Evolution!! =)

         Many believe in the theory of evolution and many do not. The theory of evolution is the idea that with in a species they have gradually developed to their surroundings.

         This theory first came about with Lamarck. He said that species adapt to nature. He never really published anything for he was strongly criticized by others. During his time it was profound that this even cross through anyone's mind because religion was the center of it all. The first to actually publish anything was Charles Darwin. However he was afraid of the criticism and told his wife to only publish his work once he was dead. Darwin said that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestry. And that there has been genetic mutation due to the genetic code. Darwin's grandfather was the one to get Darwin interested in this theory. People started to believe this crazy theory once they've seen evidence.

          In Darwin's time not many evidence had been provided. However, through the years may has come about. Such as fossil record. Fossil records are remains left from past generations of species. The fossil records show many similarities with in a species. For example the claws, jaws and teeth of a dinosaur relate to those of a bird now a days. Anther source of evidence is embryology. In embryology it is said that embryos of different vertebrates look a like in the early stages of development. Ernest Hackel was the first to make this observation. And anther piece of evidence is comparative morphology. Comparative morphology is common ancestry for the classification of groups. Like film, kingdom and so on. There is more concepts of evidence such as the fields of biochemistry/ DNA. That is comparing DNA to the DNA of past species and finding similarities. All this is proven evidence leading to the theory of evolution.

     Micro evolution is changes in species in a small amount of time. There is four micro evolutionary mechanisms. They are mutation, genetic drift, migration and natural selection. Mutation is the changes in DNA sequencing. Such as birds not being able to fly and then one single letter in DNA changes and all of a sudden they could fly. Gentic drift is the frequency in which a gene varries in a population. For example a pink and green bettles living in a rain forest. Then a preditor only eats the pink ones since they stick out so much. While the green ones survive thanks to their blending with their surrondings. The third one is  migration. When a certain species migrates to an area they are not used to they adapt. For example dogs living in Africa and then  they migrate to the Artic, then they develop a lot hair so that they don't go extinct. The fourth microevolutionary mechanisms is natural selection. Which is "Survival of the fitest." Micro evolution is a process which allows for a specis to change in a small amount of time.

     In my opinion evolution does exist. The process by which species develop is by nature and adapting to it. The evidence by which I conclude is the fossil records and comparative morphology. Charles Darwin may have been a crazy man but he was on the right track for the survival of species.

    Many people believe in evolution and many do not. The theory of evolution is the idea that with in a species, they have a gradual development to their surroundings. It's all about survival.


Works Cited


"Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)." Ucmp.berkeley.edu/. Web. 11 May 2011.

"Evolution 101: How It Works." Evolution.berkeley.edu. Web. 14 May 2011.

"Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)." .ucmp.berkeley.edu/. Web. 11 May 2011.
 

      

Transformation Lab

In this lab we were creating bacteria and looking at what and where the bacteria grew better.


 Observations:

The LB/Amp positive was fluorescent green and did not glow but however it did contain many specks. Bacteria did grow a lot. It also contained antibiotics. Therefore this shows that bacteria even glows in the presence of antibiotics.



The Lb/Amp/ara positive contained arabinose. Arabinose activates sugar in some gene. Bacteria has grown in it but not as much as in the Lb/amp. This shows that bacteria grows better without the presence of antibiotics. And it glowed and was very florescent green.



The Lb negative did not grow any bacteria and only turned green.



The Lb/amp negative only had some condensation going on.


And this is what they look like all together.




 Results-
      The traits form colonies and their shape and color changed too.

Reviewing-

•       The plate that I would expect to see bacteria like the original non-transformed E. coli colonies would be the LB because in this plate, hopefully the bacteria would grow more because it is more like the original. 
•        If there was any genetically transformed bacterial cells they would be most likely in the LB/Amp/Ara because it would take DNA from the amp in order to live.
•       The plates that should be compared to determine if there is any genetic transformation occurring would be the PGLO and the positive PGLO in order to tell if the plasmid is transformed.
•       The meaning of a control plate is that you could control it. Like for example the ones in this experiment are the negative plates and the LB plates. 

This lab was very interesting and I learned many stuff from it.

GATTACA

     This movie was interesting.  It was about two brothers that were always competing. And since Vincent was not engineered (Anton, the second born was engineered), he wanted to prove that being engineered did not mean perfection.
          It provided more evidence proving that their will never be a "perfect society" if it is man made. For example in the movie there was a part where it showed that Vincent (The first born that was not engineered)  bet Anton( The younger brother that was engineered) in a swimming race. If Anton were "perfect" and Vincent is not then Anton should or would be winning EVERYTHING. So this proved that no matter how much you mess with genes they will never be quit perfect.
       I believe that we should not mess with genes and just leave it to nature. If we continue then our society will end up like this movie of Gattaca. I'm not to sure on everyones opinion but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be robotic.

DNA Analysis

Abby- She has a point mutation. In her case the protein Glu got changed to Val because in the seventh column instead of being GAG it is GTG. This leaves her at ninety seventh percent. She may or may not have a diesease to be sure more tests will need to be conducted.

Bob- He also has a point mutation. In his ninth column it is supposed to be AAG. While in his case it is TAG. The protein produced should be lys but instead its stop. (Which means he's protein will be not producing as much as it should.) This probably is a major problem.

Carol- She has something different. In her case she has a frame shift. Which means a letter has been added or removed and the patterns continues however not in the correct order. This happened in the fourth column and left her with only fifty eight percent normal. Carol needs a lot of help since she is creating different amino acids where there should not be created. 

58% Frame shift mutation she only lost a T but it shifted everything out of frame different amino acides

The moral of this activity is that DNA is very complicated and any little mistake can affect its function.

Olga and Greg

One day Olga and Greg decided to vist the genetic counselor. They feared that there was a possibility that they're off springs may experience some disease that are shown in their families. 

The First step was to draw a pedigree. (A pedigree is like a family tree but it shows more stuff like diseases)

This pedigree shows that factor Vll is a sex linked disease. This means that it mostly shows up in boys. So therefore Olga and Greg only have to worry about factor Vll if they have a boy. Mytonic has showed up twice and not in the same generation so this means that it is a Recessive disease. Olga and Greg's off spring may have this disease because it is recessive. (meaning it is in the genes) Hemophillia has only shown up once before so that means the their off spring most likely won't have hemophillia.
As you can see with the pedigree drawn Olga and Greg do not have much to worry about.

Eugenics

A deeper look into eugenics from my point of view.


This is where I found all this information.

Heredity

 

Lets say that Jennifer Lopez and Marc Antony are expecting a baby in the near future. The big question would be what will the baby look like? However they only want to know one thing for sure since they want the rest of the traits to be a surprise.

The thing that they want to know is will the baby have Jennifer's long eyelashes(LL) or Marc's short eyelashes(ll). 

They are both heterozygous. The punnet square would show Ll, Ll,Ll,Ll. This shows that Jennifer's long eyelashes are dominant and therefore there is a hundred percent chance that the baby's phenotype will be long eyelashes.

 

To their surprise they had twins. And both the babies have long eyelashes like Jennifers' just like the magical punnet square predicted. They are very happy.