Quotes & Sayings About Chromosomes

The test of whether or not you can hold a job should not be in the arrangement of your chromosomes — Bella Abzug

This is a strange book: visionary and dark. It stutters out a kind of music: repeated phrases which accumulate errors and mutate as they go like chromosomes or, as Woodward puts it better, 'visible fissile ribbons.' It's as if we were present for the moments of creation and extinction. Uncanny Valley is ominous and beautiful. — Rae Armantrout

The egg of every species of animal or plant carries a definite number of bodies called chromosomes. The sperm carries the same number. Consequently, when the sperm unites with the egg, the fertilized egg will contain the double number of chromosomes. — Thomas Hunt Morgan

In 2002 scientists demonstrated beautifully just how random the process of X inactivation really is, by cloning a calico cat. They took cells from an adult female cat, and carried out the standard (but still fiendishly tricky) process of cloning. To do this, they removed the nucleus from the adult cat cell and put it into a cat egg whose own chromosomes they'd removed. This egg was implanted into a surrogate cat mother, and a lively and beautiful female kitten was born. And she didn't look anything like the genetically identical cat of which she was a clone.18 — Nessa Carey

Because God created male and female, we women are innately feminine. Granted, a woman can accentuate her femininity or she can detract from it, but she cannot change it - our sex chromosomes are in every cell of our bodies. Our femininity is a gift of grace from a loving God. — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Words cluster like chromosomes, determining the procedure. — Marianne Moore

We make assumptions every day about other people's genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex. There is no such thing as a "real" gender - there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive other to be. — Julia Serano

Unlike some other immune-system gene families, whose genes are all clustered together on one chromosome, the 10 human TLR genes are distributed between five chromosomes. This reflects the ancient, invertebrate origin of the Toll-like receptors, which were present before the two genome-wide duplications that occurred during the early evolution of the vertebrates around 500 million years ago. On the basis of sequence similarities, the Toll-like receptors form four evolutionary lineages (I, II, III, and IV) that are descendants of the four Toll-like receptor loci formed by these two ancient genome duplications. — Peter Parham

The idea that cancer genes are sitting inside each and every one of our chromosomes, just waiting to be corrupted or inactivated and thereby unleashing cancer, is, of course, one of the seminal ideas of oncology. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I imagine the field day we'd have with this in gender studies class. Our desks in a circle, we'd huddle forward and rant: So this is the baseline of femininity. The place where being bestowed certain chromosomes will ultimately take you. This is the dream that's been pounded into us. Find the guy. Find the dress. Or hell, maybe the other way around. The Disney Princesses told us so. But this isn't college. This is my job. — Anne Wagener

Cruelty and compassion come with the chromosomes — Aldous Huxley

Get dressed,' Bina says. 'And do yourself a favor? Clean this shit up. Look at this dump. I can't believe you're living like this. Sweet God, aren't you ashamed of yourself?'
Once Bina Gelbfish believed in Meyer Landsman. Or she believed from the moment she met him, that there was a sense in that meeting, that some detectable intention lay behind their marriage. They were twisted like a pair of chromosomes, of course they were, but where Landsman saw in that twisting together only a tangle, a chance snarling of lines, Bina saw the hand of the Maker of Knots. And for her faith, Landsman repaid her with his faith in Nothing itself.
'Only every time I see your face,' Landsman says. — Michael Chabon

In my lab, we're finding that psychological stress actually ages cells, which can be seen when you measure the wearing down of the tips of the chromosomes, those telomeres. — Elizabeth Blackburn

Except for the rare cases of plastid inheritance, the inheritance of all known cofactors can be sufficiently accounted for by the presence of genes in the chromosomes. In a word the cytoplasm may be ignored genetically. — Thomas Hunt Morgan

Jenny Boylan might be the one person in this world whom I now think of purely as a human being, free of all the corporeal baggage of chromosomes, hormones, and footwear. — Tim Kreider

We are each unique ... which is why it is so wrong to be lumped together by stereotypes or viewed with narrowed expectations based on skin color or chromosomes. The irony is that dealing with this prejudice becomes our shared experience. — Sheryl Sandberg

I use the word "man" loosely. A better description would be "the most beautiful specimen of Homo sapiens sapiens with a set of XY chromosomes to grace the planet Earth at this moment, or any other era, epoch, or age in history. — Elle Lothlorien

We have long been seeking a different kind of evolutionary process and have now found one; namely, the change within the pattern of the chromosomes ... The neo-Darwinian theory of the geneticists is no longer tenable. — Richard Goldschmidt

We are all made from chromosomes and DNA, which themselves are made from a select handful of key elements. We all require a steady intake of water and oxygen to survive (though in varying quantities). We all need food. We all buckle under atmospheres too thick or gravitational fields too strong. We all die in freezing cold or burning heat. We all die, full stop. — Becky Chambers

Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever. — Richard Dawkins

Love isn't a choice. You fall for the person, not their chromosomes. — I. W. Gregorio

For it is not cell nuclei, not even individual chromosomes, but certain parts of certain chromosomes from certain cells that must be isolated and collected in enormous quantities for analysis; that would be the precondition for placing the chemist in such a position as would allow him to analyse [the hereditary material] more minutely than [can] the morphologists ... For the morphology of the nucleus has reference at the very least to the gearing of the clock, but at best the chemistry of the nucleus refers only to the metal from which the gears are formed. — Theodor Boveri

Until fairly recently it was thought that humans had
fortv-eight chromosomes in an ordinary somatic cell. We now know that the correct number is forty-six. Chimps apparently really do have forty-eight chromosomes, and in this case a viable cross of a chimpanzee and a human would in any event be rare. — Carl Sagan

We find ourselves facing a rising tide of biologically active, synthetic organic chemicals. Some tinker with our hormones. Some attach themselves to our chromosomes and trigger mutations. Some cripple the immune system. Some light up our genes and so enhance the production of certain enzymes. If we could metabolize these chemicals into completely benign breakdown products and excrete them, they would pose less of a hazard. Instead, a good many of them accumulate. — Sandra Steingraber

When the man who knows all about the fruit fly chromosomes finds himself sitting next to an authority on Beowulf, there may be an uneasy silence. — Brand Blanshard

Actually, the entire ascent of life can be presented as an adaptive radiation in the time dimension. From the beginning of replicating molecules to the formation of membrane-bounded cells, the formation of chromosomes, the origin of nucleated eukaryotes, the formation of multicellular organisms, the rise of endothermy, and the evolution of a large and highly complex central nervous system, each of these steps permitted the utilization of a different set of environmental resources, that is, the occupation of a different adaptive zone. — Ernst W. Mayr

The McEvoys, for their part, apparently had two dominant founding Y chromosomes, a theory that is supported by records revealing that when the name was anglicized, two ancient families, the Mac Fhiodhbhuidhes and the Mac an Bheathas, were drawn in under the same banner and both became McEvoys. History also indicates that fully three Irish surnames - McGuiness, Neeson, and McCreesh - are all anglicizations of the same Gaelic name Mac Aonghusa (son of Angus), which DNA evidence confirms, as all three groups overlap strongly on one Y. — Christine Kenneally

'We're not ... we haven't been writing poetry and sprinkling rose petals and tripping hand in hand under rainbows, Kay.'
'Just because you have Y chromosomes doesn't mean you can't tell each other how you feel, Dylan. Your penises won't fall off if you do.' — Kim Fielding

Man's destiny was no longer determined from 'above' by a super-human wisdom and will, but from 'below' by the sub-human agencies of glands, genes, atoms, or waves of probability ... they could determine his fate, but could provide him with no moral guidance, no values and meaning. A puppet of the Gods is a tragic figure, a puppet suspended on his chromosomes is merely grotesque. — Arthur Koestler

Congenital killers and criminals are possessed of not one but two Y chromosomes, bearing a double dose, as it were, of genetically undesirable maleness. — Elizabeth Gould Davis

I may finally call attention to the probability that the association of paternal and maternal chromosomes in pairs and their subsequent separation during the reducing division as indicated above may constitute the physical basis of the Mendelian law of heredity. — Walter S. Sutton

Geneticists in the early 1900s believed that nature - in an effort to avoid wasting precious space within chromosomes - would pack as many genes into each chromosome as possible. — Sam Kean

Each part of our genome is unique. We would not be alive if there was not a single mathematical solution for our chromosomes. We would just be scrambled goo. — Craig Venter

For each chromosome contributed by the sperm there is a corresponding chromosome contributed by the egg, there are two chromosomes of each kind, which together constitute a pair. — Thomas Hunt Morgan

The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that has an incomplete set of chromosomes ... — Valerie Solanas

Acknowledging that my biological imperative may not include the drive to procreate, that I just might be attracted to XX chromosomes instead of XY? That's so stupid-minor in comparison to the fact that I might actually be in love for the first time in my life. It's with a girl...so what? Lesbian, bisexual, whatever! Thus isn't about categorisation or chromosomes. This is about how I feel about another person. — Kristen Zimmer

