From Atoms to Traits

For this assignment we were asked to answer questions pertaining to the article From Atoms to Traits.

1. Explain the significance of Mendel. 

     The significance of Gregor Mendel is that he showed us that discrete heritable variants are passed down from parents to offspring, even when they may not physically be visible. When I say discrete, I mean that there is no middle ground, they either had tall or short stems, not a blend that would have been medium sized. Mendel conducted many famous breeding experiments, and showed us that variations came from genetics, something that Charles Darwin was unable to discover.

2. Draw the structure of DNA and who discovered this structure. 

     Francis Crick and James D. Watson discovered the DNA structure in 1953. They used Rosalind Franklin's  x-ray pictures to help create this structure.
3. Explain each of the five examples of variations that occur to DNA and give an example of each. 

The five examples of variations that occur in DNA are substitution, deletion, duplication, insertion, and inversion and translocation. Substitution would occur when a single letter is swapped out for another at a particular position in the polymer. This is seen in the whippet dogs. Deletion would occur when a block of letters vanishes. Duplication is when a letter, or even an entire gene, is copied more than once. An example would be that humans have 10 copies of a starch-digesting gene. Insertion is when a new letter is placed in a previously empty spot. Inversion and translocation would occur when existing letters are either inverses, or moved into a different spot.
4. What is evo-devo? 

     Evo-devo is a subspecialty of evolutionary biology that concentrates on studying the effects of changes in important developmental genes, and the role they play in evolution.

5. Make a connection between human migration and the mutation of lactose intolerance.

The mutation of lactose tolerance is a result of human migration to regions where cows, or other milk producing animals, were the primary source of nourishment, as food themselves and as providers of milk. Those with the mutation that allowed them to drink milk would have been able to survive off of this milk, while those without the gene mutation would have died. Some migrators may have attempted to bring cows with them when they traveled, giving them constant access to food and drink.