Weil is less enthusiastic about white, or button, mushrooms, a species of mushroom that also includes Portobellos and criminis. âButton mushrooms do possess some health benefits, but not the general health benefits found in Asian mushrooms,â Weil says.
What sort of information do they encode, and how can this affect a cell's characteristics and activities? Some genes enable cells to make proteins needed for basic functions; dubbed housekeeping genes, they are active in many types of cells. Other genes, however, are inactive most of the time. Some genes play a role in early development of the embryo and are then shut down forever. Many genes encode proteins that are unique to a particular kind of cell and that give the cell its character - making a brain cell, say, different from a bone cell. A normal cell activates just the genes it needs at the moment and actively suppresses the rest.
About genes. Genes are found in the DNA in each cell that makes up your body. They control how the cell functions, including how quickly it grows, how often it divides, and how long it lives. Researchers estimate that there are 30,000 different genes in each cell. Genes are located on 46 chromosomes, which are arranged in two sets of 23 chromosomes. You inherit one set of chromosomes from your mother and one set from your father. One chromosome in each set of 23 determines whether you are female or male.