Most importantly, the ' Altaic ' languages do not seem to share a common basic vocabulary of the type normally present in cases of genetic relationship.

Ramsey ( 2004: 340 ) stated that " the genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese, if it in fact exists, is probably more complex and distant than we can imagine on the basis of our present state of knowledge ", a concept later restated by Lee ( 2011 ).

However, there is not enough evidence to distinguish areal contacts from genetic relationship.

In the 1950s, James D. Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins were instrumental in solving DNA structure and suggesting its relationship with genetic transfer of information.

This can give rise to the situation in which two dialects ( defined according to this paradigm ) with a somewhat distant genetic relationship are mutually more readily comprehensible than more closely related dialects.

In one opinion, this pattern is clearly present among the modern Romance tongues, with Italian and Spanish having a high degree of mutual comprehensibility, which neither language shares with French, despite some claiming that both languages are genetically closer to French than to each other: In fact, French-Italian and French-Spanish relative mutual incomprehensibility is due to French having undergone more rapid and more pervasive phonological change than have Spanish and Italian, not to real or imagined distance in genetic relationship.

In 1874, the British priest Isaac Taylor brought up the idea of a genetic relationship between Etruscan and Hungarian.

This relationship between nucleotide sequence and amino acid sequence is known as the genetic code.

Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from ancient Korean into Western Old Japanese.

Daughter languages are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship ; the former term is more current in modern times, but the latter is equally as traditional.

In Trombetti ’ s time, a widely held view on classifying languages was that similarity in inflections is the surest proof of genetic relationship.

In the interim, the view had taken hold that the comparative method — previously used as a means of studying languages already known to be related and without any thought of classification — is the most effective means to establish genetic relationship, eventually hardening into the conviction that it is the only legitimate means to do so.

According to the September 2010 issue of National Geographic magazine, Tutankhamun was the result of an incestuous relationship and, because of that, may have suffered from several genetic defects that contributed to his early death.

Many of the assertions put forth and conclusions reached by the authors are very controversial, ranging from the relationships between low measured intelligence and anti-social behavior, to the observed relationship between low African-American test scores ( compared to whites and East Asians ) and genetic factors in intelligence abilities.

# Do Uralic and Altaic have a demonstrable genetic relationship?

# If they do have a demonstrable genetic relationship, do they form a valid linguistic taxon?

For example, Germanic and Iranian have a genetic relationship via Proto-Indo-European, but they do not form a valid taxon within the Indo-European language family, whereas in contrast Iranian and Indic do via Indo-Iranian, a daughter language of Proto-Indo-European that subsequently calved into Indic and Iranian.

In other words, showing genetic relationship does not suffice to establish a language family, such as the proposed Ural – Altaic family ; it is also necessary to consider the family tree of the languages concerned to determine which language goes where.

Since pronouns are among the elements of language most resistant to change and it is very rare if not unheard-of for one language to replace its pronouns wholesale with those of another, these similarities, if accepted as real, would be strong evidence for genetic relationship.

However, typological similarities such as these do not constitute evidence of genetic relationship on their own, as they may be the result of regional influence or coincidence.

Thus other linguists argue that these typological similarities do not demonstrate a genetic relationship between Uralic and Altaic, ascribing these similarities instead to coincidence or mutual influence resulting in convergence.

Furthermore, vowel harmony is a typological feature, and, according to the predominant opinion among linguists, typological features do not provide evidence for genetic relationship.

In many cases, passerine families were grouped together on the basis of morphological similarities which, it is now believed, are the result of convergent evolution, not a close genetic relationship.

Together with various other structural and genetic details, this organization indicates a close relationship between the dinoflagellates, Apicomplexa, and ciliates, collectively referred to as the alveolates.

Relationships between some of these the major groups were suggested during the 1980s, and a specific relationship between all three was confirmed in the early 1990s by genetic studies, most notably by Gajadhar et al.

While a spontaneous or induced genetic mutation in bacteria may confer resistance to antimicrobial drugs, genes that confer resistance can be transferred between bacteria in a horizontal fashion by conjugation, transduction, or transformation.

Historically, the main dispute between the national organizations has generally centered on the interpretation of " Nordic heritage " as either something cultural, or as something genetic or racial.

Bacterial conjugation is the transfer of genetic material between bacterial cells by direct cell-to-cell contact or by a bridge-like connection between two cells.

Arnason and Gullberg describe the genetic distance between a blue and a fin as about the same as that between a human and a gorilla.

Recently, it has been possible to construct these trees using molecular data, based on similarities and differences between genetic and protein sequences.

Recent linguistic research suggests that all of Africa's major language groupings south of the Sahara Desert ( except Khoisan, which is not considered a valid genetic grouping anyway ), i. e. the Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger – Congo phyla, originated in prehistoric times in a narrow band between Lake Chad and the Nile Valley.

However, studies of mitochondrial DNA show that the divergence between each of the three chipmunk groups is comparable to the genetic dissimilarity between Marmota and Spermophilus.

Cancer is thought to be caused by the interaction between genetic susceptibility and environmental toxins.

However, when in vitro fertilization and embryo cryopreservation is practised between or shortly after treatment, possible genetic risks to the growing oocytes exist, and hence it has been recommended that the babies be screened.

While the stories depict a lack of intelligence in many of the individuals, they do not arise from any consistent genetic differences between them and the rest of humankind.

The genetic revolution in studies of human evolution started when Vincent Sarich and Allan Wilson measured the strength of immunological cross-reactions of blood serum albumin between pairs of creatures, including humans and African apes ( chimpanzees and gorillas ).

The nature of interaction between early humans and these sister species has been a long standing source of controversy, the question being whether humans replaced these earlier species or whether they were in fact similar enough to interbreed, in which case these earlier populations may have contributed genetic material to modern humans.

It is claimed that this has resulted in substantial genetic differences between different current human populations.

* Homology ( anthropology ), analogy between human beliefs, practices or artifacts owing to genetic or historical connections

* Homologous recombination, genetic recombination in which nucleotide sequences are exchanged between molecules of DNA

Indeed, researchers found significant genetic divergence between the two groups, as well as between them and another isolated population of C. a. alleganiensis.

Sexual activity between adult close relatives may arise from genetic sexual attraction.

The International Tropical Timber Agreement ( ITTA, 1983 ) is an agreement to provide an effective framework for cooperation between tropical timber producers and consumers and to encourage the development of national policies aimed at sustainable utilization and conservation of tropical forests and their genetic resources.