Blog Post #9 A Matter of Selection

The Brassica Oleracea plants biggest difference in their anatomy is its leaf. The biggest difference in the leaves are the color of them. There is so much variation because of natural selection which make he plants change in genes, due to descent with modification. Another reason why the plants look different is because of artificial and selective breeding, this makes it so that we can choose what traits a plant will get. The plants seem to all have the same shape of their leaves. Almost all of the leaves on the plants look alike. Plant breeders would probably have to breed the plant with a very different plant to get what they want. They could also make the plant have a mutation so it makes itself very different.

Blog post 9 matter of selection

1: The brassica plants have the most variation in the leaves. The leaves of brassica plants can change color, texture, and they can be straight or curly. The plants developed these variations through evolution  to suite their environment.

2: The brassica plants have those different variations to resist different environments. The different variations also help protect the spies of plants from disease or predators. The brassica plants also differentiate to avoid predators.

3: All of the brassica plants have the same consistent stalk. The stalk is generally green or purple going straight up connecting to the leaves.

4: The different plant breeders would need to take the variation of the brassica seed that they wanted and plant it then after it grows he would need to pick the plant that shows the variation best and repeat the process.

GATTACA Essay

“Jerome was engineered with everything needed to get into GATTACA… except the desire to do so.” - Vincent This quote represents how people are able to choose what type of characteristics a child will have before it has been born. Although you could genetically engineer a child you can’t change its mind. Therefore Vincent was had the right mind to join GATTACA but Jerome was not able to control his emotions making him not able to join. This also makes Vincent have better chance at GATTACA because he has a better mind.

One of the recurring symbol is the genes and this has to do with the discrimination that people do. Since the genetically engineered people are “better” the people that are born the normal way are bad. This is because the normal child will have higher chances of dieing at a younger age

Genetic engineering is something that sounds good and may be good at first, but it could also ruin the balance nature has. Being able to modify genes could help us in some ways but it could also harm us. For example if we modified a gene and it helped us humans to live longer, but that same gene also made it so that we would lose sight after 50 years. This is why i think genetic engineering could be bad. We don’t know all the consequences in tampering with DNA.

Gattaca Essay

“Jerome was engineered with everything needed to get into Gattaca… except the desire to do so”. -Vincent This quote represents how you can engineer someones body but not their mind. vincent had a bad body but  a great mind, jerome had a engineered body but he was not mentally stable enough to get a job. This proves that even though  you can engineer your son/daughter to live for 200 years they can still be imperfect and be weak minded.

In the movie Gattaca people can be engineered to be perfect, and this makes people who are not perfect discriminated against. This relates to racism in the fact that if you are not perfect people will not accept you into jobs, or like you as much. The owners of businesses do not want to hire imperfect people because they may have a heart attack or a stroke.

Genetic engineering, if people were genetically engineered there would be no reason to hire people who are natural. There would also be a discrimination factor against natural people. Engineered people may also feel worthless such as Jerome if they lose. This could cause them to be depressed and stop trying in life.

Blog Post 9

1. The anatomy that I observed which seems to exhibit the most variation is the plants length. I observed their texture, color, size, and shape, but what seemed generally seemed to have the most variation appeared to be its size. By measuring each plant in centimeters you may discover that sizes may vary in many different numbers. The stem in particular seemed to have the most variation because of the differences between each plant's length. I measured the stems of about six plants and discovered that some plants would have a stem with the length of 18cm, and another with 24cm. I did not discover any plant with the same number of centimeters, however I did find that many of the plants seemed to be very similar in the width of its leaves and stems. The anatomy that seems to contain the greatest range of variation seems to be the leaves. The leaves not only contain different color but the number of leaves on the plant show a great variation. In one plant I found about nine leaves and in others I had discovered four, this could be due do predators.

2. I believe the main reason for the wide variety of Brassica plants was that natural selection occurs causing the plants with the most useful traits to survive. These traits get passed down in the form of genes once the plants mate with the help of selective breeding from the gardner. Those plants survive and are able to pass down there traits to their offspring. Mutations may also occur between plants that have survived causing and even larger variety to occur. Although they most likely come from the same common ancestor there is such a large variety because survival of the fittest getting rid of those plants with weaker traits.

3. I found the color of the leaves to be extremely similar. This is because they seem to receive the same amount of water, sunlight, and soil. They all appeared to be a very identical shade of yellow. I also observed that the size of the petals where quite similar, about 2 to 3 centimeters in length. This along with receiving the same amount of nutrients, is due to having a common ancestor. Plants that survive pass of their genes with contain the alleles for yellow colored plants is given to the offspring and this cycle continues until the entire family gets wiped out.

