I’ve known my friend Rafael for quite awhile. I see him
every time during homeroom and economics; he seems absolutely normal to me
until I asked him how my color laden economics poster looks. He said, “I don’t
know, I am color blind”. The fact that Rafael’s condition is not an impediment
for him surprised me, for today; there is virtually no selective pressure
against color blindness today. In the contemporary world, color blindness is a
pervasive trait that exists in many human beings, most predominantly in
Caucasians, Rafael ofcourse, is of Dutch descent.
So here I am, arriving at an investigation question:
How is the frequency of red green color blindness alleles in
Caucasians men changing?
Here are the variables of interest:
-Phenotypic Trait: Red-Green Color Blindness
-Sex Linked Recessive
-Population: Caucasian men
Hypothesis:
The frequency of color blindness is increasing because
today, there is less selective pressure on colorblind people due to the fact
that today, humans have developed colorblind aids to help color blind people
read, write and interact with each other as if they have normal eyesight.
In order to test such a hypothesis, I would first change the
frequency of P and Q. We know that 8% of Caucasian men have red green color
blindness, so according to the Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium, we can deduce that Q
(frequency of the recessive allele) must be 22.3%. Hence Q must be 0.223 and P
must be 0.777. I would use the Excel software to model the genotypic
distribution of the colorblind gene. I would use the frequency of the colorblind
allele as Q and the frequency of the non-color blind allele as P in the
algorithm. I will run the algorithm, creating an X amount of offspring, then
calculating the allele frequency and then I will use these numbers for the next
repetition. Since the are no selective pressure acting on this population due
to wide array of support mechanisms that help people with colorblind (eg. Color
blind aid in video games), the Hardy Weinberg equilibrium works here.
All in all, I could not arrive at a conclusion for my Excel
algorithm is not working well, but in time, I am certain that my hypothesis
would be tested, not in my puny model, but perhaps using raw data from real
life.
We've all seen the horrors of genetic engineering. Whether it'll be in literature or popular culture, we've seen it all. In a timeless novel, A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, when the society as a whole tinkered with the biology of humans, a new world is created, one in which babies are "designed" to be either superior to all others and placed in the upper strata of the society while the inferiors belong as servants to the aristocrats. In fact, in Huxley's dystopia, the "Epsilons", the inferiors, are incubated in such a way that they are too stupid to think for themselves. Oh the horror the horror, the horror of genetic engineering.
Let's think back for a second, does genetic engineer really deserve such a bad wrap? Just because genetic engineering has unknown side effects and look as if we humans are playing God, does that mean that genetic engineer is the devil's work? Rationally, I think not.
But before I let loose my argument, what is genetic engineering, really?
Genetic engineering today came a long way, and so is our strife to bring nature in our control. Like all organisms we were once controlled by nature, until natural selection and sheer luck made us bipeds, and that is when we started to bend nature to our wills. According to Richard Resnick, it is perhaps an "evolutionary" process that we begin to tame nature. The closest thing we did to engineer nature before Crick and Watson is selectively breed animals. Today, with the advent of machines like the PCR that could exponentially replicate DNA, the availability to genomic data of thousands of species and the discovery of multiple endonucleases that could easily cut and splice up DNA, we could virtually "edit" genomes of any organism we want. For instance, in multiple species, we inserted "glowing" genes found in jellyfish in genomes of domestic animals like dogs and cats. With that said, such a thing could be easily done in humans, just slap on one of those jelly fish genes into our genome and we'll be glowing in dark--no need for lights.
Back to the argument.
