• Adventure
  • Auto
  • Culture
  • Entertainment
  • Home & Garden
  • Money
  • Science
  • Tech
  • Video
  • Shows
  • Blogs
  • Quizzes
  • Games
  • Random Article
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Science
  • Forces of Nature
  • Innovation
  • Military
  • Physical Science
  • Science Dictionary
  • Science Versus Myth
  • Space
  • Transportation
  • Home > 
  • Science > 
  • Environmental Science > 
  • Life Science > 
  • Genetic Science

by Marshall Brain

Print
Cite This!
Close 
Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks article:

Brain, Marshall.  "How Gene Pools Work"  25 July 2001.  HowStuffWorks.com. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/genetic/gene-pool.htm>  10 February 2012.
Cite
Feedback

Stuff You Should Know

Josh &amp; Chuck explore zombies, mirror neurons and more »
Josh & Chuck explore zombies, mirror neurons and more »
Inside this Article
  1. Introduction to How Gene Pools Work
  2. How Life Works: DNA and Enzymes
  3. Understanding the Gene Pool
  1. Lots More Information
  2. See all Genetic Science articles

Lots More Information

Related Articles

  • How Evolution Works
  • How Cells Work
  • How Cloning Works
  • How Human Reproduction Works
  • How DNA Evidence Works
  • How does your body know the difference between dominant and recessive genes?
  • How can children from the same parents look so different?

More Great Links

  • Purebred Dog Breeds into the Twenty-first Century
  • Pros and Cons of Inbreeding Dogs
  • Diseases Caused by Single-factor (Mendelian) Inheritance
  • An Introduction to Genetics
  • Efficient genetic markers for population biology - PDF
  • Retinal Disorders in Border Collies
  • Czech Wolfdog Breed History
VIDEO: Check out amazing videos of the evolution of life. >>
Previous Page

All Things Science

10 Incredible Wind Power Facts
10 Incredible Wind Power Facts
10 Remarkable Exoplanets
10 Remarkable Exoplanets
Fact or Fiction: Earthquake Quiz
Fact or Fiction: Earthquake Quiz
Top 10 Things That Women Invented
Top 10 Things That Women Invented
Get in Touch With the Dark Arts
Get in Touch With the Dark Arts
Watch 100 Greatest Discoveries videos »

You Might Also Like

How Earthworms Work

You'd think that earthworms are good for fish bait and little else, but that isn't the case at all. Earthworms are the engines that help local ecosystems run. They aerate soil, help facilitate plant composition and so much more.

How did language evolve?

Let's assume that long ago Homo sapiens communicated by grunting at one another. How and when did all those grunting sounds evolve into a verb tenses, clauses and proper nouns?

Popular Articles

  • Bellflower
  • Will a shark drown if it stops moving?
  • Thrift
Inside this Article
  1. Introduction to How Gene Pools Work
  2. How Life Works: DNA and Enzymes
  3. Understanding the Gene Pool
  1. Lots More Information
  2. See all Genetic Science articles
Previous Page

Video Favorites

FPO
  • Robot Videos
  • Extreme Engineering Videos
  • 10 Ways The World Will End Videos
  • Space Station Videos

New HSW Games

FPO
  • Storm Tracker
  • Speed Match
  • Crab Fishing Game
  • Volcano Explorer
  • Lost in Migration
  • Word Bubbles

Related Content

Prices: Gene Pool Books

  • Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models: Patent Pools, Clearinghouses, Open Source Models and Liability Regimes (Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law)
    Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models: Patent Pools, Clearinghouses, Open Source Models and Liability Regimes (Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law)

    Concerns have been expressed that gene patents might result in restricted access to research and health care. The exponential growth of patents claiming human DNA sequences might result in patent thickets, royalty stacking and, ultimately, a 'tragedy of the anti-commons' in genetics. The essays in this book explore models designed to render patented genetic inventions accessible for further use in research, diagnosis or treatment. The models include patent pools, clearing house mechanisms, open source structures and liability regimes. They are analysed by scholars and practitioners in genetics, law, economics and philosophy. The volume looks beyond theoretical and scholarly analysis by conducting empirical investigation of existing examples of collaborative licensing models. Those models are examined from a theoretical perspective and tested in a set of operational cases. This combined approach is unique in its kind and prompts well founded and realistic solutions to problems in the current gene patent landscape.

