Product Description
There’s no easier, faster, or more practical way to learn the really tough subjects Genetics Demystified offers an up-to-date, highly readable explanation of the basic principles of genetics, covering key topics such as human genetics, DNA, heredity, mutations, traits, chromosomes, and much more. This self-teaching guide comes complete with key points, background information, quizzes at the end of each chapter, and even a final exam. Simple enough for beginners but challenging enough for advanced students, this is a lively and entertaining brush-up, introductory text, or classroom supplement.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 8 reviews)

Very nice "Demystified" book by DonJ (Los Angeles)

5 Stars
October 20, 2009
I have "Idiots Guide to Decoding your Genes" but this one is much better. I really feel that I have gotten a toehold on this subject after reading "Genetics Demystified." Recommended.

Good re-intro for ex-students, light on classical genetics by Derek Meade (Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia)

4 Stars
May 12, 2009
A reasonably good introduction to the subject for someone who has not done it, or is re-learning it after a long lay-off. Tends to be more biased towards the molecular level of genetics, which is probably due to the advances in this area in the 20 years since I did it. Does not tackle Classical or Population genetics in any depth. Nevertheless, a good book to get you re-interested in learning the subject of genetics again, and learning newer technologies. However, you will need to move onto bigger and better books very soon.

Good Solid Entry Level Book by henry000 (Sydney, Australia)

3 Stars
April 01, 2009
If you are a beginner wishing to learn genetics, or in need for a quick refresher, then this book serves the purpose well. It is organised in a logical fashion, doesn't go down to too much details and does a fair coverage of the topic. My two minor issues with the book are: (a) there are some editorial errors and (b) the mulitple choice questions are too easy - they test your memory rather than your understanding of the topics. However both can be forgiven if in you need a entry level book on genetics.

A good book for review of basic genetics and delving into harder aspects too by Nancy Greiwe

4 Stars
January 09, 2009
Goose- Do not be fooled by the cover! This book is extremely informative and even a fair amount beyond my understanding, being in the middle of biology honors. Therefore this book would be great to read, since it outlines many concepts of genetics in biology honors, in AP biology. This way one can get the basic concepts of biology and genetics while also being able to delve into advanced genetics in the later part of each chapter. Now on to the science. The most interesting part of this book to me was about genetics outside of the nucleus in chapter 10. I was amazed to learn that mitochondria actually have their own DNA, and that they were once bacteria, and that they had gained relationships of helping with bacteria that couldn't create energy from oxygen, urkaryotes, and eventually merged with them when they came completely dependent of each other. The mitochondria gave some DNA to the urkaryote so the mitochondria became dependent as well. The DNA in the mitochondria is almost all inherited maternally, which is what makes them great for studying humanity's evolution. By looking at DNA from people around the world, scientists were able to pinpoint the earliest human, from which all other's are descendents, was an African women living 200,000 years ago by seeing that mitochondrial mutations in greatest difference were between Africa and the rest of the world. By seeing how many mutations there were from the African mitochondria compared to the rest of the world, scientists figured out this date by rate of mutations which occur in DNA. Another big concept I begun to understand in this book was how evolution is really driven by economics. Darwin himself could not really understand how offspring got characteristics from their parents, but nonetheless knew that variations occurred over time in species because he was ahead of his time. The answer, we now know, is that mutations will occur in DNA, either beneficial, neutral, or detrimental, and for the most part the animal with the beneficial mutation will reproduce and survive better, then replacing the nonmutated DNA. An example where a detrimental mutation will be dominant, however, is sickle-cell anemia (explained in class one day), which will cause disease when homozygous (having two of the same alleles for a gene), but when heterozygous are resistant to malaria, making it dominate in areas with malaria like parts of Africa. A bad "gene pool", or a mixture of all genes in an area, of an area like this can be very hurtful to a society. Going more into gene pools and so-called "population genetics", equilibrium (no change in allelic frequencies, meaning no change in genes) can occur in a population if there are five things occurring in it, which really shows the different ways in which a species can mutate and evolve. The formulas for this Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (founding scientists) are the following: 1. A closed population, meaning no individuals leave or come in, which would change the gene pool left in the population. 2. Normal meiosis, so that only chance determines the genes in the child after mating. 3. No mutations in allelic states, which will occur unless the states cancel the other out. 4. No natural selection, meaning that all genotypes can survive and reproduce equally well, basically making all alleles equal. 5. Infinite population and random mating within it, making it so small sot of "cliques" of genes don't form from repeated mating of the same genes, making pockets of the population different from the rest. This mainly occurs in smaller populations so don't really affect larger ones. These 5 ways to prevent evolution will always be broken, showing the number of interesting theories involved in evolution. I hope you enjoy this book like I did, and take out of it as much of the genetics you can understand on your own, like me.

Only for beginners by I Teach Typing (Stanford, CA USA)

3 Stars
December 18, 2008
Think of this as being a very basic high-school book. It is not bad but it only covers the most fundamental stuff. So, it does an OK job (but not great) of covering the basic vocabulary in genetics: allele, codon, DNA, gene, wild-type, etc. but it has nothing on many topics that are needed to understand modern genetics or the bioinformatics for genetics. If you need to know about SNPs, microarrays and gene expression methods you will need to supplement it with other sources. If you are trying to refresh your memory on that genetics class you had 20 years ago (like me) it is a good place to start but it is only a start. I would give it 4 stars if the answer key at the back was 100% accurate but sadly it is not.

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