If we could insert jelly fish genes into many, if not all domestic animals, we could do a whole lot more. Like making corn translate natural pesticides derived from weeds or creating the EnviroPig, a pig that digest it's own phosphorus waste! Clearly, genetic engineering stopped countless of people from starving to death since the Green Revolution. It has been the way since the late 50's and why stop now, if I may ask? Some would say that it is sacrilegious to tamper with God's work, but is it God's will to enable his chosen people to propagate the Earth? If so, it might be in God's intention for humans to continue his work, to find new ways to feed his flock. Some would say that genetic engineering would have dire consequences if it genetically engineered organisms found its way into the wild. Although we don't know that there would be such a "dire" consequence, we can certainly prevent the spread of GMO by growing them in contained areas such as green houses. In fact, in South America, GM plants have been grown in open areas proximal to forests and there are no detectable fallouts of the contamination that surfaced. Some claimed that GMO's are carcinogens, but such a claim was never been conclusively proven, for these organisms had it's genome modified, not the other way round. The cornerstone of the argument AGAINST GM is simply the fact that we don't know the consequences of GM on us and the environment, therefore, GMO must have some horrible fallouts so we must cease the production of these vile creatures. Clearly, just because there is not yet a theory that debunks the law of gravity does not mean that it's flawed. On the other hand, if there are risks associated with consumption of GMO, it's a risk worth taking, for without GM food, the world could not have sustained it's population. If we fail to take the risk, like Ethiopia who banned the donation of GMO from the west, would do so at the expense of 15 million people starving to death. Genetic engineer has been the way for many decades, and will be for centuries after today.
Many have pondered on the question of the origins of life. We have spent a millenium dissecting life's heirachy, from biosphere to, ecosystems to populations, to communities, to kingdoms and phyla mapped out by Linneaus, to organisms, to cells first discovered by Anton Von Leeuwenhoek, to organelles, to molecules. In the 50's Crick and Watson discovered the DNA, the blue print of life that regulates protein synthesis, which explains how life could be sustained and evolve with this spell-bounding concoction of deoxyribose, a nitrogenic base and a phosphate compound. Still, Crick and Watson does not answer where life came from, but simply how life functions. 4 Billion years ago, the Earth was a hotpot churning, magma, water, and methane; but how did life appear out of the not-so-thin air that veiled early Earth? Russian scientist I. Oparin proposed that life emerged from abiotic synthesis, meaning that life is a concoction of abiotic compounds that somehow became animate.
To prove Oparin's point, Scientists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey (a proponent of Oparin's theory) from the University of Chicago set out to find the answer.
They came up with an idea of an experiment, although obvious in hindsight, it was a novelty at the time. Since Urey and his team had discovered a series of compounds present in early Earth from his previous studies, he and Miller wanted to recreate the conditions of early Earth to see whether a concoction of these lifeless compounds turn into something "living". Here's what they did:
Research Rationale/ Investigation Question
Miller, a PhD student of Urey, wanted to know whether early Earth conditions could conjure and permit the existence of life. So through interactions of natural phenomena and the prevalent compounds abundant in early Earth, Miller proposed that somehow, organic matter would emerge. To put it simply, how did life came about in this inhospitable infant planet?
An artistic depiction of the inhospitable early Earth with all the magma, comets and gasses
Experimental Design
How exactly will Miller do this? Well, it was established that the Earth 4 billion years ago was hot to say the least, as volcanoes spat out lava into the oceans, and tipping the ocean towards its boiling point. Water evaporates as a result and then condensed, forming thunderheads. Miller simulated this orderly chaos in a system of glass veins, connected to electrodes, cold-water jackets and burners.
As given in his original lab report, Miller mixed a solution of water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen, all are compounds believed to exist in our your planet. The solution was placed in a sealed flask, then heated over a burner, mimicking the volcanic heat. The solution begins to evaporate, and the steam shot up from the flask through a tube to another glass chamber, but this one has nothing but a Tesla coil. The gas was shocked repetitively, simulating early Earth's incessant thunderstorms. Then the steam travels down the tube through a cold-water jacket for it to condense, then trapped in a U- shaped bend (trap) in the glass tube. This process was repeated for a week in this hermetic glass environment.
The trapped substance are then extracted and investigated.
