Word: person
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...editor of the piece not notice the cruel racism implied when Hsia spoke of "normal, integrated activity"? Surely, logic does not demand that a person can only be considered well-adjusted or "normal" when socializing with a person of a different racial or social background. Of course, if that is the case, then there are multitudes of athletes, or professors, who are maladjusted, for many can often be seen dining among themselves...
...disease be told about his fate, especially if no cure is yet available? Does it demean humans to have the very essence of their lives reduced to strings of letters in a computer data bank? Should gene therapy be used only for treating disease, or also for "improving" a person's genetic legacy...
...good memoir should produce shocks of recognition that are both intimate and historical, revealing truths about a person and about his times. Bernstein provides both, in abundance. Juxtaposing excerpts from declassified FBI files with tales of a childhood thrown into turmoil by the early postwar Red scares, he has created a new genre -- what might be called the investigative memoir. It combines the journalistic thrill of Watergate with the emotional punch of that most basic of literary themes, a boy's search to understand his father...
Once someone's genes have been screened, the results could find their way into computer banks. Without legal restrictions, these personal revelations might eventually be shared among companies and government agencies. Just like a credit rating or an arrest record, a DNA analysis could become part of a person's permanent electronic dossier. If that happens, one of the last vestiges of individual privacy would disappear...
...life, a necessary ingredient to the survival of a species. Genes that are detrimental under certain conditions may turn out to have hidden benefits. Sickle-cell anemia, for example, is a debilitating blood disease suffered by people of African descent who have two copies of an abnormal gene. A person who has only one copy of the gene, however, will not be stricken with anemia and will in fact have an unusual resistance to malaria. That is why the gene remains common in African populations...