Harvest of Fear

1. What is a GM Crop?
GM (or Genetically Modified) Crops are different agricultural plants that have been altered by genetic engineering. These crops have been genetically changed in order to grow faster, grow larger, stay away from different infections, etc. These crops been reported to have positive effects on the ecosystem, but can cause disasters if the genetic procedure goes incorrectly.


2. List 2 arguments FOR the growing of GM crops

-Insect pests are very dangerous when growing crops. Because these insects eat a lot if grouped together, it can seriously take a toll on some farmer's income. Thus in mind, GM crops actually prevent insects from eating it. The GM crops act as a repellant not only for itself, but for several other plants around it.

- Growing these Genetically Modified crops are completely natural and do not harm the environment at all. Because of these "all-natural" crop growth, reproductive seeds can be produced as well. So you can continue on the plant's genes naturally.

3. List 2 arguments AGAINST the growing of GM crops.

-Some children or adults are highly allergic to peanuts or other ingredients due to some different chemicals inside of it. These chemicals do have the possibility of injuring or killing somebody. These GM crops sometimes include some of these "chemicals" that can really cause an epidemic.

-GM crops are very unpredictable. Due to the unknown possibilities of disaster from this technique, there is no comparison of the damage that GM crops could do if there is a mistake in them.

4. Practice this simulation until you get the largest ears of corn. How many times did it take you?
Four

5. List two foods and desribe how they are being modified.

Bananas are being used to find the cures for diseases that inherit themselves through fruit. One of these possible foods is bananas. Using Genetic Engineering, there can be a cure for some of these diseases.





Do you think food should be labeled if it has been genetically modified? Why or Why not?

Yes, I do believe that there should be labeling of genetically modified food. First of all, there have instances in the past that can make genetically modified food dangerous to the public, such as outbreaks of small diseases or infection of plants. Although these won't cause a global epidemic, it can still harm human health, even if it has a small chance of occurrence. This makes people uneasy, and unsure of genetically engineered food. These people should known if there have been ingredients that genetic engineering has changed.

Epigenetics Worksheet

1. Often, the physical characteristics of genetically identical twins become increasingly
different as they age, even at the molecular level. Explain why this is so. (use the
terms "environment" and "epigenome")

Well, even though their genetics are the same, there epigenome isn't.  Since the epigenome is always changing, their life experiences may change their personality, appearance, or interests. This may explain the change through identical twins.

2. Name 3-4 environmental factors that influence the epigenome.

One of them is stress, sending different chemicals through the brain and can change the epigenome. Another is diet, in which thought can either become stronger or weaker. A third one is drugs, in which different chemicals can either strengthen current emotions or make them deactivate. Methyl will make a rat change from calm to anxious.

3. What is an imprinted gene?

An imprinted gene is a gene that is contributed to offspring by a parent. It's a gene that made it through mitosis and is now shaping up in a chromosome. This gene can be passed through many generations.


4: Discuss factors in your daily life (ie. Diet, exercise, stress etc.) that could be affecting
your epigenome

All the emotions listed on the question above do have a large impact on my epigenome. Diet may want you to eat healthier. Exercise may want you to train harder. Stress could make you learn more from life. These all have different answer, but it has a large impact on it. Take exercise for instance. Exercise makes your body fitter and you healthier. But, genetically it can add more or less chemicals that interact within your brain. Things start popping up, such as "should I train even harder or more often"? These things change your epigenetics mentally.



5. Explain how a high-nurturing mother rat shapes her pup's epigenome, and what that
pup's response to stress will be.

A high-nuturing mother will lick her pups constantly, making the GR gene much more active. If this occurs, there is a much quicker calm down if the brain is experiencing stress. If there is low nurturing, then the rat will have a harder to deal with stress.

6. In rats, does licking by the mother activate, or deactivate her pup's GR gene?

It activates it, crating a much calmer rat. When the GR protein is released into the hippocampus, there is a release of chemical cortisol. Since cortisol combines with GR protein, the combination sends out calming signals throughout the brain, making it easier or harder to calm down.

7. Explain how cortisol and the GR protein work together in the brain to relax a rat pup.
You may draw a diagram.

As said above, the combination of cortisol and GR create a calming signal throughout the brain. Since the protein is much more widely created if there is more nurturing in younger life, then more GP is created. This is exactly the opposite for low nurturing. So, when the cortisol is emptied into the hippocampus, the more GP proteins have a greater chance of attaching to one. More combinations will create a much stronger signal.

8. The rat nurturing example shows us how parental behavior can shape the behavior of
their offspring on a biochemical level. Relate this to humans and think about the personal
and social implications. Record your thoughts.

