Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Chapter 6 "Survival of the Sickest"
Chapter 6 of "Survival of the Sickest", Jump into the Gene Pool, is all about genes and DNA. It starts with an introduction of the word vaccine which came form the Latin word for cow, vacca, and the Latin word for cowpox, vaccinia. The story continues to say that every person has 46 chromosomes. Each person is given 23 chromosomes from each parent, and scientist have discovered that only about 3% of the DNA is active in building cells while the other 97% "junk DNA" more commonly known now as noncoding DNA which only means it isn't responsible for making proteins. The story continues on to talk about mutations and that genetic changes can occur from errors or sometimes chemical disruptions. It explains that virus outbreaks are caused by antigenic drift, when mutation occurs in the DNA of a virus, or antigenic shift, when a virus get new genes from a related strain. The author also speaks on "jumping genes" which was discovered by Barbara McClintock. "Jumping genes" are mutations in which a DNA sequence duplicates itself in another location changing the gene sequence. There are two types of "jumping genes", DNA transposons, which work through a cut and paste process, or DNA retrotransposons, which work through a copy and paste process. This is a large part of what differentiates our noncoding DNA.
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