Rachel Schneider - May 11, 2009

Blog #2 - 3/3

What We Did Today:
-Finished video "One Wrong Letter" (about the kid with Tay-Sachs disease)
-Started Molecular Genetics unit (recieved handout)
Review Questions: page 666 #3, 4, 7
Read Gene Expression (20.2) on pages 667 and 668
-Reviewed DNA activity from Friday
-Discussed DNA Transcription and Translation (recieved handout)

Thoughts and Opinions:
The issue of Tay-Sachs disease is interesting, as with a lot of the genetic disorders that occur when only one base in the DNA is wrong and then the problem is spread from one cell to all cells through meiosis. It's baffling how only one letter amongst trillions and trillions of bases would cause such a problematic effect and the results could be lethal.

Above and Beyond:
I found that the disorders like Tay-Sachs disease are called Single Gene Disorders (the name is pretty self-explanitory). According to this site, these kinds of disorders affect only 1% of the population as a whole and over 10 000 human diseases are caused by single gene defects. As rare as they are, it's amazing and unfortunate that the two families in "One Wrong Letter" both had kids that developed Tay-Sachs disease.

Kaitlyn Marbeiter Monday May 3 2009

Kaitlyn Marbeiter, Monday May 3 2009 Blog # 3, 3/3

What we did today:
Mendelian Genetics
1. Tips for Pedigrees
2. Sex-linked traits
3. Gene linkage and Mapping

Thoughts and Opinions:
I think the tips for pedigrees are really helpful. Makes the big trees less confusing when you look at them. The sex linked traits are very interesting, there are sooooo many different ways of getting traits, its crazyyyy.
Here is a link for a pedigree of the royal family which once you know how to read it, it is sort of cool..
http://www.ikm.jmu.edu/Buttsjl/ISAT493/Hemophilia/europeanroyalfamily.html

Eleanor McBain- May 5- 3/3 Blog #1

In today's class, we wrote a test on Mendelian Genetics. Gregory Mendel used pea plants to determine factors of genetics. The Austrian monk defined alleles, which are an alternate form of a gene controlling a characteristic and also homozygous, heterozygous, dominant, recessive, genotype and phenotype. Also he made two laws ( which means they haven't been disproved yet), the Law of Segregation (separation) and the law of Independent Assortment. He also showed that chromosomes can have multiple alleles, incomplete dominance, co-dominace and the genotype and phenotype can be found using a punnet square. When using the multiple alleles in the punnet squares (dihybrid crosses), it can be quite confusing. It is where I had the most difficulty. My question is how could Gregory Mendel find out all of this information in the early 1800s?

Well, Mendel would grow the plants and then crossbred whatever pea plants by putting them together so that fertilization would occur and kept very good notes about all his findings.

This is a monohybrid punnet square showing the crossing of 2 true (homozygous) pods. This shows that the green colour is dominant to yellow (G= Green, g= yellow)

The green pod is homozygous dominant(GG) and the yellow pod is homozygous recessive (gg)

The next cross shows the crossing of the F1 generation. This shows that both of the parents are heterozygous (Gg) and therefore produced a yellow pod.

The next cross shows a dihybrid cross, that means it can determine 2 traits

This dihybrid square shows the crossing of a pea plants that are heterozygous for the colour (Gg) and also heterozygous for the colour of the seeds (Yy)

It shows that:

9/16 will have green pods and yellow seeds (56%)

3/16 will have green pods and green seeds(19%)

3/16 will have yellow pods and yellow seeds (19%)

1/16 will have a yellow pod and green seeds.(6%)

These are the first experiments of Gregory Mendel and his pea plants.

Kaitlyn Marbeiter, Thursday Apr. 30 2009

Kaitlyn Marbeiter, April 30, 2009, Blog#2, 3/3

What we did today:
1. Reviewed Multiple Alleles WS.
2. Went over Q's on Potatoe Hand out
3. Got it? Q's 2a-c p. 607
4. Pedigree Tips
5. Beyond Mendal, Sex-linked traits

Thoughts and Opinions:
I find the pedigree tables fairly easy as long as you know the basics, and make sure you learn the legend.
I was wondering what kind of traits are sex-linked traits and found out that they can be many different ones from immune, skin, endocryne, nervous system and many more.
Here is a link with even more sex-linked traits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-linked
Woww, amazing =]

April 28 2009, Kimara Gratton 3/3

What we did today:

• Recall:
• allele
• law of indep. asst.
• page 619 questions 1c,2
• Finished notes
• multiple alleles
• incomplete dominance
  
• codominance
• gene interactions
• Coin toss activity
  

Thoughts and opinions/Above and Beyond
I was thinking that people must have alot of time on their hands to run around tracking "pea offspring" but I'm not complaining cus now i know how i ended up with a backwards toe knuckle hahahaha..... i also started wondering about what blood type i am so i asked my mother when i got home after school and it turns out i'm O+ but i cant donate cus i'm anemic DANG!!! I also enjoyed the coin toss activity out of 96 kids me and carrie had 6 albino midgets haha neat...

April 15th 2009 Candy lab and internet research ~ Kristi Sissons

April 15th 2009 Kristi Sissons
Candy Lab and internet research
· During the candy lab we were suppost to create a demonstration using candy on mitotic cell division and the process of meiotic cell division.
Requirements for this lab are:
· Make sure that the organism that is being modeled has 4 diploid umbers.
· Make a legend to remind yourself and to show what each section desplayed means and what it is representing.
· You had to make sure that you included a nucleas in all of the stages in both mitosis and meiosis
· Include key activities in each stage
· Must be labeled clearly in each individual stage.
· You get bonus marks for additional information.
o You were aloud to use your notes but you lost 10%
In the experiment on the computer we were suppost to go to the bio site http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/tutorials/meiosis/page1.html
And answer the questions on the sheet of paper we were given, online meiosis practice and karyotyping exercise.
With this exercise we were put onto the computer and had to find out how to read karyotypes and look at cases that someone might have and try and find out what they have.

Hayley Tarnasky, April 17, 2009, Blog #3, 3/3

What We Did:

1. Online activity marking

• karyotyping
• non - disjunction

2. Handed out notes - based on Page 583

3. Review questions on karyotyping etc

Thoughts and Opinions:

• Throughout the whole class I was completely baffled about the fact that there seems to be no logical explaination for why on earth downs syndrome happens or klinefelters syndrome, other than the fact that there are millions of cells in ones body so of course there are bound to be errors, and this of course, was not good enough for me! Meaning that I still couldn't wrap my head around the whole concept. So, it turn, we have a quiz on Monday, so I hope that that go's well.
• My question is, how many people get down syndrome in Canada, and why it happens to only certain people.

Above And Beyond:

• http://www.dsrf.org/ has my answer