Soon after Harris's HeLa-chicken study, a pair of researchers at New York University discovered that human-mouse hybrids lost their human chromosomes over time, leaving only the mouse chromosomes. This allowed scientists to begin mapping human genes to specific chromosomes by tracking the order in which genetic traits vanished. If a chromosome disappeared and production of a certain enzyme stopped, researchers knew the gene for that enzyme must be on the most recently vanished chromosome. Scientists in laboratories throughout North America and Europe began fusing cells and using them to map genetic traits to specific chromosomes, creating a precursor to the human genome map we have today. — Rebecca Skloot

You have three chromosomes, Bryson. X, Y, and Fuckhead.
Katz — Bill Bryson

Imagine that the genome is a book.
There are twenty-three chapters, called CHROMOSOMES.
Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called GENES.
Each story is made up of paragraphs, called EXTONS, which are interrupted by advertisements called INTRONS.
Each paragraph is made up of words, called CODONS.
Each word is written in letters called BASES. — Matt Ridley

Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes in cells. Chromosomes carry the genetic information. Telomeres are buffers. They are like the tips of shoelaces. If you lose the tips, the ends start fraying. — Elizabeth Blackburn

Mutations pop up all over the place, but our redundant chromosomes help blunt this effect. By avoiding inbreeding, a population reduces the odds that rare and harmful mutations will pop up at the same place on both sides of the chromosome. — Randall Munroe

Yes, there's genetics. Yes, there are chromosomes. Yes, there's biology. Yes, there are environment, sociology, parenting, economics, class, and all of that. But there is something else, as well. — James Hillman

The irreducible, ultimate element in religious faith is the insistence that we are created things; male and female He created them; without God we are nothing. And yet, when men and women have children and become parents, they unmistakably become creators, incompetent, accidental and partial creators, no doubt, but creators none the less. It is their inescapable duty, and, with luck, their occasional delight to care and watch over their creations; even if this creative power is partly illusory because chromosomes and chance decide the whole business, parents cannot act as if it is illusory; they cannot sincerely believe in their ultimate helplessness. They must behave like shepherds, however clumsy, and not like sheep, however well trained.
The Sermon on the Mount is a wonderful, intoxicating sermon. But it is a sermon for bachelors. — Ferdinand Mount

Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed ... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity. — Ronan O'Rahilly

This is the mitochondrial DNA." Bowers nodded back to the cryo-case. "It's the genetic material that actually makes the energy that powers our cells. Think of it like this. Each of our cells has the usual 23 pairs of chromosomes that make us human and determine our physical appearance, how we fight off disease, and other physical characteristics. Now think of the mitochondria as little organisms within our cells. Like cells within a cell. It's those little organisms that make energy for our cells. And they have their own DNA." "I — Jonathan Brookes

You'd better leave your chromosomes at the door. — John Irving

It seems a miracle that young children easily learn the language of any environment into which they were born. The generative approach to grammar, pioneered by Chomsky, argues that this is only explicable if certain deep, universal features of this competence are innate characteristics of the human brain. Biologically speaking, this hypothesis of an inheritable capability to learn any language means that it must somehow be encoded in the DNA of our chromosomes. Should this hypothesis one day be verified, then lingusitics would become a branch of biology. — Niels Kaj Jerne

In order to approximate those shapes and attitudes which are considered normal and desirable, both sexes deform themselves, justifying the process by referring to the primary, genetic difference between the sexes. But of forty-eight chromosomes only one is different: on this difference we base a complete separation of male and female, pretending as it were that all forty-eight were different. — Germaine Greer

Except for certain moments - when cells are dividing, for instance - chromosomes don't form compact, countable bodies inside cells. Instead, they unravel and flop about, which makes counting chromosomes a bit like counting strands of ramen in a bowl. — Sam Kean

Cartoons are like fruit flies. Biologists use fruit flies because their large chromosomes and short life cycle make them ideal for studying hereditary changes. — Robert Mankoff

Royal blood isn't blue, it is a jaundiced shade of red and riddled with broken chromosomes — Dean Cavanagh

I tried all kinds of approaches: sexy, friendly, intimidating - nothing worked. I'm starting to think there's an invisible force field that prevents honest communication between X and Y chromosomes. — Jody Gehrman

If we think of our chromosomes - they carry our genetic material - as being like shoelaces, I work on the plastic tips at the end that protect them. — Elizabeth Blackburn

Bina and Landsman were twisted together, a braided pair of chromosomes with a mystery flaw. And now? Now each of them pretends not to see the other and looks away.
Landsman looks away. — Michael Chabon

Chromosomes. Sex. Grasshoppers. "Pick me up, Mommy."
This is an odd list, except in the eye of evolution. For in the major developments in the history of life, the ability to say, "Pick me up, Mommy" features prominently along with the emergence of genes, sexual reproduction, and multicellular organisms. On a smaller but no less wondrous scale, the ability to speak opens one mind to another. Babies announce their arrival with a loud cry, but it is their first words that launch the journey of a lifetime. — Charles Yang

