genelation.html - See: IN GENERAL.

genelation.html - {n.}, {informal}, {hackneyed phrase} The difference in social values, philosophies, and manners between children and their parents, teachers and relatives which causes a lack of understanding between them and frequently leads to violent confrontations. * /My daughter is twenty and I am forty, but we have no generation gap in our family./

genelation.html - {adj. phr.} Excessively generous. * /Generous to a fault, my Aunt Elizabeth gave away all her rare books to her old college./

genelation.html - noun
(Health and Fitness) (Science and Technology) The technique or process of introducing normal genes into cells in place of defective or missing ones in order to correct genetic disorders. Etymology: Formed by compounding: therapy which takes place at the level of the gene. History and Usage: Researchers in medical genetics have been working on the idea of gene therapy since the early seventies and during the eighties were approaching a point where their techniques could be applied to human subjects, although most sources spoke of gene therapy very much as a hope for the future rather than a practical reality. Since all forms of transgenic research and genetic engineering raise serious ethical issues which have had to be considered by the courts, gene therapy could not develop as fast as its inventors would like. Approval for the first real gene therapy on human subjects was given in the US in 1990. Researchers were predicting that common disorders of the red blood cells, such as thalassaemia, would be the first diseases cured by gene therapy. Listener 9 May 1985, p.
7 This sort of research, which critics describe as 'playing God', gets even more morally knotty when it comes to gene therapy, with its potential for monitoring and altering human genes to check for and eliminate hereditary diseases. The Face June 1990, p. 111

genelation.html - noun
(Health and Fitness) ( Science and Technology) The deliberate modification of a living thing by manipulation of its DNA. Etymology: A straightforward combination of genetic with engineering in its more general sense of 'the application of science to design etc.'. History and Usage: The techniques of genetic engineering were developed during the late sixties and seventies and contributed significantly to the boom in biotechnology during the eighties when applied to industrial processes. There was concern about the possible ecological effects of releasing genetically engineered organisms (such as plants resistant to crop diseases, frost damage, etc.) into the environment, but this was allowed under licence in the UK from 1989 onwards. Applications of genetic engineering to human DNA have proved even more problematical because of the ethical implications of altering genetic make-up; in the UK, measures to control experiments involving genetic engineering on human tissue were added to the Health and Safety Act in 1989. We are in the process now of bioengineering the world's agroscape. This means moving around the players as well as making new ones through genetic engineering. Conservation Biology Dec. 1988, p.
309 Genetic engineering is often presented as producing unnatural hybrids which have no counterparts in the wild. It feeds on people's notions that there is a harmony or wisdom in nature with which we tamper at our peril, even though alongside that people want their videos and their modern medicines and all the other things that science brings by tampering with nature. Guardian 6 July 1989, p. 19

genelation.html - noun
(People and Society) (Science and Technology) The analysis of genetic information from a blood sample or other small piece of human material as an aid to the identification of a person. Etymology : Formed by combining genetic with fingerprinting in a figurative sense; the genetic fingerprint produced by this technique is as accurate in uniquely identifying a person as an actual fingerprint would be. History and Usage: Genetic fingerprinting was developed in the late seventies and early eighties and was first widely publicized in the mid eighties. The technique (also known as DNA fingerprinting) has a number of applications: it has revolutionized forensic science in the eighties, for example. A sample of blood, semen, etc. or a few flakes of skin left at the scene of a crime can be analysed for the unique pattern of repeated DNA sequences that it displays (its genetic fingerprint) and this can be matched with blood samples taken from suspects. The first murder case to be decided on the basis of genetic fingerprinting was heard in 1987, but in 1989 a number of cases cast doubt on the reliability of forensic evidence based entirely on this kind of DNA testing. Another quite separate application of genetic fingerprinting is in the matching of blood samples in paternity suits or cases of 'disappeared' children (see desaparecido ), since the genetic fingerprint can be used to establish whether two people could be related to one another. A slightly more refined process, known as genetic profiling, provides a genetic profile, or list of all of a person's genetic characteristics. Forensic scientists can also use genetic traits found in blood and other tissues to identify bodies. Sometimes known as genetic fingerprints, these include about 70 inherited enzymes that can be used in a form of extraordinarily detailed blood typing. New York Times 8 July 1985, section A, p.
3 Genetic profiles are much more sensitive than genetic fingerprints because they give accurate answers based on much smaller samples. Observer 26 Feb. 1989, p.
8 Now the baby has been born and blood tests and 'genetic fingerprinting' have proved conclusively that Howitt was not the father . Private Eye 1 Sept. 1989, p. 6