The gene as the basis of life.
The body is a survival machine programmed to propagate the genes that reside inside it.
If there's a seminal discovery in oncology in the last 20 years, it's that idea that cancer genes are often mutated versions of normal genes.
We will create life from inanimate compounds, and we will find life in space. But the life that should more immediately interest us lies between these extremes, in the middle range we all inhabit between our genes and our stars.
The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.
The environment can actually affect gene expression.
Eternal life does not violate the laws of physics. After all, we only die because of one word: "error. " The longer we live, the more errors there are that are made by our bodies when they read our genes. That means cells get sluggish. The body doesn't function as well as it could, which is why the skin ages. Then organs eventually fail, so that's why we die.
The primary problem is not to provide the public with the knowledge of how far it is to the nearest star and what genes are made of. . Rather, the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth.
I do not have a bride gene. I haven't been planning a wedding since I was 3. I never put a sheet on my head and pretended that it was a veil.
What you see in living systems, and in genetic systems, is that the genes are already there, having arisen in the course of time, and when they are needed they become activated. If they had to be invented, the time would be too late.
I've inherited the bad poetry genes, but not the inventor genes.
The body is merely an evolutionary vehicle for the gene
Really, handknitting is a dreamy activity, built into many people's thumbs and fingers by genes already there, itching to display their skills and achievement possibilities.
Gene Roddenberry's thing always was, we should not pass judgment on anything that anyone else believes in or what they do in their lives.
Just like a single cell, the character of our lives is determined not by our genes but by our responses to the environmental signals that propel life.
I didn't get the charm gene.
We didn't stay in the caves. We haven't stayed on the planet. With biotechnology, gene sequencing, we are not going to even stay within the limitations of biology.
First of all, many human diseases are influenced by, if not caused by mutations in genes.
We don't get to pick the genes we want. There's room in this world for beauty to be diverse.
I cannot say that I have been hindered all my life by the permutation of genes that resulted in me being born a woman.