Genes are material entities that parents pass to offspring during reproduction. These entities encode information essential for the construction and regulation of polypeptides, proteins and other molecules that determines the growth and functioning of the organism. The word "gene" is shared by many disciplines, including classical genetics, molecular genetics, evolutionary biology and population genetics. Because each discipline models the biology of life differently, the material entity that supports the gene in one discipline is not the same as in the other. Following the discovery that DNA is the genetic material, and with the growth of biotechnology and the project to sequence the human genome, the common usage of the word "gene" has increasingly reflected its meaning in molecular biology. In the molecular-biological sense, genes are the segments of DNA which cells transcribe into RNAs and translate, at least in part, into proteins.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene

Today's selected anniversaries:

1864 Calcutta, India was almost completely destroyed by a cyclone which had killed 60,000 people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcutta)

1877 After battling U.S. armed forces for more than three months, retreating over 1,000 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce band finally surrendered following a five-day siege. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Joseph)

1908 Prince Ferdinand became Tsar when the autonomous principality of Bulgaria proclaimed independence from the Ottoman Empire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_of_Bulgaria)

1969 The first episode of 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' was broadcast on BBC1. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Flying_Circus)

1970 Terrorists of the 'Front de Lib�ration du Qu�bec' kidnapped a British diplomat, sparking the October Crisis in Montr�al, Canada. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_de_Lib%E9ration_du_Qu%E9bec)

Wikiquote of the day:

"As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher." ~ Giacomo Casanova (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Giacomo_Casanova)