a need for proper scientific and medical information on this topic--not soft 'politically correct' sociology. This book provides the hard facts on human similarities and differences, their causes and effects on people. It covers the whole range from normal to extreme human types, and presents--for the first time--much of the author's 25 years of original research on the subject. It can also act as a family medical guide to aspects of human function, structure and disease. It covers many human topics in a humane and understandable fashion, providing much material for information and discussion. It can be used as a handbook or textbook on human diversity, but is mainly popular science for the general public."-- From publisher's description
Call Number: GN270 .L36 2016
The Mysterious World of the Human Genome by
Who could have guessed it? -- DNA is confirmed as the code -- Story in the picture -- Couple of misfits -- Secret of life -- Sister molecule -- Logical next step -- First draft of the human genome -- How heredity changes -- Advantage of living together -- Viruses that are part of us -- Genomic level evolution -- Master controllers -- Our history preserved in our DNA -- Our more distant ancestors -- Great wilderness of prehistory -- Our human relatives --Fate of the Neanderthals -- What makes you unique -- Fifth element.
Call Number: QH447 .R93 2015
Streaming Video
- Beyond Genetics"Nature or Nurture?” is a long-running debate in the social sciences, one heavily-influenced in the popular imagination by the idea "DNA is destiny” – the belief human behavior is broadly determined by a "good” or a "bad” roll of the genetic dice. While human genetics is an important part of our story, recent developments in the field of epigenetics suggest that the way our genes actually work can be critically shaped by the environment in which we live. This film, featuring contributions from Dr. Nessa Carey and Dr. Guy Sutton, goes Beyond Genetics to explore the ways epigenetics gives a new and exciting dimension to the debate.
Associations
- Genetics Society of America
The Genetics Society of America (GSA), founded in 1931, is the professional membership organization for scientific researchers and educators in the field of genetics. - American Society of Human Genetics
Our mission is to advance human genetics in science, health, and society through excellence in research, education, and advocacy
Article Archives
Online From CCBC Libraries
Human Genetics and Ethics by
Genes are the instructions for the growth and development of our bodies, however mutations in a person's genome can result in a genetic condition or disease. What are the dilemmas, risks and regulations associated with genetic testing and its related privacy and discrimination issues, gene patenting, and the prospect of human genetic enhancement? What are the ethical implications of gene therapies and gene editing (CRISPR)? Scientific progress, or playing God?
Publication Date: 2018
Genetics and Human Behavior by
This book will look at behavior in a different way. Have you heard of the phrase nature vs nurture? Simply, it asks what influences our behavior? This has been a debated topic since early man. Nature is usually defined as what is given to us before we are born, specifically, as discussed in this text, genetics. Nurture means learning that we acquire from our environment-parents, friends, and other influences. In this book, we will look at the newest scientific work, how both genetics and environment effect how we behave. Science, specifically genetics, is now finding its way into all areas of everyday life, criminal law, politics, and how our brain is involved in our actions.
Publication Date: 2017
The Society of Genes by
Nearly four decades ago Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene, famously reducing humans to "survival machines" whose sole purpose was to preserve "the selfish molecules known as genes." How these selfish genes work together to construct the organism, however, remained a mystery. Standing atop a wealth of new research, The Society of Genes now provides a vision of how genes cooperate and compete in the struggle for life. Pioneers in the nascent field of systems biology, Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher present a compelling new framework to understand how the human genome evolved and why understanding the interactions among our genes shifts the basic paradigm of modern biology. Contrary to what Dawkins's popular metaphor seems to imply, the genome is not made of individual genes that focus solely on their own survival. Instead, our genomes comprise a society of genes which, like human societies, is composed of members that form alliances and rivalries. In language accessible to lay readers, The Society of Genes uncovers genetic strategies of cooperation and competition at biological scales ranging from individual cells to entire species. It captures the way the genome works in cancer cells and Neanderthals, in sexual reproduction and the origin of life, always underscoring one critical point: that only by putting the interactions among genes at center stage can we appreciate the logic of life.
Publication Date: 2016
Brenner's Encyclopedia of Genetics by
The explosion of the field of genetics over the last decade, with the new technologies that have stimulated research, suggests that a new sort of reference work is needed to keep pace with such a fast-moving and interdisciplinary field. Brenner's Encyclopedia of Genetics, Second Edition, Seven Volume Set, builds on the foundation of the first edition by addressing many of the key subfields of genetics that were just in their infancy when the first edition was published. The currency and accessibility of this foundational content will be unrivalled, making this work useful for scientists and non-scientists alike. Featuring relatively short entries on genetics topics written by experts in that topic, Brenner's Encyclopedia of Genetics, Second Edition, Seven Volume Set provides an effective way to quickly learn about any aspect of genetics, from Abortive Transduction to Zygotes. Adding to its utility, the work provides short entries that briefly define key terms, and a guide to additional reading and relevant websites for further study. Many of the entries include figures to explain difficult concepts. Key terms in related areas such as biochemistry, cell, and molecular biology are also included, and there are entries that describe historical figures in genetics, providing insights into their careers and discoveries.
Publication Date: 2013
Databases
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Articles from journals on science, technology, and medicine for advanced research.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
