Epigenetics and Rats

IDENTICAL TWINS: PINPOINTING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ON THE
EPIGENOME
1. Often, the physical characteristics of genetically identical twins become increasingly
different as they age, even at the molecular level. Explain why this is so. (use the
terms "environment" and "epigenome")
  A: Their environment affects their epigenome, causing their identical genes to differ.
2. Name 3 environmental factors that influence the epigenome.
  A: Diet, physical activity, and exposeure to toxins,
3. What is an imprinted gene?
 A: A epigenenitic tag passed on from one's parents

YOUR ENVIRONMENT, YOUR EPIGENOME
1. Discuss factors in your daily life (ie. Diet, exercise, stress etc.) that could be affecting
your epigenome
  A: I eat only organic food, and large amounts of helathy foods, as well as vitamins and disgusting heathy concoctions.


LICK YOUR RATS

1. Explain how a high-nurturing mother rat shapes her pup's epigenome, and what that
pup's response to stress will be.
  A: A high-nurturing mother's rat pup will relax quickly after stressful situations because they have more GR protien, caused by the way their environment has shaped their epigenome.
2. In rats, does licking by the mother activate, or deactivate her pup's GR gene?
  A: It activates it.
3. Explain how cortisol and the GR protein work together in the brain to relax a rat pup.
You may draw a diagram.
  A: They bind together and cause it to relax.
4. The rat nurturing example shows us how parental behavior can shape the behavior of
their offspring on a biochemical level. Relate this to humans and think about the personal
and social implications. Record your thoughts.
  A: If parental behavior shapes the behavior of their children, it would possibly hold the parents accontable for the behavior or conditions of their offspring. However, a "bad" childhood wouldn't nessasarily create "bad" (e.g., axe-murder inclined, ect.) behaviors or "bad" conditions (cancer, ect.)


UTRITION & THE EPIGENOME
1. Explain how the food we eat affects gene expression.
  A: No nutrients= no development
2. Can the diets of parents affect their offspring's epigenome?
  A: Yes

EPIGENETICS & THE HUMAN BRAIN

1. How does Dietary methyl influence gene expression ?
  A: It affects learning and memory.
2. Why do Toxins affect gene methylation?
  A: They trigger massive epigenic changes, which affects gene methylation.

Genetic Fingerprinting Questions

1.  DNA is the same for identical twins
2. Everything from crime scenes to proving people innocent
3. A holographic lollipop was eaten
4. Saliva
5. Splits the DNA
6. Separates the DNA
7. The separation of DNA
8. faster
9. to protect it
10. the hydrogen bonds
11. The probes
12. It looked like a bar code
13. Honey

An Introduction To Genetics

  Genetics started with a man named Gregory Mendel, a gardening monk in 1865. He noticed patterns in the generations of plants, and in paticular, 7 traits having to do with pod shape, seed color, height, or the placement and color of flowers. From these, he concluded some of the the basic laws of heridity.
  Next, he noticed how genes didn't blend. He conducted experiments- cross-breeding- and came up with the law of dominance, where one gene is "dominant" over the other, which is "recessive". When he bred those, though, he discovered that the recessive genes reappeared. He had discovered "purebred" and "hybrid" plants, or as we call them, homogeneus or hetreogeneus genes.
Mendel still had not explained how genes reproduced. He hypothesised that sex sells, with only 26 chromesomes, combine to make an offspring with half-and-half of its parents genes. Hundreds of years later, this hypothesis proved correct.
  Mendel's work languish undiscovered until the 1900's, however, because of his abstract and vague writing. Several scientists rediscovered his work and used the recently discovered microscope to try to find one.
  As microscope technology grew, they discovered chromesomes, noodle-like parts of the nuculus of a cell that were made of DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, or as Mendel called them, genes. They determined your gender, your hair color, your height- everything about you.