It's a little bit in the genes because my brother is a journalist and my father was a sports writer.

For a decade, I had been studying a transparent worm, the C. elegans. I immediately thought, if you could put the G.F.P. gene into C. elegans, you'd then be able to see biological processes in live animals. Until then, we had to kill them and prepare their tissues chemically to visualize proteins or active genes within cells.

New molecular methods that add or modify genes can protect plants from diseases and pests and improve crops in ways that are both more environmentally benign and beyond the capability of older methods.

Genes themselves are made of bits.

I've been blessed with pretty strong stamina and healthy genes, so I'd call myself sensible. I've had regular mammograms ever since I found a lump in my breast when I was 30. Thankfully, all was well.

I think the impulse to get to the heart of the story and to tell it well is in my genes.

We have 26,000 genes. But a blind, millimetre-long roundworm with only 959 cells in total already has over 19,000.

What does gene A do? What does gene B do? What does it do in different contexts? What's its importance? We know the answer to that for a very small number of genes, the ones that made themselves evident many years ago.

I suppose if there's a set of genes I have, it's detesting authority.

The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.

In our evolutionary narratives, the organism itself often seems to play a passive role: a powerless victim, almost, of changes to its environment or mutations in its genes.

Charles Darwin and I and you broke off from the family tree from chimpanzees about five million years ago. They're still our closest genetic kin. We share 98.8 percent of the genes. We share more genes with them than zebras do with horses. And we're also their closest cousin. They have more genetic relation to us than to gorillas.

We all have limitations. I don't have the right genes to be an Olympic weightlifter. I don't have the right genetics to be an Olympic sprinter. Or gymnast. Sure, if I trained my whole life, perhaps I could have become fairly decent in those sports.

The '80s, '90s, and early 2000s genes of competitive fire are dead and gone.

I would love to have children, yes. Maybe even adopt them. I'm not sure that I should pass on my genes.

Most groups patent ways of using genetic discoveries as part of non-obvious diagnostic and therapeutic protocols and slightly or greatly altered genes.

I was blessed with good looks and I have good genes.

As humans, we have evolved to compete... it is in our genes, and we love to watch a competition.

I wasn't blessed with those tall genes.

Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility.