#genetics

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

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

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

Genes aren’t designed to make us happy. They design us to make more copies of themselves. ↗

— Joe Quirk

#genetics #design

Does mother know you’ve done your best for her? Half her genes are yours. But if you’re an average-sized family, her entire fortune might not be. ↗

— Bauvard

#genetics #humor #inheritence #motherly-love #family

We are what we adapt to. ↗

— Carter Stroud

#genetics #money

A four-letter alphabet called DNA. ↗