Day 25/26: It's Genetics!

So I have a friend named Jeanette, and she's really tall and I'm really short. And I sometimes this frustrates me a lot. I can't reach so many things.

 So sometimes I ask her, "Why are you so tall?"

And she always replies, "Jeanette-ics"

*ba-doomsh*

So, yay we're moving onto genetics, which ties into our previous chapter of molecular biology! And guess what we brought back from the dark days of middle school, that's right, Punnett Squares!

So Day 25

We took a lot of notes about the genetic process and how DNA replication ties into this. We learned quite a bit of complicated vocabulary like phenotype (trait) and genotype (gene). Most importantly, we learned the six steps to figuring out the genotype and phenotype of a trait. (It involves math….)

Step 1
Write down EVERYTHING you know.

Step 2
Write the genotype of the parents

Step 3
Gametes
Involves the Law of Segregation.
Basically, you split the two chromatids that make up the gene.

Step 4
Punnett Squares
Slap those chromatids onto that square!

Step 5
Fill in the Punnett square

Step 6
Find the ratios of the phenotype and genotype.

The next class day, we applied it. Except this time, it was with two genes, which made life slightly more difficult and involved a larger Punnett Square.

Soon, you'll get to see the result of a Thanksgiving Break project on genetic diseases. Stay tuned.

Until next time.

Rusting to Death (A "News Report" on Chapter 1 of Survival of the Sickest)

Famous runner, Aran Gordon, had finished the Marathon des Sables for the second time. It was reported that just five years ago, Gordon’s death was predicted.

Gordon has hemochromatosis, which is a genetically inherited mutation that causes an excess buildup of iron in the blood stream.

As Dr. Sharon Moalem had stated, “Aran Gordon was rusting to death.”

Hemochromatosis a genetic mutation that causes the excess buildup of iron in the bloodstream and if it remains untreated, in major organs and joints.

In order to find purpose for this genetic mutation, Dr. Moalem researched hemochromatosis and found that excess iron is distributed everywhere except for a type of white blood cell called macropages. Bacteria use the iron in macropages to reproduce and survive. With deficit levels of iron in hemochromatic macropages, bacteria could not stay alive long enough to infect the body.

So, hemochromatosis was useful at some point in time, but now how do you prevent it from killing you? There is a way to prevent it, but its archaic medicine. It’s bloodletting, or in other words purging blood.

Blood purging had been given a bad reputation throughout the years, especially since before there was any scientific means of medicine, almost all illnesses were treated through blood purging.

Blood purging actually works with hemochromatosis and Aran Gordon is living proof of that.

So congrats to Aran Gordon for finishing the Marathon des Sables for the second time and overcoming hemochromatosis.

Day 24: Test Day #3 (help!)

I'm dead.

This is my last blog post. When my parents see my grade, I'll be lucky if I live to tell the tale.

Since I haven't gotten my test back yet, I can't exactly say what I did wrong, so I'll just let you know what happened during the test.

I actually felt like I knew what I was doing, mostly. And then all the technical questions came and the amount of profanity that was spiraling in my brain would have gotten my brain washed with soap.

I was done for.

So now, I am dead and dying, waiting to pass onto the next life, or the next test, which will hopefully be better.

Until next time.

Protein Synthesis Review Questions

*side note: Hi everyone, I know I haven't posted the daily class blog posts in a bit but we're doing a really big lab right now and I want to post the entire lab in one post so bear with me. We're almost done!*

Explain the following images in terms of what you (the student, so me) have learned from Survival of the Sickest and Your Inner Fish respectively.

The coloration of this flower is completely natural (though some may believe otherwise). Due to a "genetic mistake" or mutation, the flower is two different colors, giving it a unique appearance because of the rearrangement of DNA in the mutation. A lot of things could have caused this mutation, including outside radiation from either manmade chemicals or the sun's UV rays or it could just be a genetic miracle. 

Cool looking right? Yeah, it probably isn't for whoever that hand belongs to. This is a prime example of what happens when your Sonic hedgehog gene goes a bit haywire. The ZPA was manipulated in a way that it formed more digits than necessary. This is all due to an error in the hedgehog gene, which controls the structure of an animal's limbs.

Day 21/22/23: Lab Days!

Here's the lab day(s) post you have all been waiting for!

And guess which potentially harmful germ we dealt with: E coli!

Don't worry, it was completely harmless.

Basically, we were testing the gene regulation in the E coli bacteria by inserting arabinose and GFP (glowing genes). Except, most of us didn't know that yet. We all thought we were going to die.

There were four different petri dishes with different environments. One just had the E coli bacteria, one had the E coli bacteria and ampicilin, another had the bacteria, ampicilin, and the GFP, and the last one had everything: the E coli, ampicilin, arabinose, and GFP.

We did a lot of heating and cooling (pictures below) and then we stored our bacteria in an incubator. And then, we waited.

E coli with arabinose. It glowed! Sorry for the bad picture

So during the next few classes, we evaluated our outcome.

All of the bacteria grew in all the petri plates, but only the one with arabinose glowed.



Why you may ask? The operon system!

Am I going to explain to you what it is? Heck no! Not here anyways. That's what my next lab report is going to be on. The link will be in my next blog post.

Next class, it's test day.

Until next time.

Sonic Hedgehog!! (A Summary of Ch. 3 of Your Inner Fish)

Would you believe it if I told you that every animal is somehow related to each other?

Well, it's sort of true, and scientists are still figuring out a lot of really important chunks of that theory, but most discoveries of genetic similarities between different species are very recent, like 90's recent. Now, I don't know what you looked like back then, but I couldn't eat my food without it drooling down my chin back in the 90's.

Neal Shubin's (the guy who wrote Your Inner Fish) coworker, Randy Dahn, wanted to test DNA in sharks. In order to do that, Dahn first needed to understand ZPA tissues. These tissues showed that the relationship between living animals and fossils are based on more than just anatomy. The study of fossils and DNA go hand in hand actually. Shubin even says so when commenting that his research lab was split into two sections: fossils and DNA existing peacefully together in the realm of science.

The second part of Shubin's lab was DNA and the study of embryonic development. According to Shubin, most of our cells have the same copy of DNA.

Also, our limbs exist in three dimensions. Now, you're probably going "What the heck does that mean? We live in a 3D world. Of course we're in 3D." Well, maybe if you'd hold on for a bit, I'd tell you what it means.

Our limbs exist in three dimensions: a top and bottom, a pinky side and a thumb side, and a base and a tip. Our body develops limbs in this certain structure because of the chemicals produced by cells in a developing body. Researchers discovered that a certain portion of cells in the body controlled all limb development. If the cells were removed, all limb development would stop. If you cut the patch of cells in half, two limbs would develop.

Scientists had tested this hypothesis on chicken eggs and wanted to see if the same would happen to other animals, so they turned their attention to the fruit fly and found the hedgehog. The hedgehog is a gene within the ZPA tissues that control limb development. When scientists discovered the hedgehog in chickens, they rechristened it the Sonic hedgehog (because they saw the chance, and they took it.) The Sonic hedgehog gene could be manipulated by a Vitamin A injection, resulting in the change of how the limb develops.

And that's where Randy Dahn came into play. Dahn wanted to see if the sonic hedgehog was true for even the most different of animals, so he decided to test his theory on shark embryos. And hey, it worked!

Every animal has a sonic hedgehog gene. Every animal obtained their limbs from one animal and then branched out into many many different animals, which brings me back to my first point that we're all sort of related!