Genes In The Field

Download or read book Genes in the Field written by International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genes in the Field: Conserving Plant Diversity on Farms is a comprehensive collection of papers focusing on agricultural conservation and diversity issues throughout the world. Recently, regional and local farm seed variety has been reduced because of increased population, agricultural science and technology and the integration of the world's many diverse cultures. Because of this, diversity on individual farms across wide regions is threatened by modern crop varieties that have been bred for broad adaptation, resistance to disease, and other risk factors such as their ability to better use water, fertilizer, and higher yields. The concern of the farmers to maintain production levels and income often seems incompatible with those whose focus is on the maintenance of viable and sustainable ecosystems and maintaining genetic diversity. Exploring and understanding these different concerns is an essential starting point for answering some of the key questions about the implementation of "on farm" conservation and the role of local cultivators in sustainable development.

Download or read book Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-07-08 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assists policymakers in evaluating the appropriate scientific methods for detecting unintended changes in food and assessing the potential for adverse health effects from genetically modified products. In this book, the committee recommended that greater scrutiny should be given to foods containing new compounds or unusual amounts of naturally occurring substances, regardless of the method used to create them. The book offers a framework to guide federal agencies in selecting the route of safety assessment. It identifies and recommends several pre- and post-market approaches to guide the assessment of unintended compositional changes that could result from genetically modified foods and research avenues to fill the knowledge gaps.

Download or read book Genes in Conflict written by Austin Burt and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In evolution, most genes survive and spread within populations because they increase the ability of their hosts (or their close relatives) to survive and reproduce. But some genes spread in spite of being harmful to the host organism—by distorting their own transmission to the next generation, or by changing how the host behaves toward relatives. As a consequence, different genes in a single organism can have diametrically opposed interests and adaptations.Covering all species from yeast to humans, Genes in Conflict is the first book to tell the story of selfish genetic elements, those continually appearing stretches of DNA that act narrowly to advance their own replication at the expense of the larger organism. As Austin Burt and Robert Trivers show, these selfish genes are a universal feature of life with pervasive effects, including numerous counter-adaptations. Their spread has created a whole world of socio-genetic interactions within individuals, usually completely hidden from sight.Genes in Conflict introduces the subject of selfish genetic elements in all its aspects, from molecular and genetic to behavioral and evolutionary. Burt and Trivers give us access for the first time to a crucial area of research—now developing at an explosive rate—that is cohering as a unitary whole, with its own logic and interconnected questions, a subject certain to be of enduring importance to our understanding of genetics and evolution.

Download or read book The Tangled Field written by Nathaniel C. COMFORT and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biographical study illuminates the important yet misunderstood figure of Barbara McClintock, the Nobel Prize winning geneticist. Comfort replaces the myth with a new story, rich with new understandings of women in science.

Download or read book Genetically Engineered Crops written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-01-28 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genetically engineered (GE) crops were first introduced commercially in the 1990s. After two decades of production, some groups and individuals remain critical of the technology based on their concerns about possible adverse effects on human health, the environment, and ethical considerations. At the same time, others are concerned that the technology is not reaching its potential to improve human health and the environment because of stringent regulations and reduced public funding to develop products offering more benefits to society. While the debate about these and other questions related to the genetic engineering techniques of the first 20 years goes on, emerging genetic-engineering technologies are adding new complexities to the conversation. Genetically Engineered Crops builds on previous related Academies reports published between 1987 and 2010 by undertaking a retrospective examination of the purported positive and adverse effects of GE crops and to anticipate what emerging genetic-engineering technologies hold for the future. This report indicates where there are uncertainties about the economic, agronomic, health, safety, or other impacts of GE crops and food, and makes recommendations to fill gaps in safety assessments, increase regulatory clarity, and improve innovations in and access to GE technology.

Download or read book Introduction to Conservation Genetics written by Richard Frankham and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This impressive author team brings the wealth of advances in conservation genetics into the new edition of this introductory text, including new chapters on population genomics and genetic issues in introduced and invasive species. They continue the strong learning features for students - main points in the margin, chapter summaries, vital support with the mathematics, and further reading - and now guide the reader to software and databases. Many new references reflect the expansion of this field. With examples from mammals, birds ...

Download or read book The Society of Genes written by Itai Yanai and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.