Several small stimuli on a similar location produced a reflex when a single stimulus did not. this led to the idea of that synaptic input from several locations can have a cumulative effect and trigger a nerve impulse:

The human genome project is devoted to mapping the general dna sequence of our species. this could lead to the development of new medicines, as well as the possibility of using gene therapy to treat certain diseases. however, there are some ethical issues surrounding the mapping of individual genomes. one concern is a) that your genes may change over time, making the project useless. b) that insurance companies could discriminate based on genetic make-up. c) that since this has never been done before, we should probably not do it now. d) that sequencing our individual genomes is so expensive, it is a counter-productive strategy.