Book Description
We have built a world that no longer fits our bodies. Our genes - selected through our evolution - and the many processes by which our development is tuned within the womb, limit our capacity to adapt to the modern urban lifestyle. There is a mismatch. We are seeing the impact of this mismatch in the explosion of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. But it also has consequences in earlier puberty and old age. Bringing together the latest scientific research in evolutionary biology, development, medicine, anthropology and ecology, Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson, both leading medical scientists, argue that many of our problems as modern-day humans can be understood in terms of this fundamental and growing mismatch. It is an insight that we ignore at our peril.
Customer Reviews:
the importance of developmental plasticity.......2007-04-07
The book is in two parts. The first deals with matching. With gens and developmental plasticity an organism tries to achieve a better match to its environment. The second part informs us about three main mismatches; the maturational mismatch which is increasing gap between physical maturation and psychosocial maturation, mismatched metabolism resulting in metabolic syndrome and mismatch between our inbuilt repair mechanism and our life course.
The authors explain their thoughts with good examples and concepts. Methylated genes, life-history strategy, metabolic syndrome, developmental plasticity, physical and psychosocial maturation are some of the concepts I derived much benefit.
The notes given at the end of the book are also important and should be read.
The book make me aware of the problems we face and arouse my curiosity to delve further into the relating subject.
Modern Man is in Trouble.......2006-12-01
This is a very interesting and easy to read book. Gluckman and Hanson have managed in less than three hundred pages to explain the consequences of our man-made world not longer being appropriate for the biology we evolved with. They have done so using ideas from evolutionary biology, developmental science and medicine and show an understanding of environmental change and use examples that make this book equally appealing to the technically interested and the absolutely lay reader.
The book is in two parts - the first part is about the science and the second part is about the consequences for human health and disease. Both are filled with examples and there is not much technical language. There are no chapters I found too challenging for a lay reader.
In the second part of the book they use three major illustrations; puberty aging and the menopause and obesity/diabetes. I particularly found their insights into adolescence and puberty refreshing and challenging. The concept that the age of puberty may be returning to an younger age set by evolution, while the age of psychological maturation has moved in the opposite directions changes how one thinks about adolescence and has profound implications - parents, politicians and educators should read chapter 7. Their ideas on the role of foetal development in determining why some individuals are more at risk of diabetes and obesity creates a much more balanced perspective than purely genetic perspectives have led us into. The implications for how to stop the obesity epidemic and the need for different strategies in different populations are most thought provoking and compelling.
But it is not just the specifics of these examples that makes this book so interesting. It is full of information from comparative biology, evolutionary biology, developmental biology, medicine and social science and it is the way they have combined these and produced a lucid and I think very important book. They are clearly scholars but scholars who can write in a very accessible way. They marry evolutionary biology and medicine in a much more complete and realistic way that previous attempts. And the sociological and associated commentary shows how much they have thought about the subject - the notes are quite fun too.
If you are the kind of person who enjoyed Bill Bryson's Short History or Jared diamond's Guns Germs and Steal you will enjoy this book - it will leave you thinking.
Our Bodies Fit the Ancient African Savannah, I Don't Live There.......2006-12-01
The evidence is pretty overwhelming that we developed as humans in the African Savannah. The anthropologists point out how our bodies developed over the millennia to have a lot of characteristics that helped to enable, even guarantee our survival in that environment.
There are numerous books that talk about our special adaptations: no hair ('The Naked Ape' Desmond Morris) so we wouldn't overheat while running, males with eyes optimized to detect movement of game while hunting, females with a thousand times better color sensitivity to detect the ripe fruit from the others.
All this doesn't fit very well with my day of sitting staring at the computer screen, my neighbor's driving a truck, or nearly any of today's ways of earning a living. Yup! There's a mismatch.
The authors do an excellent job of point out our world no longer fit our bodies. This is an insight that we ignore at our peril. They also point out some of the things that humankind might do to change the situation -- but BOY! is their solution going to offend some of the religious fundamentalists. Then again, wouldn't you want your children to be a better match for their society: slimmer, smarter, free from diabetes, cancer, heart disease?
Book Description
Phenotypic plasticity is the property of a given genotype to produce different phenotypes (morphologies or behaviors) in respone to distinct environmental conditions. The fundamental goal of plasticity studies is to go beyond the old nature-nurture (i.e., genes-environment) dichotomy to gain a deeper insight into how organisms are shaped by the interqaction of their genetics and ecology. Typical questions in plasticity studies include: how do novel adaptive phenotypes originate? How do organisms detect and respond to stressful environments? What is the balance between costs or constraints and natural selection? As a field of research, phenotypic plasticity has gained momentum during the past two decades, taking center stage at the interface of ecological genetics, developmental biology, and evolutionary theory. This work is the first to synthesize this burgeoning area of research, providing a conceptual overview as well as a technical treatment of its major componenets. Pigliucci describes what phenotpyic plasticity is and how it is studied, discusses types of experiments with their statistical and graphical analaysis, and provides extended examples of the molecular basis of plasticity, the plasticity of development, the ecology of plastic responses, and the role of costs and constraints in the evolution of plasticity. A brief epilogue looks at how plasticity studies shed light on the nature/nurture debate in the popular media.
