Summer Reading - Honors Biology Post -Read

Genome

After receiving the book, Genome, I was really nervous to start reading because I was afraid that the book would be incredibly boring and just purely facts, not a read that you could get into and that was interesting. Also, science is not my strongest subject because it is sometimes hard for me to fully understand scientific concepts as they can be so grand and complex, but I was pleasantly surprised by this book. In James's e-mail it seemed that he enjoyed the book because he was able to understand the complexity of the genome in a simplistic way, which is very helpful to those of us who aren't scientists and knowledgeable in that area.

Right off the bat the author first broke down what a genome actually was, which was very helpful. A genome is a set of human genes that is comprised of twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. The book explores each one of the chromosome pairs and touches the surface of what traits and information has been learned about that specific chromosome. There are still thousands upon thousands of traits that a chromosome affects but have yet to been discovered. The genome in its entirety is so vast that there are still many mysteries that are being uncovered. Through the book we get a general knowledge of what the genome is comprised of and the chromosomes.

Though this was just a broad knowledge of the genome, there was so much information that was packed into it. At times, I must admit, it was hard to follow the book because it became a bit mundane, boring, and confusing. At those times I wasn't as interested in the book and I also didn't fully understand what I was reading. Even though this book would be considered more of a beginner's guide to the genome, it still talks of very complex concepts and uses of each chromosome. I wish that I had read this book with someone or as a class to be able to discuss the chromosome and the trait that was being explored from each chapter.

That being said, I still learned a ton of knowledge about the human body and genome and a few pieces of information really stuck with me. First off, in the second chapter titled Species, or rather with the second chromosome, I was shocked to learn how similar we are to gorillas and chimpanzees. We are ninety-eight percent the same chimpanzees and ninety-seven percent the same as gorillas. I couldn't believe how closely are genes are to those of these animals, though we may look quite different we both in fact have "thirty-two teeth, five fingers, two eyes, four limbs, and a liver" as said by Ridley himself. In fact, chimpanzees have twenty-four chromosomes while we have twenty-three, but what is so interesting is that the only reason we have twenty-three is because two of the chimpanzees' chromosomes fused together into one chromosome, resulting with us have twenty-three.

Another striking piece of information was with chromosome eleven that discussed personality. Our genes and our chromosomes make up what color hair we have, how tall we are, and so on. But this chapter also explored that our genes also make up our personality. One specific paragraph caught my eye. Ridley was discussing how employers base their decisions on who to hire on their personality, among other things. This Ridley says, is just like physical discrimination, because we cannot help our personalities. He explains how it is socially unacceptable to discriminate based on eye color, skin color, and other physical appearances, but it's socially acceptable when it comes to psychological issues, such as personality. This struck me because I never thought that our personalities are, in a way, programmed by our genes, to a certain extent we cannot help who we are, yet I believe many people don't realize that and judge people based on how they act.

The last fact I want to touch on was in the Immortality chapter which covered chromosome fourteen. I learned that different species age at different rates. The example Ridley used was that an elephant, a larger animal, lives longer than smaller animals, such as a mouse. He explained how this would seem to be the opposite as to keep the elephant alive, rather than the mouse, the cells have to do more work, This is where it really gets interesting, it was then discovered that though the elephant lives longer, both the animals have the same amount of heartbeats in their lifetime as the other. The reason the elephant lives longer is becuase its pluse rate is much slower than that of a rat. Therefore, if you compare their lives through the number of heartbeats, they both live the same amount.

Genome definitely taught me about what a genome actually is and what the chromosomes do in our bodies. All of this was taught in a general sense and as easily as this complex subject really could. Though at times the reading wasn't the most interesting or easy to understand, I am glad that I read this book because even if I only take a few things away from it, I came out learning more about the human body, and myself, than I knew before.