Sometimes no matter how well you prepare, no matter how conservative your decision making, no matter how few Y chromosomes are along on your trip, you can still find yourself in a mud slide or a hurricane without a dry piece of clothing to your name. But those of us who have given our time and usually our hearts to outdoorsmen over the years know that, for many of them, it's not really a wilderness trip unless, MacGyver-like, they have to make a fire out of a pair of shorts, a glow stick, and a ketchup bottle; it's not really an adventure until someone gets airlifted out. — Pam Houston

Believers in chaos-and they sometimes call themselves believers, or converts, or evangelists-speculate about determinism and free will, about evolution, about the nature of conscious intelligence. They feel that they are turning back a trend in science toward reductionism, the analysis of systems in terms of their constituent parts: quarks, chromosomes, or neurons. They believe that they are looking for the whole. — James Gleick

My daughter's eggs are silver points of potential energy, the light at the beginning of the tunnel, a near-life experience. Boys don't make sperm - their proud "seed" - until they reach puberty. But my daughter's sex cells, our seed, are already settled upon prenatally, the chromosomes sorted, the potsherds of her parents' histories packed into their little phospholipid baggies. — Natalie Angier

What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. We had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, and the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You can't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build your world from it. — Sarah Dessen

It's not just humans who have trisomies of the sex chromosomes. One day you may be happily amazing your friends with your confident statement that their tortoiseshell cat is female when they deflate you by telling you that their pet has been sexed by the vet and is actually a Tom. At this point, smile smugly and then say 'Oh, in that case he's karyotypically abnormal. He has an XXY karyotype, rather than XY'. And if you're feeling particularly mean, you can tell them that Tom is infertile. That should shut them up. — Nessa Carey

Those smooth, spit-cleaned cheeks gave no indication of the dreams crowding her skull. Should she make it to adulthood, the girl would arrive with two hundred and six bones. Two and a half million sweat glands. Ninety-six thousand kilometers of blood vessels. Forty-six chromosomes. Seven meters of small intestines. Six hundred and six discrete muscles. One hundred billion cerebral neurons. Two kidneys. A liver. A heart. A hundred trillion cells that died and were replaced, again and again. But no matter how many ways she dismembered and quantified the body lying beside her, she couldn't say how many years the girl would wait before she married, if at all, or how many children she would have, if any; and between teh creation of this body and its end lay the mystery the girl would spend her life solving. — Anthony Marra

Corrective surgery is referred to as genital reassignment, or reconstruction, surgery (GRS). In the past, it was referred to as sex reassignment surgery (SRS), but this term is not technically accurate. As we've learned, sex is a combination of chromosomes, reproductive systems, and genitals. Corrective surgery for a transgender person doesn't change the sex chromosomes; therefore it is properly known as GRS. — Kathy Baldock

Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people, anyway. For years I've regarded his very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. — Hunter S. Thompson

Drosophila has long been our main workhorse in genetics, yielding insight in the relation between chromosomes and genes. — Frans De Waal

If I could put my finger on it, I'd bottle it and sell it. I came down here originally in 1972 with some drunken fraternity guys and had never seen anything like it - the climate, the smells. It's the cradle of music; it just flipped me. Someone suggested that there's an incomplete part of our chromosomes that gets repaired or found when we hit New Orleans. Some of us just belong here. — John Goodman

They also knew that there was a string of DNA at the end of each chromosome called a telomere, which shortened a tiny bit each time a cell divided, like time ticking off a clock. As normal cells go through life, their telomeres shorten with each division until they're almost gone. Then they stop dividing and begin to die. This process correlates with the age of a person: the older we are, the shorter our telomeres, and the fewer times our cells have left to divide before they die. By the early nineties, a scientist at Yale had used HeLa to discover that human cancer cells contain an enzyme called telomerase that rebuilds their telomeres. The presence of telomerase meant cells could keep regenerating their telomeres indefinitely. This explained the mechanics of HeLa's immortality: telomerase constantly rewound the ticking clock at the end of Henrietta's chromosomes so they never grew old and never died. — Rebecca Skloot

I am a breast. A Phenomenon that has been vastly described to me as "a massive hormonal influx, "a endocrinopathic catastrophe" and/or "a hermaphroditic explosion of chromosomes" took place within my body between midnight and 4 A.M. on February 18, 1971, and converted me into a mammary gland disconnected from any human form. — Philip Roth

You'd better hope they're not checking chromosomes at the door. — John Irving