One aim of developmental biology is to learn how a healthy body arises from the genetic material of an organism, also known as a genome. Another goal is to understand why development sometimes goes w
Thanks to new technology, scientists are able to observe organic molecules as they work together in the cell and in “molecular machines,” as well as how they build tissues, organs, and wh
Scientists are learning to manipulate the genes of plants and animals, changing existing organisms and creating new ones. By taking control of the mechanisms that govern heredity in other species, hu
Today's biology has an enormous impact on medicine, particularly in diagnosing disease and understanding how drugs work. Many of the possibilities for therapies or technologies foreseen by today's sc
Every human being carries, within each of his or her cells, a long history of the species. The human genome is a record of evolution that stretches back to the first Homo sapiens and to the orig
The theory of evolution can be observed anywhere—from exotic tropical rain forests to our own backyards—and is based on three main principles: heredity, variation, and selection. In the 1