    $133.00

  • Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir
    Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir

    The great-great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt takes a look at the decline of her wealthy blue-blooded family in this irreverent and wickedly funny memoir For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to the inherited fortune of Cornelius "The Commodore" Vanderbilt. By 1955, the year of Wendy's birth, the Burdens had become a clan of overfunded, quirky and brainy, steadfastly chauvinistic, and ultimately doomed blue bloods on the verge of financial and moral decline-and were rarely seen not holding a drink. When her father commits suicide when Wendy is six, she and her brother are told nothing about it and are shuffled off to school as if it were any other day. Subsequently, Wendy becomes obsessed with the macabre, modeling herself after Wednesday Addams of the Addams family, and decides she wants to be a mortician when she grows up. Just days after the funeral, her mother jets off to southern climes in search of the perfect tan, and for the next three years, Wendy and her two brothers are raised mostly by a chain-smoking Scottish nanny and the long suffering household staff at their grandparent's Fifth Avenue apartment. If you think Eloise wreaked havoc at The Plaza you should see what Wendy and her brothers do in "Burdenland"-a world where her grandfather is the president of the Museum of Modern Art; the walls are decorated with originals of Klee, Kline, Mondrian, and Miro; and Rockefellers are regular dinner guests. The spoiled life of the uber-rich that they live with their grandparents is in dark contrast to the life they live with their mother, a brilliant Radcliffe grad and Daughter of the American Revolution, who deals with having two men's suicides on her conscience by becoming skinnier, tanner, blonder, and more steeped in bitter alcoholism with every passing year. We watch Wendy's family unravel as she travels between Fifth Avenue, Virginia horse country, Mount Desert Island in Maine, the Jupiter Island Club, London, and boarding school, coming through all of it surprisingly intact. Rife with humor, heartbreak, family intrigue, and booze, Dead End Gene Pool offers a glimpse into the eccentric excess of old money and gives truth to the old maxim: The rich are different.

    $6.40

  • Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models: Patent Pools, Clearinghouses, Open Source Models and Liability Regimes (Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law)
    Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models: Patent Pools, Clearinghouses, Open Source Models and Liability Regimes (Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law)

    Concerns have been expressed that gene patents might result in restricted access to research and health care. The exponential growth of patents claiming human DNA sequences might result in patent thickets, royalty stacking and, ultimately, a 'tragedy of the anti-commons' in genetics. The essays in this book explore models designed to render patented genetic inventions accessible for further use in research, diagnosis or treatment. The models include patent pools, clearing house mechanisms, open source structures and liability regimes. They are analysed by scholars and practitioners in genetics, law, economics and philosophy. The volume looks beyond theoretical and scholarly analysis by conducting empirical investigation of existing examples of collaborative licensing models. Those models are examined from a theoretical perspective and tested in a set of operational cases. This combined approach is unique in its kind and prompts well founded and realistic solutions to problems in the current gene patent landscape.

    $114.57

HOWSTUFFWORKS
  • Adventure
  • Auto
  • Culture
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Home & Garden
  • Lifestyle
  • Money
  • Science
  • Tech
MORE STUFF
  • Blogs
  • Games
  • HSW Tools
  • RSS
  • Maps
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Newsletters
  • Video
OUR WEBSITES
  • Animal Planet
  • Consumer Guide Auto
  • Consumer Guide Products
  • Discovery Channel
  • Discovery Fit & Health
  • HSW Brazil
  • HSW China HowStuffWorks China
  • Investigation Discovery
  • Oprah Winfrey Network
  • Planet Green
  • Science Channel
  • TLC
  • Discovery Education
  • Store
CUSTOMER SERVICE
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Help
CORPORATE
  • About Us
  • Careers @ Discovery
  • Privacy Policy
  • Visitor Agreement
TAKE US WITH YOU
FOLLOW US
© 1998-2012 HowStuffWorks, Inc