4. My guess is that plant breeders would have to breed two plants which are similar in terms of species but contain different genes because they do not come from the same common ancestor, this makes it much more likely for their offspring to contain different colored leaves along with a difference in size and shape. They would want to find plants with different colors and shapes for this to work, this would cause more variation between plants and a greater chance of possibly a hybrid of the two plants.

Who wants to live a million years questions

Species Questions

Alan Arreola

1. It took thousands of generations over the period of a million years to complete the survival game. I believe it took this long because adaptation occurs over a long period of time the organism needs to adapt to the environment, and in order for this to happen the least suitable for the environment will die and the organisms with the best traits will survive and spread their genes to their children. It would be difficult for an organism to maintain most of its traits over a long period of time because as time goes by they either adapt or die.

2. The original phenotype that I chose were the species without hair which lasted the longest because they were able to survive in extreme heat and they also bred with the tall animals so that they may reach food in high ground. These two combinations of phenotype allowed me to survive the longest I believe because they were more useful to the type of environment they were in, they were also able to breed with each other making a hybrid with more adaptations.

3. I believe so because the population is small which means that just four organisms can die and this will still affect the population. Some evidence was when the cold came and all the hairless organisms had died, but then the heat had arrived and caused every other species to die because they all had extra fur which cause excessive heating.

4. I noticed that the tall trait and the heavy fur trait seemed to be dominant over the short and hairless trait. I could tell because once I had gone to a stage of heat the tall trait seemed to take over the short trait, and when time was going by I notice that the heavy fur took over the light fur trait over time.

5. Cold conditions- heavy fur, hot conditions-light fur, predator- camouflage and or the tall legs, new tall source of food- tall legs.

6. I would add more traits which means more variation among species, different environments or whether that would occur in a climate, and possibly different predators which would eat different species.

Who wants to live a million years

1. It took me a few generations to win a game i won four in total. It Took long due to the different animals i choose to live in my population. I think this means that only strong organisms can live in a place that has long term changes to the environment.
2. I selected different phenotypes because i wanted to experment with different ones to see what would happen and which ones would survive. The Thin and fury characters helped me survive the most. since fury was resistant to the cold, in cold weather he was able to survive and reproduce.
3. This population would be affected by genetic drifting since it is small. I saw drift in the different weather conditions and natures acts that drifted them apart due to their different traits.
4. the dominant alleles were those with short legs and and beige fur. the recessive alleles were the beige with long legs and one that was green with stripes.
5. Cold conditions and hot conditions. new tall food source and new large predator on the scene.
6. 1. I would choose the creatures that have almost the same traits. 2. I would also change different creatures to see how they will mix with the others that were there already. 3. Make sure i pair the dominant alleles with themselves and the recessive alleles together.

A Matter of selection

1. The Leaves seem to exhibit the most variation because some are small some are big. and they have many different shapes, sizes, feels and colors. The leaves have different measurements including one that is 271/2 CM long and 18 1/2 CM wide. Another might be 20 CM long and 131/2 CM wide. One more would be 19 1/2 CM long and 27 CM WIDE. The greatest range of variations is in the stems because they are what contribute to the growth of the pants and leaves. Calculations for the stems are 30 Cm long, 25 CM long and 29 CM long.  the average length of the leaves is 20 Cm Long and 13 plus CM wide. the average length of of the stem is 29 CM long.
2. I think they have different traits due to their different parents. the plants that have the same traits or almost the same traits may have been a part of selective breeding. this kind of breeding is also called artificial selection. size and look depend on the different genes a plant was given. the traits that the plants have may have been passed down from their parents in a process called descendant with modification. some plants may be missing a few traits that their parents have. this is called natural variation, this happens when genes are copied and traits of the parents are sightly changed and their features sometimes come out different on their children. natural variation is another word for natural variation because it is the change in DNA sequence
3. The flowers of the Brassica seem to be the most consistently the same. they're colors are all yellow and the stems are all green. they are difficult to tell one from another  just looking at them. The average height of the flower petals is 3 cm long. Most of them looked exactly the same. The reason they are the almost exactly the same is due not only to their parents and ancestors but selective breeding. In selective breeding most of the traits that are passed down from their parents and ancestors are not all shown in the phenotype. What is shown is a balance of both ancestor traits and the traits they were given by the the other breed they were breaded with. The traits that a plant has are decided by the person that breeds them. So therefore, breeders select whichever breeds and traits they want their plants to have.
4. In order for these plants to look a lot different, plant breeders would have to breed the flowers with another one that is long and the petals are big. since the petals are about 3 cm long form petal to stem in order for the flower to come out different they would have to be breeded with another flower or plant that that has long petals. In looking for a flower to breed it with the breeder might look for a flower that has a slightly different color.

