Monday, December 24, 2012

All in the Mind - Exploring Our Genome: Orchids and Dandelions


This week's episode of the All in the Mind podcast features Danish neurobiologist Lone Frank, Ph.D. discussing her new book - My Beautiful Genome: Exposing Our Genetic Future, One Quirk at a Time - on how our genome wires us to be either orchids (low psychological resilience) or dandelions (high psychological resilience). More importantly, however,
[T]he genes and traits that underlie some of our greatest weaknesses, like despair and difficult behaviour, could also underlie our more positive aspects, like optimism and resilience.
Interesting theory - enjoy the podcast.

ORCHIDS, DANDELIONS AND AN INTRIGUING SET OF GENES

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show transcript

Broadcast: Sunday 23 December 2012


To explore the world of consumer genomics, Danish neurobiologist Lone Frank had her personal genome analysed. She found she had the so-called sensitive variants of the genes which can indicate a predisposition to psychological vulnerability. But there may be an intriguing upside. The orchid–dandelion hypothesis suggests that the genes and traits that underlie some of our greatest weaknesses, like despair and difficult behaviour, could also underlie our more positive aspects, like optimism and resilience. In this program writer David Dobbs and Lone Frank explore the expanding field of behavioural genetics and the complex interplay between our genes and our environment.

This program was first broadcast 22nd April, 2012

Transcript

Guests: 
  • Dr Lone Frank, Science writer and neurobiologist, Denmark
  • David Dobbs, Writer
Publications:

My Beautiful Genome: Exposing Our Genetic Future, One Quirk at a Time
by Lone Frank
Oneworld

Further Information:
The Science of Success by David Dobbs

Presenter: Lynne Malcolm

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