Customer Reviews:
Nature-Nurture in Synthesis.......2005-12-20
Phenotypic Plasticity examines the way elements outside the organism influence the effects of the collection of genes that constitute an organism (genotype) to form it (phenotype). The author, Massimo Pigliucci, a professor of evolutionary biology and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook has achieved a widely acclaimed synthesis of research in ecological genetics, developmental biology and evolutionary theory that is "must reading" for specialists in these fields as attested by the reviews above. It will also be a richly rewarding (and challenging) read for non-specialists in the social sciences and medicine as well as the life-long learner interested in the hoary nature-nurture polemic.
The familiar story of Gregor Mendel's magnificent and painstaking genetic studies with peas often leaves out the care the good monk took to isolate pisum sativum from environmental influences. His research procedures mostly eliminated what in the early era of the gene was called the "noise" of environmental influences on the development of the pea characteristics he studied. Mendel's 1866 publication, largely ignored until it caught the attention of a new generation of biologists in 1900, ushered in the classical period of genetics. The active discussion of Mendel's thought provoking paper led Wilhelm Johannsen, a Danish botanist, to emphasize the distinction Mendel had made between the "factors" and the "characters" they produced by introducing in 1909 the terms "gene," "genotype" (the complete set of genes or more properly alleles) and "phenotype" (the appearance or expression of characters in living things). It was this distinction, with an assist from Francis Galton, which mainly accounts for the enthusiastic 20th century debate about whether we are what we are as a result of genetic inheritance (nature) or environmental influences (nurture). The reader who desires a more detailed history of genetics will find it in Sturtevant's A History of Genetics (Cold Spring Harbor, 1965/2001) and Stubbe's History of Genetics (MIT Press, 1972) among many sources.
The plot surrounding nature v. nurture thickened with renewed emphasis on the early 20th century work of the German botanist Richard Woltereck demonstrating that the genotype could produce a range of characteristics depending on the particular environments in which it developed. The implication: There was plasticity to the genotype. Pigliucci uses Woltereck's concept of the Reaction Norm as a point of departure to explore plasticity. First, he carefully explicates the concept of phenotypic plasticity, the often misunderstood idea of "heritability," and the way plasticity is studied by biologists. Also recommended in this context is the work of Sarkar, for example, Genetics And Reductionism (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998). In Chapter Three Pigliucci provides a brief but much needed conceptual history of phenotypic plasticity. The fact that Woltereck or reaction norm, norm of reaction, or the German "reactionsnorm" cannot be found in either Sturtevant or Stubbe's histories provides silent but eloquent testimony about the emphasis on the one gene-one character notion that dominated early 20th century genetics and perserveres today in press releases that usually begin: A gene has been found for...
Chapter Four (The Genetics of Phenotypic Plasticity), Five (The Molecular Biology of Phenotypic Plasticity) and Eight (Behavior and Phenotypic Plasticity) dig into the evidence for plasticity and, of particular relevance to humans, the ways in which hormones can effect adaptation to a specific ecological (outside the organism) environment by carrying information from that environment to the genotypic-specific reactions triggered by that environment. These adaptations and the responsible mechanisms are also discussed in some detail by Cellura in Chapters Two through Five of The Genomic Environment And Niche-Experience (Cedar Springs Press, 2005). Pigliucci also has chapters on developmental, theoretical and evolutionary biology and the ecology of phenotypic plasticity. In an epilogue he discusses philosophical and policy issues often encountered in the nature-nurture debate.
Phenotypic Plasticity is a sweeping review of the literature that is forging a new paradigm in biology, closing the loop in the misleading dichotomy between nature and nurture. Reading it and re-reading it will provide insight upon insight about real world biological adaptation.
Book Description
A much-needed antidote to genetic determinism, The Dependent Gene reveals how all traits-even characteristics like eye and hair color-are caused by complex interactions between genes and the environment at every stage of biological and psychological development, from the single fertilized egg to full-grown adulthood. How we understand the nature versus nurture debate directly affects our thoughts about such basic issues as sex and reproduction, parenting, education, and crime, and has an enormous impact on social policy. With life-and-death questions in the balance surrounding stem-cell research, cloning, and DNA fingerprinting, we can no longer afford to be ignorant of human development. An enlightening guide to this brave new world, The Dependent Gene empowers us to take control of our own destiny.
