Your DNA May Not Be Your Destiny: Carl Zimmer
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2018
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is your DNA your destiny? Can you swap in better "source code" to save your life, change your appearance, be smarter or more athletic? Can a mother inherit DNA from her fetus? What do you really get when you pay for inexpensive genome-testing? These questions are just part of what we cover in today's deep with acclaimed science-writer, Carl Zimmer.
Zimmer writes the Matter column for the New York Times and contributes to The Atlantic, National Geographic, Time, and Scientific American, among others. He has won the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science Journalism Award three times, among a host of other awards and fellowships. He teaches science writing at Yale University. His previous books include Parasite Rex, Evolution, and Microcosm.
His new book, She Has Her Mother's Laugh is a stunning, powerfully-researched, eye-opening look at the truth about heredity, DNA, what is truly in our control and the astonishing breakthroughs coming our way in just the next few years.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So think about this. |
| 0:04.8 | Can a mother actually inherit DNA from her child? |
| 0:10.6 | Can a parent who is a smoker pass down not just their genes to a child, but the risk factors |
| 0:23.5 | that would activate disease from their smoking? |
| 0:27.6 | And they pass that down to their child and then their child and then their child. |
| 0:32.9 | And then once we have our DNA, once we have our genetics, once we have inherited quote, |
| 0:38.6 | whatever it is we're, we've got, can we do anything about that? |
| 0:43.1 | Can we find out what it is? |
| 0:44.9 | Should we find out what it is? |
| 0:47.1 | And if we like what we've got then awesome, but if we don't like what we've got, is there |
| 0:51.7 | something we can do about it? |
| 0:54.6 | These are just some of the questions that I explore with today's guest, Karl Zimmer. |
| 0:59.3 | Karl is a science writer who has written I think 13 or 14 books. |
| 1:04.8 | His latest is an absolutely fascinating deep dive called She Has Her Mother's Laugh. |
| 1:10.6 | And it's an unusual astonishing look at this idea of heredity deep dive into what it |
| 1:18.5 | actually is, the history of it. |
| 1:20.9 | We spend a lot of time talking about what this actually is and isn't. |
| 1:24.8 | And all these questions about genetics, DNA and some pretty amazing cutting edge science |
| 1:33.1 | that may dramatically affect the answer to the question, do you just get what you get |
| 1:39.8 | and don't get upset? |
| 1:41.5 | Or is there something that you can do about your state of DNA and in turn, the future of |
| 1:48.0 | your life? |
... |
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