As said in the rat example the environmental traits can be inherited through a family. At my guess, this would be the same for humans. Epigenetics can be inherited to an organism, so I bet these environmental emotions would do the same. Because of the stress that can be interned from epigenetics, this stress, or diet, or any inheritable emotion. Now on its own, a human that is pregnant may have some type of diet that will affect her baby's epigenetics. When this baby grows up and has his/her own children, there is a very good chance that the diet may be passed on towards the next generation. Soon, there would be a group of people with that same epigenetic relationship. An organism can affect a large amount of people. Take this into consideration. If an organism has two children, and those children have to children, (etc.) there is a large amount of children with this "diet"
Diagram:
| <-- Person with epigenetic
|| <-- Children with passed on epigenetic
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etc.
From this diagram, there is a huge impact that this could have throughout a family tree.


9. Explain how the food we eat affects gene expression.

Diet is very easily expressed through the epigenome. All food includes some type of ingredient, some healthy, some not. The healthy part doesn't matter, but genetically, there are chemicals that can change your personality. Specifically methyl can be extracted from food and put into the epigenetic chain. This can bring up the amount of activity in the epigenetic level.

10. Can the diets of parents affect their offspring's epigenome?

Yes, scientists have studied this and have proven that pregnant mothers that don't eat enough nutrients can affect their child's outcome. Since methyl comes from the nutrients in food, under-eating can actually make the child's epigenetics low on methyl for life.


11. How does Dietary methyl influence gene expression ?

Methyl can be used to change epigenetic patterns. A rat can become from a calm attitude into an anxious one through the injection of methyl. This can happen with a lot of stress related epigenetic patterns.

12. Why do Toxins affect gene methylation?

Gene methylation can balance gene expression, but it has good use for long term memory of the epigenetics. I'm not entirely sure on this, but I believe that the toxins may actually reduce the amount methyl going towards the gene. This, in turn, may actually create a shorter memory through epigenetics. So these epigenetic patterns will not last as long.

DNA Fingerprinting

1. DNA is unique for everyone. The only exception is if a person has what?
An identical twin

2. What are DNA fingerprints used for?
Determining Biological Parents or determining a suspect of a crime

3. What “crime” was committed?
Someone licked a NOVA Holographic lollipop

4. What bodily fluid was removed from the “crime scene” to get DNA?
saliva
5. What does a restriction enzyme do?
Restriction enzymes cut long DNA molecules into smaller strands.

6. What is agarose gel?
Agarose gel is a thick liquid that allows smaller pieces of DNA to easily move besides larger pieces.

7. What is electrophoresis?
The process of moving molecules with an electric current.

8. Smaller fragments of DNA move ____________ than longer strands?
easier

9. Why do you need to place a nylon membrane over the gel?
The DNA gets sucked from the agarose gel, making it easier to see.

10. Probes attach themselves to __________
DNA fragments

11. Which chemical in your “virtual lab” is radioactive?
Probes

12. Sketch your DNA fingerprint.
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13. Based on your DNA fingerprint, who licked the lollipop?
Honey Sweet


14. What kinds of things could you do at the DNA workshop?
 You can replicate DNA through the DNA replication process. Also, you can synthesis protein through RNA translation.


15. Read an article about genetics at this site that you might find interesting, or use the "Search" box in the upper right hand corner to search for DNA fingerprinting.
Summarize what the article was about. Write this in a paragraph format.


The Guam Police Department has solved almost 40 cases of robbery or stealing through a new machine that can identify fingerprints. These machines are becoming more common and are expanding in population. With over 25 officers that have been trained in fingerprint analyzation, it is a new way to find suspects in a crime. This technology is still being only used in Guam, but is soon going to go international.

Mitosis Tutorial

1. Which stage does the following occur
Chromatin condenses into chromosomes Prophase
Chromosomes align in center of cell. Metaphase
Longest part of the cell cycle. Anaphase
Nuclear envelope breaks down. Telophase
Cell is cleaved into two new daughter cells. Cytokenisis
Daughter chromosomes arrive at the poles. Interphase

2. The colored chromosomes represent chromatids. There are two of each color because one is an exact duplicate of the other.

How many chromosomes are visible at the beginning of mitosis? 46
How many are in each daughter cell at the end of mitosis? 46
The little green T shaped things on the cell are: Centrioles
What happens to the centrioles during mitosis? They extend fibers to attach to chormosomes

3 . Identify the stages of these cells:
Leftmost One: Metaphase
Center One: Cytokenisis
Right One: Prophase

View the animation and sketch the cell in:
Prophase: The nucleus evaporates and the chormosomes are set free
Metaphase: The chormosomes are set up in the middle of the cell
Telophase: The fibers break and the nuclei reappear around the seperated chormosomes

You will have 36 cells to classify.
# of cells
Interphase: 20
Prophase: 10
Metaphase: 3
Anaphase: 2
Telophase: 1

