Survival of the sickest chapter 1 summary

hemachromatosis is a hereditary disease, the most common genetic disease for people of European descent, in which the body can't register that it has enough iron. So it continuously absorbs as much of it as possible, and this can have very serious side effects (including death). Iron is very important for bacteria, cancer, and other things to grow which is why too much iron is so dangerous. during the black plague in Europe, people with more iron in their system were more likely to die because bacteria feeds on iron. Women, children, and the elderly were significantly less targeted than men. But people with hemachromatosis also happen to have white immune system blood cells with considerably less iron than the normal person, and this counteracted the precise way that the bubonic plague killed its victims - through their own immune system. Because of this lack of iron, people were actually able to fight off the disease, and their lives were spared.

Honors bio class 24

Today in class we learned about genetics , dominant genes, recessive genes, phenotype, and the ratios they produce. We also learned about the linnet square and how to utilize it when solving for the F1, or the first generation. 

By using the parents alleles, we can produce the predicted results of their offspring. After this, we worked on problems where we solved for the ratios: 

After we finished the worksheet, we took a quiz on the punnet square.

Honors bio class 23

Today in class we reviews the operon system and its relationship with biotechnology. We first took  a quiz on protein synthesis and then began to what controlled the production of proteins. The operon system is only present in prokaryote cells or cells without a nucleus. Their are two types of operon systems; induceible and repressive. An example of the repressive operon system is the tryptophan operon system:

At the left end their is the regulatory gene that when translated by the RNA polymerase, produces mRNA which then produces the repressor. As the RNA polymerase continues down the line it reads the genes for tryptophan. As a result, tryptophan is produced until there is enough to activate the repressor. Once activated, the repressor binds to the operator and blocks off the tryptophan gene so that it is no longer produced. 

The induceible operon system is different because it switches off an active repressor. An example of an induceible system is the lactose operon system:

As you can see, once lactose is present the repressor is deactivated and un-binds itself from the operator. This allows the RNA polymerase to read the gene and produce whatever that gene dictates.

Honors Bio Class 22

Today in class we reviewed the the process of protein synthesis. In a prokaryotic cell protein synthesis takes place in two main steps; transcription and translation. In eukaryotic cells the mRNA is transcripted twice, first inside the Cell nucleus and second, outside the the nucleus in the cytoplasm. RNA polymerase is needed to create mRNA in order to code for the protein. Before we can use the mRNA, the spliceosome needs to cut out all the introns that are useless when coding for the protein.In both cells, tRNA is used to collect the amino acids that are floating around the cytoplasm. tRNA and the amino acid are connected by the enzyme tRNA aminoacyl synthetase. Once they are bonded both the amino acid and the mRNA and the tRNA are moved to the ribosome. The ribosome will begin to read the mRNA in the 5' to 3' direction. Depending on the codons, certain tRNAs with matching codons will be accepted into the ribosome. The tRNAs will bring with them, their amino acid which will create a polypeptide chain which will eventually create a protein.

Hon Bio Class 21

Today in class we went over the DNA replication process. Some of the important enzymes includes: 

We went step by step starting with the breaking of the hydrogen bonds by the Helicase enzyme: 

Then we moved on to the addition of RNA nucleotide which were put in place by RNA Primase. After that, DNA polymerase III added DNA nucleotides in the 3' - 5' direction. This left a lagging strand of DNA that lacked nucleotides.

RNA nucleotides are then added to the lagging strand but some spaces are still left open for the placement of DNA nucleotides. Polymerase I replaces RNA nucleotides with DNA nucleotides in the lagging strand to allow for phosphate diecer bonds to form. Ligase allows the okasaki fragments to bond and form a strand of new DNA.

We checked the results of our bacteria a found that only one of them glowed.

Survival of the Sickest Ch 3 Summary

Chapter 3 in Survival of the Sickest  Dr. Moalem explains how folic acid, vitamin D, and cholesterol all work together. He explains that though the sun is necessary it is constantly a problem for our bodies. Many of the things we are constantly exposed to in nature have this dual relationship...helps one on hand and hurts on another.  We  are always evolving in this balancing act.   We need the sun for the vitamin d it supplies us,but at the same time we are receiving the vitamin d the sun is taking away our folic acid. Now to counteract that our bodies create more cholesterol so that losing that folic acid is no longer an issue. The folic acid isn't dependent on the cholesterol; the vitamin D is.  Now our skin color is the way color it is due to the amount of sun you are exposed to year round. Africans have such dark skin due to the amount of sun they experience. The amount of sun won't make a person very dark if they don't have the traits that allow them to make lots of melanin.  For example, African genetics code for lots of melanin whether exposed to lots of sun or not, whereas European genetics codes for less melanin even if exposed to lots of sun.  There skin is darker so that not as much folic acid is taken from there bodies. I also learned that sun tan lotion is sometimes bad for the human body because it keeps the important vitamin D from absorbing the frolic acid. This results in excess cholesterol which is sometimes harmful to human bodies.

Bio Class 20

Today in class we spent most of our time working on a new lab experiment that involved bacteria. Our goal was to try and get our prokaryote bacteria to glow by immersing them in PGLO. However, we knew that it would be hard to successfully get the PGLO in to the cell because of the cell membrane. Our solution to this problem was to put the bacteria through heat shock in the hopes of opening up a hole in the membrane. Before we could reach this process, we had to set up the different solutions of bacteria and PGLO. Here are the steps we took before the heat shock process:

We had to be very careful when going through these steps to avoid adding excess bacteria to our tubes.

After these steps we were finally able to put the -PGLO tube and the +PGLO tube through heat shock. :

After the 50 seconds were up we had to immediately  place the tube back into the ice bath to keep the DNA from slipping out of the cell.

After heat shock we filled the tubes with LB broth to act as the food for our bacteria and place them into four different Petri dishes with different environments for the bacteria to grow in. 

Our class hypothesis was:

We would check for the results next class.