From ancestry to destiny. Our shared deep ancestry ; Our recent past: from royal bastards to lost colonies ; Today: getting to know our genetic selves ; Our future -- From Mendel's peas to double helices. The idea of heredity ; Mendel's experiments - the mystery of the missing traits ; The chromosome connection ; In pursuit of the genetic material ; The human genome project -- How genes work. Mikayla's story ; Inside the cell ; The individual: tissues and organs ; The family ; The population ; Bioethics -- Genes and health. Causes of death - an organizing framework ; Cardiovascular disease ; Cancer: the cell cycle out of control ; Infectious disease -- Genetic testing. The first generation of genetic tests: proteins ; The second generation of genetic tests: DNA ; The third generation of genetic tests: do-it-yourself -- Genetic and genomic technologies. Gene therapy ; Gene expression profiling ; A genomic view of the world ; The human genome sequence revisited.