Variables
Independent Variable: The gases and compounds Miller used in the experiment to model that of early Earth.
Dependent Variable: Types of substances found in Miller's processed "soup" trapped in the U-shaped bend on the glass apparatus.
Control Variable:
1) Sterilized glass contraptions, free from all organisms
2) Burner Temperature
3) Electrode/Tesla coil voltage and configuration
4) Cooling Jacket Temperature
5) Hermetic qualities of the glass contraption
(apparatus sealed immediately after its contents are in place)
Results & Analysis
The result? 5 variants of Amino Acids swimming in the processed "soup". Amino acids are the building blocks of Proteins which are produced and synthesized by our DNA's to regulate cell and bodily functions. These amino acids are not random ones, but those found predominantly in organisms. Other acids were extracted too, but only in trace amounts.
Here are the compounds in Miller's "soup" Source: University of Indiana
Conclusion
The results were mind blowing, it proves that abiogenesis, purported by Oparin, Urey's late colleague, is rather true. Life came from an inorganic origin as the conception of Amino Acids indicated in the Miller-Urey Experiment. It provided ground for future studies of how early earth compounds could create life. This experiment decoded the mystery of life to its molecular level... really?
Limitations and Challenges of the Miller-Urey Experiment
The aura of awe was short lived for the Miller-Urey experiment as it was soon bombarded by claims that the proposed substance mixed in his early Earth solution could never have existed then.(Lane) Why? Since it is clear that asteroids have been pelting Earth since it's conception, the asteroids would have destroyed the earth's atmosphere, rendering water and other compounds non-existent. Those claims soon fell out of favor as asteroids discovered in Australia seemed to actually provided Earth with these compounds for they are made out of "dirty ice" that contained components of Amino Acids. Again, the experiment was under fire when contemporary scientists contended that the volcanic eruptions could produce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and Miller had not include it in his solution. So these scientists added CO2 into their own Miller-Urey experimental contraptions and found out that there are even more variety of Amino Acids present in their "soup"! Further research were conducted on Miller's original flask containing the soup; which yields another surprising result: there are more (15) Amino Acids in the flask than what Miller had originally calculated.
All in all, although the experiment seemed to be bulletproof it never explained how the Amino Acids form it's primary, secondary and curled into its tertiary functional structure in proteins or where the DNA came from, at least it found us a place to start. Life was not conjured by a divine being, nor was it a creation of extraterrestrials, but from a series of chemical serendipities that turned inanimate molecules into us. It proved how simple it is for the building blocks of life, amino acids for proteins, fatty acids for lipids, nucleotides for DNA and RNA, and monosacchrides for carbohydrates. All of this could be synthesized by simply tweaking the recipe of Miller's primodorial soup; a little bit more carbon dioxide here, a bit more methane there, and there's ATP, glucose, and a dozen types of amino acids! The hard part is to figure out how these organic building blocks come together into a living entity. This is a subject for another day, but at least, the Miller-Urey experiment made it possible to even contemplate on these matter.
I am Nud. I am a historian, an economist and an artist. A biologist? I don't know. Econ, history and art are already a weird contraption of my strong suits, but biology too?
I have studied AP Stats, World History and English, but never one of these PURE science courses. I have taken general biology and introductory courses to chemistry and physics, but those are distant memories. As I enter the classroom, I came in green for I am no veteran of the "hard" sciences.
I chose biology to further "diversify" myself, but before long, I was in for the challenge of my life. I took AP English, but reading is never my strong suit. I took AP Stats, but I'm not a Math HL student. Here, in AP Bio, I wanted to hone these skills and make these points match the caliber of that of other ones. To do this, I must face my own fears and just push on. I must make reading my habit, insofar my passion from a thing I once dread. I must become a pioneer, as I venture out of my comfort zone. I must become a nocturnal, as I must spend my nights studying. I must be a new man, not a slave to my past success.
