Genetics Demystified

by Edward Willett

Book Overview

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There's no easier, faster, or more practical way to learn the really tough subjects

Genetics Demystified offers an up-to-date, highly readable explanation of the basic principles of genetics, covering...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071459308
• ISBN13: 9780071459303
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Very nice "Demystified" book

I have "Idiots Guide to Decoding your Genes" but this one is much better. I really feel that I have gotten a toehold on this subject after reading "Genetics Demystified." Recommended.

Good re-intro for ex-students, light on classical genetics

A reasonably good introduction to the subject for someone who has not done it, or is re-learning it after a long lay-off. Tends to be more biased towards the molecular level of genetics, which is probably due to the advances in this area in the 20 years since I did it. Does not tackle Classical or Population genetics in any depth. Nevertheless, a good book to get you re-interested in learning the subject of genetics again, and learning newer technologies. However, you will need to move onto bigger and better books very soon.

A good book for review of basic genetics and delving into harder aspects too

Goose- Do not be fooled by the cover! This book is extremely informative and even a fair amount beyond my understanding, being in the middle of biology honors. Therefore this book would be great to read, since it outlines many concepts of genetics in biology honors, in AP biology. This way one can get the basic concepts of biology and genetics while also being able to delve into advanced genetics in the later part of each chapter. Now on to the science. The most interesting part of this book to me was about genetics outside of the nucleus in chapter 10. I was amazed to learn that mitochondria actually have their own DNA, and that they were once bacteria, and that they had gained relationships of helping with bacteria that couldn't create energy from oxygen, urkaryotes, and eventually merged with them when they came completely dependent of each other. The mitochondria gave some DNA to the urkaryote so the mitochondria became dependent as well. The DNA in the mitochondria is almost all inherited maternally, which is what makes them great for studying humanity's evolution. By looking at DNA from people around the world, scientists were able to pinpoint the earliest human, from which all other's are descendents, was an African women living 200,000 years ago by seeing that mitochondrial mutations in greatest difference were between Africa and the rest of the world. By seeing how many mutations there were from the African mitochondria compared to the rest of the world, scientists figured out this date by rate of mutations which occur in DNA. Another big concept I begun to understand in this book was how evolution is really driven by economics. Darwin himself could not really understand how offspring got characteristics from their parents, but nonetheless knew that variations occurred over time in species because he was ahead of his time. The answer, we now know, is that mutations will occur in DNA, either beneficial, neutral, or detrimental, and for the most part the animal with the beneficial mutation will reproduce and survive better, then replacing the nonmutated DNA. An example where a detrimental mutation will be dominant, however, is sickle-cell anemia (explained in class one day), which will cause disease when homozygous (having two of the same alleles for a gene), but when heterozygous are resistant to malaria, making it dominate in areas with malaria like parts of Africa. A bad "gene pool", or a mixture of all genes in an area, of an area like this can be very hurtful to a society. Going more into gene pools and so-called "population genetics", equilibrium (no change in allelic frequencies, meaning no change in genes) can occur in a population if there are five things occurring in it, which really shows the different ways in which a species can mutate and evolve. The formulas for this Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (founding scientists) are the following: 1. A closed population, meaning no individuals leave or come in, which wou

Simplifying Genetic For All

Genetics, the science of plant and animal breeding,the study of the elements that determine the characteristics of a plant or animal and their differences has been given a rudimentary or fundamental attention by the book "Genetics Demystified". The book has covered a groundbreaking foundation in the subject for the benefit of students, lecturers, researchers, geneticists and even the casual readers of the subject. I quickly recommend it to anybody with a serious eye for genetics of any form.

If this is the Demystified series, I'll buy more

This was my first venture into the Demystified series, and it was just what I was looking for. I'm not a genetics engineer, if I was, I probably wouldn't have bought the book. But since I was looking for a great introduction into how genetics work, this book more than fit the bill. It was tough to put down. The author did a great job presenting the material in an ordered and easy to understand fashion. I did find a couple of minor typo's, but the material and presentation more than made up for it. At first I thought the quizzes at the end of each chapter were a little hokey, but they really do help to reinforce what you have learned. Overall, a top notch book that does what it sets out to do - help you learn about genetics (and bacteria, and viruses, and cloning...)