Biotechnology - The technical nuts and bolts of living things, the pursuit of which may make one go nuts and then bolt.
Clone - An identical twin from another womb and time.
Chromosomes - The several things wrapped up in the nucleus which are made up of DNA. Humans have 23 pairs of these things in their regular cellular nuclei, and 23 single lonely unpaired chromosomes in the nuclei of their sex cells, which are just waiting for someone to answer the personal ads they've placed.
Cytoplasm - The gak inside the cell that isn't the nucleus.
DNA - "A complex organic molecule characterized as the building block of life and appropriately shaped like a spiral staircase to nowhere." ¹
Enzymes - Verbs and activists in the sub-cellular world.
Gene - Usually short for Eugene.
Genetic Code - Studying this is more fun than breaking wartime ciphers, hacking Internet privacy keys, reading invisible ink, etc., and involves about the same skills.
Genotype - Blaming heredity.
Human - One of the species Homo sapiens, at least until we mix and mangle our human genome with other species enough that we all become one great big interspecies conglomerate creation.
Humane - A word invented in the hubris of imagining what we might ideally be.
Maternity - Dolly Has Three Mommies: The sheep who got cloned by donating her cellular nuclear DNA, the sheep who supplied the host cell and the bits and flakes of mitochondrial DNA, and the sheep who provided the womb and actually gave birth to Dolly. Theoretically, there could be a fourth: the adoptive mother. That's a lot of mutton.
Mitochondria - The bollix in the identical clone department. Little inclusions running around in the host cytoplasm that don't get cloned when the cloned nucleus gets added, but which have bits of DNA of their own. The dustbunnies of the cell.
Natural Born Killer Cells - A violent epic directed by Oliver Stone concerning the hazards of an immune system gone bad.
Nucleotides - The building blocks of the building block of DNA, nucleotides exhibit true eternal monogamy. For millenia beyond millenia, Adenine has partnered Thymine, and Cytosine has coupled with Guanine in the perpetual square dance of life. Swing to your left, Swing to your right, Spin your partner Do si do...
Nucleus - The large (relatively-speaking) dark thing within most cells that contains the chromosomes, and keeps them from running loose.
Paternity - Non-essential.
Phenotype - Blaming what we end up expressing ourselves as.
RNA - Ribald Nucleic Acid. Not permitted in polite company.
Cloning Emporium