Genetically Modified Crops

1. What is a GM Crop.
A GM crop is a genetically modified crop.

2. List 2 arguments FOR the growing of GM crops
A. The production of GM crops has risen 25 times over in four years. From 4.3 million to 100 million.

B. The income from the sales of GM crops has grown from $75 million to $2.3 billion.

3. List 2 arguments AGAINST the growing of GM crops.
A. GM crops can pose serious health risks to certain consumers.

B. GM technology can hurt small farm animals.


Engineer a Crop

4. Practice this simulation until you get the largest ears of corn. How many times did it take you?
It took me a single try to engineer the best crop.


What’s for Dinner?

5. List two foods and desribe how they are being modified.
Pizza is being modified by using rennet that has been modified to increase cheese production, wheat that has been modified to produce easily digestable and greater yielding crops, and peppers and tomatoes that have been modified to stay fresher, longer.

Bananas are being modified to work as edible vaccinations.


Viewpoints

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

I do not think that GM cfoods need to be labeled as there is a nation wide awarness of GM foods and crops, meaning that people know about what is being modified and they are wary about it.

Finished? Go to www.yahooligans.com and type "genetic engineering" in the search field. Browse some of the sites that pop up.

(Yahooligans is better than yahoo, the sites tend to be picked for education rather than for scientists and universities, you'll find more understandable and interesting sites on yahooligans than you will with Yahoo)

Write down any of the sites you visited below.

eco-pros.com

eurekascience.com

Epigenome Reflection

IDENTICAL TWINS: PINPOINTING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ON THE EPIGENOME

1. The epigenome of identical twins is effected greatly by the environment they are brought-up in. Thus, the physically expressed traits found in twins are near-completetly correlated to their environment.


2. Diet, stress, and physical activity are a couple of environmental factors found in the raising of children.


3. An imprinted gene is a gene that's epigenome was not fully cleaned and as a result, the child holds some of the traits from their parents in their epigenome.

YOUR ENVIRONMENT, YOUR EPIGENOME

1. My environment is an athletic and academically rich environment with a healthy diet and a good home environment so I would imagine that my epigenome is being positively affected.

LICK YOUR RATS

1. A high-nuturing rat mother has a great affect on her kids. The pup would have an easy time relaxing after stress and would have little anxiety.

2. Licking helps activate a rat pup's GR gene.

3. The GR gene and cortisol helps with relaxation by doing the following;

When the cortisol is released by the brain, the GR gene helps stabilize the cortisol allowing for it to be used affectively. The more GR, the more relaxed the rat can become.

4. I believe that relating this to humans is easy. The more love shown by a mother, the more the child will relax and the calmer the child would be.

NUTRITION & THE EPIGENOME

1. The food eaten by child early on would possibly effect the chemical production in a childs brain depending on the extremeness of the food they eat.

2. The diet of a parent strongly effects the epigenome of children. Because the epigenome is not fully wiped when a child is born, a lot of the epigenetic features are saved. Thus, the child keeps some of the environmental effects are kept, including diet.

EPIGENETICS & THE HUMAN BRAIN

1. Dietary methyl can effect gene expression by having changes in how some genes work in some people.

2. Toxins affect gene expression by sometimes turning off and on different genes making a person greatly effected by these toxins.

Introduction:

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?
Anything from determining paternal or maternal relationships to crime investigations.

Part 1 “It Takes a Lickin”

3. What “crime” was committed?
Jimmy's holographic NOVA lollipop was destroyed.

4. What bodily fluid was removed from the “crime scene” to get DNA?
Saliva was removed.

Part 2 “DNA Fingerprinting at the NOVA Lab”

5. What does a restriction enzyme do?
Restriction enzymes split the DNA in different places.

6. What is agarose gel?
This gel works as a molecular strainer for larger pieces of DNA.

7. What is electrophoresis?
An electrophoresis is a machine that moves molecules with electricity.

8. Smaller fragments of DNA move ____________ than longer strands?
Faster or Easier.

9. Why do you need to place a nylon membrane over the gel?
I placed the membrane because it is difficult to pick up the gel without special equipment.

10. Probes attach themselves to __________
Probes attach themselves to the fragments of the DNA on the nylon membrane.

11. Which chemical in your “virtual lab” is radioactive?
The probes are radioactively labeled.

12. Sketch your DNA fingerprint.
It was a collection of lines arranged horizontally in a column.

13. Based on your DNA fingerprint, who licked the lollipop?
Honey sweet is the culprit.

Click on the Link “DNA Workshop” (if this link won't load, scroll down to the bottom where it says "try the non-java script version)
Once you’re there, go to the link “DNA Workshop Activity” and practice with DNA replication and protein synthesis.

Browse the DNA Workshop site.


14. What kinds of things could you do at the DNA workshop?

Find an Article about DNA

Go to http://www.thegenesite.com/

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.

Title of Article ____________________________ Author and Date ______________________________________

Summarize what the article was about. Write this in a paragraph format.

Mitosis

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

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?
None. The chromosomes are not visible in interphase

-- How many are in each daughter cell at the end of mitosis?
Two.

--The little green T shaped things on the cell are:
They are centrioles.

-- What happens to the centrioles during mitosis?
The centrioles separate and and one is found in each cell.

3 . Identify the stages of these cells:

3a. This cell is in Metaphase.

3b. This cell is in Cytokinesis.

3c. This cell is in Interphase.

Prophase

The cell had each of the centrioles at either of the poles. The chromosomes were lined up and ready to be split.

Metaphase

Telophase