Parent's Day (16 Oct, 2013)

Before parent's day, we studied three articles about natural selection in humans physical appearance wise. On parent's day, our parents observed pairs of faces with us and marked which face we consider the more attractive out of the pair. The type of face a person is attracted to (masculine or feminine) determines what type of person he or she wants to be around him or her (dominant, competitive, etc).

Shells (1 Oct, 2013)

We observed a variety of tiny shells collected from the same area. We were tasked to differentiate the shells into groups by characteristics we noticed. Lucy and I first divided the shells into cone shaped and clam shaped. Then we divided them according to the patterning.

Mr. Quick prompted us to look closer at the shells. We noticed that most of the shells had small holes in them. These holes indicate the cause of death to the organisms that once lived inside the shell. Each organism was attacked by a predator who used its tongue to drill through the shell to eat the organism inside the shell.

Since shells of  all variations of shell shape, size, and characteristics were attacked, this shows that evolution did not come into play. The variation of the shells was merely mutation.

Does Race Exist? (Prompt 1) (Sorry Mr. Quick, the margins are really off)

Does Race Exist?

The Does Race Exist? article highlights that people emphasize on aesthetics to define race while scientists emphasize on genetic structure.  Race is widely categorized by physical features and characteristics. Scientists categorize race by using genetics. For instance, two people of the same race may have completely contradicting genetic makeup, but two people of the completely opposite race may share more genetic similarity than two individuals of the same race. The outward signs of which race are based on are only dictated by a handful of genes. Scientists can use genetics to sort populations and trace their ancestral geographic origin.

Scientists can sequence human genome to identify polymorphisms across population that reflects the history of those populations and the effects of natural selection. The ideal genetic polymorphism would be present in all members of one group and absent in all members of another group. Nowadays, major racial groups have mixed together too much for these polymorphism differences to exist. However, since polymorphisms occur at different frequencies around the world, people can be roughly sorted into groups. If two people have the same of a certain polymorphism sequence, they are descendants from a common ancestor. By comparing polymorphism sequences, scientists can see how closely related or how far apart a group (particularly a race) is related to each other. 

Survival of the Sickest

Favism

• GGPD deficiency
• Ingest fava beans -> breaks down red blood cells
• XX chromosome (women) are more likely to survive

Free Radicals from sugars

• robbers which are deficient in energy
• unpaired electrons
• destroy
• snatch energy

Hydrogen peroxide

• produced by vicine & covince

Men (prevention from malaria)

• sickle cell anemia
• hairy (can detect mosquito)
• GGPD mutation

Casava

• cynide (kills you)

Nightshade

• capsasen (irritating neurons: pain signal in mouth)

Jimson weed

• hallucinogen

Supertaster

• Can detect poison (bitter)