This exploratory qualitative study focuses on how college students conceptualize genetics and genetic risk, concepts essential for genetic literacy (GL) and genetic numeracy (GN), components of overall health literacy (HL). HL is dependent on both the background knowledge and culture of a patient, and lower HL is linked to increased morbidity and mortality for a number of chronic health conditi...

UNLABELLED Understanding evidence for the genetic basis of reproductive isolation is imperative for supporting students' understanding of mechanisms of speciation in courses such as Genetics and Evolutionary Biology. An article by Andrés et al. in the February 2013 issue of GENETICS illustrates how advances in DNA sequencing are accelerating studies of population genetics in species with limite...

7 Landscape genetics combines population genetics, landscape ecology, and spatial analysis to identify landscape and genetic factors that influence genetic and genomic variation. Progress in the field depends on a strong conceptual foundation and the means of identifying mechanistic connnections between environmental factors, landscape features, and genetic or genomic variation. Many existing a...

As explained beautifully in Warren Ewens’ chapter, mathematical models played a decisive role in reconciling Mendelian genetics with Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Out of this successful enterprise during the early 20th century, the field of population genetics emerged. Population genetics is concerned with the study of the genetic composition of populations. This compositio...

Genetic ancestry is seen as an alternative to the problematic concept of race and positioned against abusive racist nationalist perspectives. The genetic nevertheless not free racial categorizations. Increasingly, it becoming integral part identity politics. promoted a way give visibility marginalized groups but also rejected form biocolonialism. In xenophobic discourses right-wing groups, has ...

Forward genetics is the identification and characterization of gene that responsible for mutant phenotype. It starts with measurement or observation a phenotype followed by mapping causative loci genes. In addition, forward genetic approaches are, unbiased in terms since primary level measurement. Reverse genetics, on other hand, analyzes an organism following disruption known gene. To generate...

Conservation genetics is a well?established and essential scientific field in the toolkit of conservation planning, management, decision?making. Within its framework, phylogeography allows definition strategies, especially threatened endemic plants. Gypsum salt-rich outcrops constitute model example an edaphic island-like habitat contain rare species, many them threatened. This case Jacobaea au...

Molecular population genetics aims to explain genetic variation and molecular evolution from population genetics principles. The field was born 50 years ago with the first measures of genetic variation in allozyme loci, continued with the nucleotide sequencing era, and is currently in the era of population genomics. During this period, molecular population genetics has been revolutionized by pr...

Misconceptions concerning numerical genetic risk exist even within educated populations. To more fully characterize and understand the extent of these risk misunderstandings, which have large potential impact on clinical care, we analyzed the responses from 2,576 students enrolled at 2 Southwestern universities using the PGRID tool, a 138-item web-based survey comprising measures of understandi...

Advances in genetic technology and biological understanding in the last 100 years have opened a new era of discovery and investigation. In the centennial year of the journal GENETICS, we quantify the remarkable shifts in genetic research through textual analysis of publications. We characterize changes in the focus of genetic research by studying all available abstracts and titles of papers pub...