Human Life Science Information Every Teenager Should Know
Help Your Teen Develop an Interest in Science and Stay Healthy Longer
Lesson 1
Introduction
You can make your entire family healthier and support an interest in science study.
There is a young man I know who just started college and wanted a career in the life sciences. Just months into the first term, he decided that this major was not for him, because it involved so much memorization. He changed his major to business. That has likely happened hundreds of times. It is especially sad because the new human life sciences are the most fascinating subject of all for me. It is not about memorization; it is about understanding what makes us healthy and how our body works. That helps us improve and maintain our health as long as possible. We will remember what we use!
Here is a great example. There was a computer long before humans invented them. All of us began as a single cell—a fertilized egg—with a single function and that is to make more cells with different functions. That single cell contains all the genes that will become brain cells, heart cells, and kidney cells. This process of gene regulation is called epigenetics. Each gene contains computer code in your DNA that contains 4 possibilities instead of the two we are familiar with in our laptop. The laptop code uses zeros and ones. The computer code in your body uses 4 possibilities.
Epigenetic regulation of the genetic code and the genetic code itself function like a three-dimensional printer in the development of an unborn child. The genetic code and the epigenetic factors are both inherited, and they function like a perfect symphony with each bit of code coming into play at just the right time, in just the right place, with just the right strength, and just the right duration to transform that fertilized egg into a normal baby, child, and perfectly healthy young adult. Of course, the development code is no longer needed, and it becomes much less active once growth is complete.
Here’s the crazy thing. The same genetics and epigenetics that formed a healthy young adult can make us age faster and get chronic illnesses like diabetes later in life. This is the first lesson about the science of human biology that every teenager should know. This is the first lesson in the series.
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Absolutely! This is for the survival of our civilization.
Many of you are parents, grandparents, and teachers. How can we make this topic more appealing to your kids.