One Mother!

A Few days ago, I finished the book The Gene by Siddartha Mukherjee.

I mistakenly ordered a large print, so. I’m not sure if the book is larger or if I read slowly, but it took me over three weeks to finish it.

The book paints a good picture of how human’s understanding of genetics evolved, starting from Aristotle’s time.

The book is written in a way to give a historical perspective on the knowledge of genetics, so it touches on the dark days of the eugenics movement and how the poor understanding of science and ideology
can turn into a destructive force.

Even Hitler used that flawed understanding of genetics as an excuse to mass execute those who he believed were unworthy to live.

One of the interesting things, I learned from that book is we all have a one woman as our ancestor.

There is a part called the Mitochondria in our cells. It contains its own DNA, . Unlike the primary DNA we inherit from both parents, this one only comes from the mother. Because of that scientists were able to determine that we all come from one mother. Even science was able to give a general area where this woman might have lived.