Customer Reviews:
To agree or not to agree.......2006-07-13
While Mr. Moore presents his view with reasonable facts of science, it leaves one with the impression "what do we do now?" I never got a clear picture of his definition of the Nature vs. Nurture debate.
The Developmental Systems Perspective.......2005-12-15
The Dependent Gene is a deeply thoughtful and carefully articulated synthesis of contemporary genetics, developmental biology and evolutionary principles. Thus, it transcends the gene-centric propositions that directed much biological science in the 20th century, and that pervades today in such starkly different venues as repair shops and hospital chart rooms, where a repairman or a psychiatrist might explain human traits and behavior with "It's in the genes." (cf. D. Nelkin & M.S. Lindee, The DNA Mystique). Professor Moore's penetrating expose of the nature versus nurture fallacy is a sizeable accomplishment because as Stephen Jay Gould has written: "Thinking in dichotomies may be the most venerable (and ineluctable) of all human mental habits." (S.J. Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory).
The author, a professor of psychology at Pitzer College and the Claremont Graduate University, invites the reader's curiosity with such charming chapter headings as - From Aristotle's Wonder to a Fork in the Road: The Wrenching of Genetics from Development; Dependent Genes: Essential Biology and DNA; A Turtle in the Shade: The Development of Sexual Characteristics; Chicken Shoes and Monkey Foods: The Not-so-Subtle Effects of Some Very Subtle Postnatal Experiences; On Big Muscles and Facial Hair: Reconsidering "Inherited," "Acquired," and "Innate." Through aptly chosen vignettes we learn how to speed up the metamorphosis of a tadpole into a frog and how a tree can grow from its top to its roots rather than the usual way. In the process we acquire an understanding of "The Developmental Systems Perspective" that melts the arbitrary and artificial boundaries between genomic processes and human development.
The book is separated into five sections: Part I: Where We're Going, Where We've Been; Part II: Background Basics; Part III: Developmental Systems; Part IV: Development and Evolution (by itself, worth the price of the book); Part V: Implications (for the philosophically and policy minded). Taken as a whole, one gets a clear sense of what a fine teacher Professor Moore is. The concepts he presents are not easy ones (for example DNA machinery, immediate early genes, epigenetics, heritability, neoteny) yet, through a careful step-by-step propaedeutic, highly abstract concepts are made real and the hard work of synthesis is made accessible. This fine book will likely be enjoyed by lifetime learners as well as advanced undergraduates and graduate students.
Old Fashion Semantics?.......2002-11-03
Moore's primary concern is that equal emphasis be paid to both genetic and non genetic factors in studying human traits. His hope is that if $3 billion is spent sequencing the human Genome's DNA that another $3 billion should be spent on understanding the development of genes. Put bluntly, Moore thinks that confining yourself to genetic determinism is lazy, dumb thinking. For example, scientists should now know better than to draw connections between skin color and IQ levels. However, I think his whole approach is old fashioned semantics. He thinks because an author traces a trait to a gene this means that author is ignoring the cell in which the gene develops and ignoring proteins, enzymes and hormones that trigger growth. The genetic-non-genetic dichotomy is out of date. Why waste time with it? Moore wants to wean the reader away from genetic determinism but isn't this just a corner he's painted himself into? He suggests that one shouldn't label genes and attribute them to traits. But who is still doing this beyond the media? Modern writers now take a biochemical, proteomic rather than a genetic approach. In many ways the book chops down an old tree that is nearly toppling from the weight of its dead wood.
Moore omits much of what doesn't fit into his pretty picture. For example no mention of knockout studies (The Misunderstood Gene by Michel Morange) where one missing fosB gene prevented the mother mouse from tending her litter of newborns. Also missing is a discussion of certain inherited conditions like sickle cell, Huntington's and hemophilia where the non genetic factors add little to the understanding of these mutations. Genes are only important because they can be modified. The trouble is that the field is moving so fast that anything published is outmoded before the ink is dry.
Beyond the Gene Myth.......2002-02-18
This book is one of the clearest and most convincing critiques of genetic determinism, availing itself of a new, or renewed, developmental perspective. The nature-nurture debate was always an exercise in futility, but here, armed with a new approach, the issues seem to resolve themselves almost transparently. The resurfacing of this developmental perspective in the last decade, even as evolutionary psychology and sociobiology move into the mainstream, is both timely and a source of essential information for those confused by the Darwin debate, with its high powered promotions of genetic reductionism, and the misleading promises of the Human Genome project. It was always hard to resist the rigid claims based on Mendelism, but now we can see there is no alternative, a lesson, after all these years, to remember, think before the experts tell you what constitutes science.
