Evolution Final

Tonya Lopez

Biology Final

May 9, 2011

3^rd Hour

Evolution

            Through many, many years, evolution is happening everywhere you turn. In humans, technology, and pets. But lets take a look back on how evolution took place, and who and where it all started.

            The definition of evolution is descent with modification. Is change over time either on a small scale, which there is a small change in the genes that happen frequently in one generation to the next, or a large scale, which is the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations.  Its basically change over time. An example of short term, trees through the season. Long term, hills to mountains.

            Each life has a history. It has changed over time, and that different species share common ancestors. If one has come from a family of four limbs, hair, or vertebrates. Every thing has a past, a family tree or another name would be phylogenies. From the bottom of the phylogeny is the root is the ancestral lineage, and the tips of the branches are the descendents of that ancestor. Everything living has an ancestor; they have to come from somewhere.  Biologist use phylogenetic trees to classify organisms and what they are closely related to. Like, for example, humans are closely related to apes. How they determine this is we all come from organisms known as Hominidae. Humans are most closely related to chimpanzees from anatomy and genetics. Every living thing has to adapt to their surroundings, and this is how evolution accurse. If a white mouse is in a black cave, its going to get eaten. So, from generation to generation, the mouse would eventually turn black because of where it lives.  So, if we were to create a family tree for them, we would be able to track where the genes started to change, and how at one point, the mouse was white. They evolved, but not all mice will turn black.

            Everything that has a life, and has a family, whether it’s a mouse, human, plants, anything, something has to come from somewhere. In a way, we are all related, and come from the same ancestor. But as the years went by, and the world has changed, so did everything else. 

Bacterial Transformation

So, a few days go, Dillon, Kelsey and I made some bacteria grow. How we did this, was get got our little test tubes and put them in ice. Then, we got our pipet and got our bacteria E coli and put very little in our tubes. Then we added some enzymes to the E coli and let it stay in the ice for about 50 seconds. Then put them in warm water, called "heat shock". Then room temp. We got a new pipet and put a little bit on a plate containing antibiotics. Pretty soon, the bacteria started to multiply. Finally, we got a black light and they started to glow.

GATTACA

Questions about GATTACA!

1. The following terms were used in the movie. How do they relate to the words we use: degenerate and invalid?

         De-gene-erate

         In-valid-ID DIDN'T MATCH

         Borrowed Ladder

2. Why do you think Vincent left his family, tearing his picture out of the family photo, after winning the swimming race against his brother?

-HE DIDN'T FEEL LIKE HE WASN'T PERFECT LIKE HIS FAMILY WANTED HIM TO BE. AND BY WINNING THE SWIMMING RACE, I THINK IT MADE HIM FEEL LIKE HIM BEING INTO SPACE IS POSSIBLE FOR HIM, AND THAT HE CAN BE BETTER THAN HIS BROTHER.

3. Describe the relationship between Vincent and Anton.

-ANTON IS THE PERFECT CHILD THAT THEIR PARENTS WANTED. VINCENT WAS KIND OF THERE.

4. When Jerome Morrow said to Vincent/Jerome, “They’re not looking for you. When they look at you, they only see me,” what did he mean? Can you find any parallels to this type of situation in real life?

-THAT HE LOOKS LIKE HIM, AND THAT BY DOING THE DNA STUFF OF THEM, THEY REALLY DON'T SEE HIM AS ANYONE ELSE.

5. Choose your favorite character from the film. Explain why you choose that person. Would you want to be that person? Why? Why not?

-I CHOOSE VINCENT, BECAUSE EVERYONE DOUBTED HIM ON HIS DREAMS, BUT ENDS UP ACCOMPLISHING THEM.

6. At the end of the film, you are told that the Doctor knew about Vincent all along. Why did the Doctor go along with the fraud? What would you have done if you were the Doctor?

-THE DOCTOR WAS DAD, AND WANTED TO PROVE THAT VINCENT CAN BE BETTER THAN HIS OTHER SON.

7. The technology to do what was done in the movie is definitely possible within the next fifty years. Do you think that Vincent’s world could eventually happen in America? Why?

-I THINK IT WOULD BE THE ID WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE PERSON'S GENES, AND THE FINGER PRICK

8. What do you think is wrong with the society portrayed in "GATTACA"? What is right?

-I THINK IT WAS THE ID, WHERE THE GIRL KISSED THE GUY AND WANTED TO KNOW THE GUY. THATS NOT HOW YOUR SUPPOSE TO MEET SOMEONE. AND I THINK THE FINGER PRICK WAS RIGHT.

 

9. What were the screenwriters trying to tell us through the episode of the 12-fingered pianist? Is anything wrong with engineering children to have 12 fingers if, as a result, they will be able to make extraordinarily beautiful music?

