04-01 Families
Great Danes and Chihuahuas come from wolves. The differences in humans are nothing. It is bloody amazing how conscious you become of genetics in a typical family without anyone having any basic training in biology. Ok, we have genes, we have DNA, we have cells, and lots move. And you quickly learn that traits of…
04-02 Corn and Rice
Genetic engineering of plants is about feeding the world. And making more money at the same time. Old farts, like me, will remember as a child eating vegetables and fruits from cans before modern trucking brought fresh produce up to Canada from Mexico and California. Then I can also remember picking up fresh corn from…
04-03 Dolly
Dolly was a sheep born without a daddy. Can cloning bring back the “Woolly Mammoth”? The bus driver pointed to a hillside carpeted with sheep and called them “Romneys”. It was a two-week tour of New Zealand in the 1980s, and the amazing part of that moment was the ripple effect going through the massive…
04-04 Ashkenazi
Our behaviour is a product of both nature and nurture. Genetic testing tells us what we inherited. Mother’s mother did not have one day of schooling in Romania, but according to my father, she was the smartest person he had ever known. And her family tree is sprinkled with PhDs. She was an Ashkenazi Jew.And…