Demonstrating the many confusions here starting with those of Galton, and Weismann, and tracing the embryological perspective all the way back to von Baer in the early nineteenth century, the author shows how the emergence of population genetics derailed developmentalism, leading to the now dominant one-sidedness of the Neo-Mendelian Synthesis, which is not able to account for the relationships of genes in relation to environments. The sidelined corrective of Gerstang and de Beer is now seen to be the source of a newly consolidating research perspective, now envigorated by new knowledge of regulatory genetics. The confusion of genes and traits is reviewed in a very clear and convincing account, with a remarkable discussion of Lamarck's ideas, their direct relevance, and limitations.
The end result is a fascinating new approach to the idea of evolution based on traits at the level of phenotype, a view, by the way, pointed to by Ernst Mayr, long ago. I think here the author is too kind to Darwin and still with the reflex over Lamarck. For now we are given the variant of Darwin whereby his later Lamarckism makes him prefigure the new developmentalism, even as Lamarck is given but a brief pat on the back. That is surely not quite the right history in the middle of what must be an important new outlook very much on the right track.
This is a very useful and important book for those on the defensive in the current environment of genetic fundamentalism. However, although the new perspective is essential as a new foundation for any theory of evolution, I think that this new and inevitable paradigm will still fall short of a full theory of evolution. But that is another story, as one can only hope this new point of view will enable a swift exit from the current dominant confusion.
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Crop Systems Dynamics: An Ecophysiological Simulation Model for Genotype-by-environment Interactions
Manufacturer: Science Publisher/ Wageningen PUB
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Genotype-by-Environment Interaction
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0849340039 |
Book Description
Genotype-by-Environment Interaction (GEI) is a prevalent issue among crop farmers, plant breeders, geneticists, and production agronomists. This book brings together contributions from expert plant breeders and quantitative geneticists to better understand the relationship between crop performance and environment. This information can reduce the cost of extensive genotype evaluation by eliminating unnecessary testing sites and by fine-tuning breeding programs. Molecular aspects of GEI are discussed for the first time and key bibliographical references on GEI are included in an appendix.
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GGE Biplot Analysis: A Graphical Tool for Breeders, Geneticists, and Agronomists
Weikai Yan , and
Manjit S. Kang
Manufacturer: CRC
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ASIN: 0849313384 |
Book Description
The newly developed GGE biplot methodology is a superior approach to the graphical analysis of research data that may revolutionize the way researchers analyze data and increase their productivity. GGE Biplot Analysis systematically presents the theory and applications of the GGE biplot methodology in quantitative genetics and plant breeding. The first part of the text is devoted to general aspects of genotype-by-environment interaction and stability analyses in crop breeding. The second part is a thorough treatment of the GGE biplot approach and applications in the life and agricultural sciences.
Book Description
Phenotypic plasticity is the range and process of variation in body plan and physiology. This book pulls together recent theoretical advances in phenotypic plasticity, as influenced by evolution and development. The editors and the chapter authors are among the leaders of this exciting and active subfield. The volume begins with a primer on the basic principles of the subject, and companion chapters on phenotypic plasticity in plants and animals. Of interest to a wide range of researchers on evolution, development, and their interface.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Alcohol Research & Health, published by U.S. Government Printing Office on September 22, 2002. The length of the article is 7876 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Effects of the interaction between genotype and environment: research into the genetic epidemiology of alcohol dependence.
Author: Andrew C. Heath
Publication:
Alcohol Research & Health (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2002
Publisher: U.S. Government Printing Office
Volume: 26
Issue: 3
Page: 193(10)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from Forest Ecology and Management, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Description:
Deployment of improved loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) genotypes across the southern United States is a standard silvicultural practice. Most planting is conducted using open-pollinated (OP) families from first- or second-generation seed orchards, and these OP families typically display remarkable rank stability for productivity and quality traits across a range of site characteristics, climates, and silvicultural systems. With only a few exceptions, families are generally stable in performance across all sites within a climatic zone. As tree improvement and nursery programs progress towards deployment of more intensively selected genotypes and less genetically diverse full-sib families or clones, there may be a greater likelihood that genotype by environment (GxE) interactions will become important, particularly as the level of silvicultural treatment intensity increases. We present evidence from numerous trials with full-sib families and clones demonstrating that GxE for growth and other traits is no more significant than for OP families. At present and for the foreseeable future, GxE does not appear to be a major concern for the majority of deployed genetic sources under most silvicultural systems.
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![Performance of improved genotypes of loblolly pine across different soils, climates, and silvicultural inputs [An article from: Forest Ecology and Management]](http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/21NEN6B0DAL.jpg)