Questions that will affect the rest of your life.

Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. But what does it mean? Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. There’s more to come.The genome's been mapped. While humans are unique, we’re not the end point of evolution. The following blinks will open up this book of human life and examine a few chapters that have defined the essence of every single person on the planet. We can learn about how illnesses such as Huntington’s disease came about, or why people love the feeling of cool ocean water. In our genome, you can discover the progression of the story of life’s evolution from bacteria, fish and apes to finally human beings. In it, every chapter of life ever written can be discovered.Īnd what’s more, the tens of thousands of genes that compose the human genome – all this information – fit into a tiny nucleus of a tiny cell that could easily sit on the tip of a pin. With over a billion “words,” the human genome too may be one of the longest, most complicated books in the world. Think of it this way: the genes on our chromosomes are like short stories, making the human genome the biggest and most informative “book” on the planet! These pairs are “written out” in the genome, which can be “read” in order to replicate itself.

These molecules are often referred to simply by their first letters, A, C, G and T. A chromosome is shaped like the letter X, and genes stack up on each of the letter’s “arms.” Each chromosome pair differs in size and in the number of genes found on each.Ī gene itself lives on a long strand of DNA (that is acid), which itself is composed of a series of molecule pairs, called nucleotides: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. The human genome, or the full genetic map of a normal human being, is made up of 23 chromosome pairs. To understand the gravity of this scientific feat, we first need to grasp the basics of genetics. When British Prime Minister Tony Blair and American President Bill Clinton announced on June 26, 2000, that the human genome had been roughly mapped out, it was a major turning point in human history.įor the first time, we had access to the “book” that described the “story” of human life!

Genome autobiography of a species