% of cells
Interphase: 56%
Prophase: 28%
Metaphase: 8%
Anaphase: 6%
Telophase: 3%

 For each organism, identify the stage of mitosis.
White Fish
View 1: Cytokenisis
View 2: Metaphase
View 3: Prophase
View 4: Anaphase

Onion
View 1: Anaphase
View 2: Metaphase
View 3: Prophase
View 4: Cytokenisis
View 5: Telophase

Introduction input

Gregor Mendel found out that certain traits are inherited from parents that change the next generations genetic makeup.this passes on and phenotypes can be passed on as well. This captured Mendel's attention. His pea plants are easily grown and can distinguish traits very easily. These traits don't blend and Mendel called the traits genes. These "genes" can affect the way that an organism can turn out. These pea plants cross pollinate, giving it an easy time to fertilize. The pea plants have two types of phenotype genes that only affect their color. This is hoe Mendel found out about the pea plants, because of the colors. Pure-bred seeds can change the way that the phenotypes turned out. A yellow seed and another yellow seed could create a green seed, but the way the flowers turned out were almost similar. These traits don't blend however. It's expected that a yellow and green seed would create a yellow-green seed. Mendel tested this and only yellow seeds were made. He provided the idea that traits don't, but are passed on through a parent's trait. Mendel's 7 traits that he focused on were flower position, stumbling, seed shape, seed color, seed coat color, pod shape, and pod color. These decided if some were different and some were the same. Generations of peas showed that generations can decide what traits are passed on. Of course, some of these traits were more common than others. These traits have been passed on from several generations and extended the population. The traits that have lasted much longer have extended to a wide variety of pea plants, create a very common trait in the population. This can be explained on how common the green pea is instead of the yellow pea. The green pea must have started much earlier. As well as dominant traits, hybrid offsprings always only copied one trait. If there were two different colored pods, only one color would passed on to the next generation. Now dominant genes are what genes are called if passed on through a cross fertilization. The genes that are not dominant are called recessive. Recessive genes don't often have their genes passed on. Recessive genes have a three to one ration to be passed on. This can be explained with Punnett Squares. Take two yellow peas. Each has a yellow seed and green seed factor. Green seeds are only formed if there are two green seeds from cross fertilizing. Yellow is anything else. In any combination, green is outnumbered three to one. This is Punnett Squares. If there are more genes besides the yellow and green, the squares are extended. An example are take and small genes for the plant. There ares different combinations for tall, small, yellow, and green seed plants. All of Mendel's theories were proven in 1900 by three European scientists. There was indeed genes that changed phenotypes and traits through generations. This wasn't treated well by scientists. A theory that cells supported life and passed it on was introduced. After some time, genetics (as it was called) was accepted. Cells started to be discussed. Cells are the basic supporters of live, and the beginning of life. Cels evolve over time and can become life over millions of years. Bacteria I'd an example of cells. Inside the cells, there is a nucleus, the controller of the cell. There are many parts in a cell that can support the cell. Not only this, but cells can reproduce over time.
Mendel published his findings in a book and there was an outbreak in scientific discovery. Scientists studied chromosomes very often, looking for ways to prove a discovery called cell division. Cells can divide themselves and replicate. There is a five step phase: interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase. Interphase is the resting phSe, were the nucleus is very thick. This is because the nucleus material is duplicating. The prophase takes the duplicated material and turns it into chromosomes. Metaphase is when each chromosome pair groups together and moves to the "equator" of the cell. The anaphase separates the duplicated and real chromosomes to the ends of the cells. The telophase keeps chromosomes separated in the cell. The cell splits and becomes two smaller ones. In the sexual reproduction process, chromosomes meet and exchange "information" that changes the way their offspring will act and think. Traits from these chromosomes are carried on to the offspring.
A man named Theodor Boveri studied worms in the late 1800s. Theodor knew to have sexual reproduction, there must be a contribution of material, and chromosomes. There should be double the chromosomes needed in a worm's reproduction process because they have the same amount as humans. There is a process that discovered that the chromosomes are halved. Through a process, homologies split from chromosomes and divide twice to create a set of chromosomes. So chromosomes create chromosomes. Each pair of homologies will only have only homology go to the organism.
Chromosomes also can determine which gender the organism will be. There are two types of chromosomes that determine the gender. One X is bigger than Y. The combination of XY cells are widely seen in male cells. While XX cells are seen in female. Since there is a male in female in sex, the chromosomes determine the gender. Since there is XX and XY. You take one of each pair to determine the gender. So that leaves with the options of XX and XY.
In summary, the chromosomes carry genes that can determine the traits and gender of offspring. The phenotypes can change the outside appearance and usually bring down traits through ancestry. This is Mendel's theory carried all the way to humans.