Monthly Archives: February 2015
Toucan Play That Game
Heat: Friend or Foe
Reminiscing about last summer and how this one will be a hundred times better is one of the many things we look forward to at the conclusion of second semester. Also the promise of sunshine and no school make the … Keep Reading
Heterozygote Advantage
As we learned in the Population Genetics and Evolution Lab, Heterozygote Advantage is when a heterozygote genotype has a higher fitness than homozygous dominant and recessive. This occurs when a single locus is present and becomes over dominant. Heterozygote advantage … Keep Reading
Har-DNA Drives
DNA coated in glass and ice can now be used to store data for almost 2000 years if stored at freezing temperatures. This is a huge advancement in the effort to store the genomes of all animals for future study … Keep Reading
Because Regular Living Ants Weren’t Bad Enough
Mankind’s preoccupation with the undead is one that has been several hundred years in the making. From Dawn of the Dead to Shaun of the Dead, it seems as though humans have in inexplicable attraction to zombies. The idea of … Keep Reading
The Evolution of Man’s Best Friend
Today there are at least 150 breeds of dogs, most of these breeds can be attributed to selective breeding, which is a process in which humans breed other plants and animals for specific traits. Some of this breeding has had … Keep Reading
Natural Selection and Evolution in the Modern World
In this unit we have been learning about evolution and natural selection. There are many examples of natural selection that are connected to real world medical problems today. One of these examples of natural selection today is a disease called … Keep Reading
Nanomachines, Son!
Of all fields of science, the one that most directly affects our well-being is medicine. The science of medicine changes constantly, from leeches and bleeding of the past to the MRIs and precision laser incisions of the present. Recent developments … Keep Reading
Hormone Deficiencies, Holy Cow!
Image from Wikimedia Commons A known ailment to the functioning of the human body is hormone deficiencies. A hormone deficiency is a decrease in pituitary function, whether it is hormones that are not adequate or hormones that are absent. Unfortunately, … Keep Reading
Don’t Stay Anti-Vax Without All the Facts
We’ve all heard a ridiculous medical rumor or two, “Butter the way to a healthier lifestyle”, “Lose 10 pounds in a week sitting at your computer”. Every such doctor has their reasons for propagating these, either from personal gain or … Keep Reading
Three Terms: Evolution
One of the most important terms of this unit, in which we examine the topic of evolution, is the term ‘descent with modification’. This is the mechanism of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and a part of what allows it to … Keep Reading
Splicing Open the Mysteries of Alternative Splicing
Humans’ diversity of opinions and forms make life unique as well as surprising, and diversity amongst proteins proves just as interesting. Many different proteins are produced in eukaryotes due not only to sequences encoded in the genome, but also to … Keep Reading
Missing Monarch Migration
Extinction, disease and climate are just three of the many concepts, controversies and concerns occurring in biological life. For the monarch butterfly, these three fluctuating concerns are growing even bigger. Recent studies performed by University of Georgia ecologists have shown … Keep Reading
TERT
Throughout Unit 6, we have learned about how scientists experimented on DNA in order to discover what they have today. By discovering pieces of the DNA one at a time, they were able to find out about telomeres. Now scientists … Keep Reading