-I THINK ITS NOT WRONG  FOR SOMEONE TO HAVE 12 FINGERS. IF THATS WHAT THEY WANT TO BE, A PIANIST, WHEN THEY GROW UP, THEN GO FOR IT.

10. You and your spouse are having a child and are at the Genetic Clinic pictured in the movie. What characteristics would you want for your child and what would you ask to be excluded? Why would you make those choices?

 -I WOULD WANT A CHILD WITH MY EYES, AND MY BOYFRIENDS HAIR. I WOULD WANT THEM TO BE ATHLETIC, AND SMART. I WOULD CHOOSE THESE CUZ IT HAS A LITTLE PART OF ME AND MY BOYFRIEND.

11. Picture yourself as either Vincent, Jerome, or Anton. Would you have acted the same or done things differently if you were in the same world as them?

-I WOLD BE JEROME, AND I WOULD ACT THE SAME HAS HIM. JUST BECAUSE HE WAS HELPING OUT VINCENT.

12. How does the society in GATTACA resemble the type of society America was during the height of the eugenics movement?

-THAT GENETICS IS IMPORTANT, BUT THEY PUT IT TO THE EXTREME. BUT IT CAN TELL YOU IF YOUR CHILD WILL HAVE A DISEASE. 

DNA Sequencing

After missing a few days of class, my friend Caryn helped me catch on. When I came back, I did a DNA sequencing worksheet, kind of an old fashion way of finding out which one has a disease. I think Carol has it because her number is much lesser than Abby and Bob. As you can see from the graph I created from doing the lab. How to determine the numbers is by looking at their DNA structure. And seeing which strands of DNA is different compared to the others. 

DNA Lab

Our lab that we did today was getting DNA from wheat. The DNA as you can see is stringy and white and is in between the wheat and alcohol. By adding hot water first to the wheat started to thicken up the wheat. We think its because so the DNA can thicken. Then putting alcohol, it helped finish getting the DNA out from the wheat. It looked all stringy and kinda like webs. We got our stirring stick and fished out the DNA. On the stick, it looked all mushy and gross. Caryn and I touched it and it was a gooy. I really liked this lab and thought it was pretty cool.

DNA!!!! Dun Dun DUnnnnnnn

As of like, 5 mins ago, we took a picture of our DNA that we just made. The white strands is the phosphate, or sugar. The orange is the A, the green is the T, which only connect to each other. Then, the blue is the G, and yellow is C. Those only connect to each other. And by doing this, Caryn and I made DNA. We stuck it on other strands of DNA with our class and made one big strand.  Dun, dun, dunnnnn!!

Olga & Greg Pedigree

 This paper that I'm holding up is Olga's pedigree. What I mean by that is it's basically her family tree, but seeing if some diseases that she has in her family will get passed down the line. 

Greg's on the other hand, isn't as big as Olga's family tree, but it's the same prosses. 

Taste Buds.

I would say about a week ago, Mr. Ludwig gave us each a little strip of paper to see who can takes it and who couldn't. Surprisingly, only about two people in my class couldn't taste it. And that was derek and I think curtis. The rest of us could taste it. The strip to me tasted like bad garlic. It was nasty. How some people who can't taste it, don't have that particular gene in their tongue. The rest of us, of coarse does have that gene. Stay tuned for more info =]

Making a baby with Dillion

So Friday, we did a little project on making a baby by getting with a partner and looking at each others traits and seeing what our baby would look like. Dillion and I ended up flipping a coin and got a girl. How this is, is a man gives a X and a Y trait in the sperm. The egg of a women has a XX trait. As I said, we flipped a coin and got a girl. On a piece of paper, it asked questions like eye color, skin color and etc. And by flipping a coin, we determined how our daughter would look like. With a brown hair girl and a blonde hair guy, our daughter would have black hair, how, I have no idea. And with blue eyes and hazel eyes, she will have brown. It was kind of weird, but today, we got to draw on how she looked like. Dillion, now his drawing of her wasn't pretty. She looked like a monster. Mine on the other hand, was ok. Better than his. But it was a pretty fun experiment.

Babies and Cloning

Yesterday, we watched a small video about cloning. All they did was stick a tube like thing in the membrane and took the nucleolus and put it into another cell or egg. Thats how one cloning was in the video. There are reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning.
Reproductive cloning is to try and generate an animal DNA into another animal's DNA who is somewhat similar. Kind of what the video was showing.
Therapeutic cloning, known as "embryo cloning", is not to create cloned human beings, but rather to harvest stem cells that can be used to study human development and to treat disease. To learn about more click here.


http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml#whatis

Making Babies with Caryn

So yesterday, we played with these beads. The beads represented the chromosomes. By mixing the mom and the dad genes together makes miosis. So by mixing them, we made a baby.  All of them did not match each other, but none of them really do.

Our Onion Graph