Gattaca Essay

GATTACA Essay

Alan Arreola

period 4

1/14/15

Mr.Bursch

After viewing the movie GATTACA I discovered that being born perfect is not the key to true happiness. By being perfect you are not allowing yourself to achieve any desire to complete goals. I do not believe that every parent would want this for their child, although being athletic, intelligent, and attractive will make their life easier,  it will not necessarily make them happier, which, in my opinion, is much more important than success. I believe in the film society portrays a very unhappy environment for two reasons, one being that being a valid will not bring happiness because they have already achieved their dream with ease, while invalids are cast aside from society and discriminated from valids. Despite being an invalid Vincent still discovered happiness because of the fact that he was imperfect and achieving his goal seemed so impossible yet he strived for it as if he needed it which is important.I feel if you are not trying to reach your goal but instead you do it with ease you will not achieve happiness. I also discovered that it could even possibly easier for an invalid to achieved his goal since their motivation is usually much higher than the motivation of a valid.

I believe in this film it has two options, one is being perfect and the other is being happy, parents that believe that their children will find happiness from perfection are wrong because true happiness comes from the difficulty of achieving your greatest goal in life.

GATTACA Essay

Mateo Castro

January 13 2015

Period:4

GATTACA Response Essay



Gattaca Is A story set in the future where everything revolves around genes. There is a gene lab that people have to give a urine test before entering to make sure you are who you say you are . A job interview is as simple as a urine test and nothing else. The main characters are vincent and his brother jerome. Jerome is supposed to be a genius and his brother is supposed to be a sick person who only lives for a while. Yet, the rules were reversed when jerome was the failure and vincent came out successful. But even though vincent was sick he had a good spirit and believed in himself and his brother did not .

Jerome and vincent were each others friends and had no others. vincent and jerome switched lives so that vincent would be able to go on a space mission and live out his dream. Since he was sick and expected to die he would’nt have been able to do it all by himself. Since his brother is a genius and could go to space, jerome gave vincent his life. Therefore, vincent had to changes lis looks and features and even stretch out his legs so that he could look as tall as jerome. Jerome might as well been the sick one because he is living in a wheelchair and can not go anywhere. Vincent was expected to die at a certain time but his life is way over due. Since jerome thought he was perfect he figured that he had nothing to worry about and nothing to conquer. Where as vincent had dreams and he wanted a lot of things and he was ready to work hard to make his dream a Reality. Vincent had a strong human spirit and eventhough he was sick he wanted to do things in his short life he had. Since jerome was perfect he had no goals and nothing to work for so in the end he ended up the failure.



In Conclusion i would like to say that even the person that has shortest life expectancy can be the one that works the hardest to conquer his dreams. If a person puts their mind to a certain goal they can make that goal happen no matter what their health is like. Sometimes its not the best thing to be a genius and have everything because then you have nothing to work toward and nothing to worry about. Where as a person that has nothing will have dreams and something to think about and something to work toward.

GATTACA Essay

Mateo Castro

January 14,2015

Period: 4

Ethics Response

Now days discrimination in the workforce happens every day. It is wrong but people still do it. For a person to get hired there is alot that goes into consideration, even though people do not say it they are judgemental toward race health history they show it by not hiring a good working person that is african american or has certain health issues. In my opinion, there should be a certain law that makes it illegal to discriminate against a person’s nationality, weight, and/or medical issues. If one is capable of doing the job right they should not be denied a job for their health history. For instance, if i am a boss of a company where a person that is well qualified for the job applies but genetic testing proved that he had a 70% chance of developing Multiple Sclerosis i would still hire that person just because it is fair because they knew how to do the job. However, that would not change the fact that i need someone reliable for long term. I would hire that person but still keep looking for an alternate worker and/or someone to train exactly how he did. so that whenever i need it that other person will be ready to go.

As an employer it is never okay to discriminate against someone who is well qualified for a job because of their health history because no matter what that person is just like someone else who had applied for that job and is qualified. Genetic testing for a job should be illegal. That and a substance test a two very different things. A substance test before hiring to me is fair because if you are a good boss and run an efficient company you have to make sure the person you are hiring does not abuse illegal substances. Hiring someone based on their genes is just as bad as hiring them based on their nationality. which is racist. If i were a boss i would hire that person and someone else to work close with them so that if the first person falls ill i will have a backup plan that i won’t be behind on work or stress over not having to find someone to fill that space.

In conclusion, i feel that discrimination in the workplace is wrong because some people are hard workers and they get denied for a job they deserved just because of their race or medical history. If a boss does not like a person for their race they should keep it to themselves because just like they deserved the chance of the job so did that person. If they don’t like their workers they should’nt fire them. they should just not talk to them and let them do their job. After all, that person is their to work and feed his family not to make friends. If a well qualified applicant has a an ugly medical history you should hire them and somebody else so that if you ever loose that person you have the other alternate. Now days companies are either too cheap or too lazy to hire two people for one job incase something happens to one of the employes.