The Foundations of Genetics
The Foundations of Genetics

Author: F. A. E. Crew

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-06-28

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1483282651

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The Foundations of Genetics describes the historical development of genetics with emphasis on the contributions to advancing genetical knowledge and the various applications of genetics. The book reviews the work of Gregor Mendel, his Law of Segregation, and of Ernst Haeckel who suggested that the nucleus is that part of the cell that is responsible for heredity. The text also describes the studies of W. Johannsen on "pure lines," and his introduction of the terms gene, genotype, and phenotype. The book explains the theory of the gene and the notion that hereditary particles are borne by the chromosomes (Sutton-Boveri hypothesis). Of the constituent parts of the nucleus only the chromatin material divides at mitosis and segregates during maturation. Following studies confirm that the chromatin material, present in the form of chromosomes with a constant and characteristic number and appearance for each species, is indeed the hereditary material. The book describes how Muller in 1927, showed that high precision energy radiation is the external cause to mutation in the gene itself if one allele can mutate without affecting its partner. The superstructure of genetics built upon the foundations of Mendelism has many applications including cytogenetics, polyploidy, human genetics, eugenics, plant breeding, radiation genetics, and the evolution theory. The book can be useful to academicians and investigators in the fields of genetics such as biochemical, biometrical, microbial, and pharmacogenetics. Students in agriculture, anthropology, botany, medicine, sociology, veterinary medicine, and zoology should add this text to their list of primary reading materials.

Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan

Author: Ian Shine

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-10-21

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 0813184746

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For most of his fellow Kentuckians, the accomplishments of Thomas Hunt Morgan have been overshadowed by the Civil War exploits of his uncle, the Confederate raider. Thomas Hunt Morgan: Pioneer of Genetics shows that feats performed on the frontiers of science can be as exciting as battlefield heroics, and that the "other Morgan" was as colorful a man as the general. Thomas Hunt Morgan's most noted work, done between 1910 and 1920 at Columbia University, revealed many of the secrets if genetics. Studying hundreds of generations of the fruit fly Drosophilia melanogaster, he and the other scientists in the laboratory called the Fly Room made basic discoveries about chromosomes and the mechanism of inheritance. For these discoveries, which profoundly affected biological theory, Morgan was awarded a Nobel Prize—the first ever given for research in genetics. Morgan was interested in many other problems in biology as well. His embryological and regeneration studies were of fundamental importance, and they too bear the mark of a scientist convinced that nature herself will provide answers to the fundamental questions of life, provided that a suitable experimental approach can be devised. Yet, despite his deep-rooted connections to Kentucky and his achievements as a Nobel prize-winning scientist, Thomas Hunt Morgan remains one of the least-known famous Kentucky sons.

Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy
Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy

Author: Allan Franklin

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2008-03-15

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780822973409

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In 1865, Gregor Mendel presented "Experiments in Plant-Hybridization," the results of his eight-year study of the principles of inheritance through experimentation with pea plants. Overlooked in its day, Mendel's work would later become the foundation of modern genetics. Did his pioneering research follow the rigors of real scientific inquiry, or was Mendel's data too good to be true—the product of doctored statistics? In Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy, leading experts present their conclusions on the legendary controversy surrounding the challenge to Mendel's findings by British statistician and biologist R. A. Fisher. In his 1936 paper "Has Mendel's Work Been Rediscovered?" Fisher suggested that Mendel's data could have been falsified in order to support his expectations. Fisher attributed the falsification to an unknown assistant of Mendel's. At the time, Fisher's criticism did not receive wide attention. Yet beginning in 1964, about the time of the centenary of Mendel's paper, scholars began to publicly discuss whether Fisher had successfully proven that Mendel's data was falsified. Since that time, numerous articles, letters, and comments have been published on the controversy.This self-contained volume includes everything the reader will need to know about the subject: an overview of the controversy; the original papers of Mendel and Fisher; four of the most important papers on the debate; and new updates, by the authors, of the latter four papers. Taken together, the authors contend, these voices argue for an end to the controversy-making this book the definitive last word on the subject.