#genetics

I was drawn to horses as if they were magnets. It was in my blood. I must have inherited from my grandfather a genetic proclivity toward the equine species. Perhaps there's a quirk in the DNA that makes horse people different from everyone else, that instantly divides humanity into those who love horses and the others, who simply don't know. ↗

— Allan J. Hamilton

#differences #dna #genetics #horses #humanity

I placed some of the DNA on the ends of my fingers and rubbed them together. The stuff was sticky. It began to dissolve on my skin. 'It's melting -- like cotton candy.' 'Sure. That's the sugar in the DNA,' Smith said. 'Would it taste sweet?' 'No. DNA is an acid, and it's got salts in it. Actually, I've never tasted it.' Later, I got some dried calf DNA. I placed a bit of the fluff on my tongue. It melted into a gluey ooze that stuck to the roof of my mouth in a blob. The blob felt slippery on my tongue, and the taste of pure DNA appeared. It had a soft taste, unsweet, rather bland, with a touch of acid and a hint of salt. Perhaps like the earth's primordial sea. It faded away. Page 67, in Richard Preston's biographical essay on Craig Venter, "The Genome Warrior" (originally published in The New Yorker in 2000). ↗

— Timothy Ferris

#freaky #genetics #science #science

Our brains contain one hundred billion nerve cells (neurons). Each neuron makes links with ten thousand other neurons to form an incredible three dimensional grid. This grid therefore contains a thousand trillion connections - that's 1,000,000,000,000,000 (a quadrillion). It's hard to imagine this, so let's visualise each connection as a disc that's 1mm thick. Stack up the quadrillion discs on top of each other and they will reach the sun (which is ninety-three million miles from the earth) and back, three times over. ↗

— Nessa Carey

#brain #epigenetics #mind-blowing #neurons #science

I believe in evolution in the sense that a short-tempered man is the successor of a crybaby. ↗

— Criss Jami

#belief #clever #comparison #control #crying

The realization, early in high school, that a particle behaved differently if observed or left alone. ↗

— Lara Santoro

#genetics #love #particle #science #love

You're not supposed to interject feelings into science, but part of the reason it's so fascinating that we're 8 percent (or more) fossilized virus is that it's so creepy that we're 8 percent (or more) fossilized virus. ↗

— Sam Kean

#science #love

If people lived to be a thousand years old, there’d be extreme inequality, based not on class like now, but on genetics. Think how far behind unmotivated and lazy people lag now after only 65 years on earth, and then multiply that by 15.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#class #classism #earth #genetics #inequality

The tallest adults are the ones who had the most childhood and adolescent growth before puberty started; puberty typically tacks on a standard nine inches, and then the game's over. "The children who are going to be the biggest adults are those who are tall by age one or two, and have a relatively late puberty," says Rosenfeld. ↗

— Arianne Cohen

#growth-spurt #height #tall #age

I believe that we all have the potential to love any human being, and that genetics, upbringing, choice, social conditioning and environment play a major part in which way we sway. ↗

— Kathy Najimy

#being #believe #choice #conditioning #environment

I've always been a pretty good researcher," said Bronwyn modestly. Oh, so that we share, thought Myfanwy, but you didn't inherit the power to make people shit themselves. You've got to love the randomness of genetics. ↗

— Daniel O'Malley

#superpowers #love