Many students don’t acknowledge that particular person organisms inside populations differ, and this may occasionally make it troublesome for them to acknowledge the important function variation performs in natural choice. Also, many students have weak scientific reasoning expertise, and this makes it troublesome for them to acknowledge misconceptions they could have.
This paper describes a 2-h laboratory for school students that introduces them to genetic diversity and provides them follow utilizing hypothetico-deductive reasoning. In transient, the lab presents students with DNA sequences from Africans, Europeans, and Asians, and asks students to decide whether or not folks from every continent qualify as distinct “races.”
Comparison of the DNA sequences reveals that folks on every continent are usually not extra comparable to each other than to folks on different continents, and subsequently don’t qualify as distinct races. Ninety-four % of our students reported that the laboratory was attention-grabbing, and 79% reported that it was a invaluable studying expertise.
We developed and used a survey to measure the extent to which students acknowledged variation and its significance inside populations and confirmed that the lab elevated scholar consciousness of variation. We additionally confirmed that the lab improved the flexibility of students to assemble hypothetico-deductive arguments.
An RNA Phage Lab: MS2 in Walter Fiers’ laboratory of molecular biology in Ghent, from genetic code to gene and genome, 1963-1976.
The significance of viruses as mannequin organisms is well-established in molecular biology and Max Delbrück’s phage group set requirements within the DNA phage discipline. In this paper, I argue that RNA phages, found within the 1960s, have been additionally instrumental within the making of molecular biology.
As a part of experimental methods, RNA phages stood for messenger RNA (mRNA), genes and genome. RNA was thought to mediate info transfers between DNA and proteins. Furthermore, RNA was extra manageable on the bench than DNA due to the provision of particular RNases, enzymes used as chemical instruments to analyse RNA. Finally, RNA phages supplied scientists with a pure supply of mRNA to examine the genetic code, genes and even a genome sequence.
This paper focuses on Walter Fiers’ laboratory at Ghent University (Belgium) and their work on the RNA phage MS2. When organising his Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Fiers deliberate a complete study of the virus with a robust emphasis on the problem of construction.
In his lab, RNA sequencing, now a little-known approach, developed regularly from a way to resolve the genetic code, to a device for finishing the primary genome sequence.
Thus, I comply with the analysis pathway of Fiers and his ‘RNA phage lab’ with their evolving experimental system from 1960 to the late 1970s. This study illuminates two decisive shifts in post-war biology: the emergence of molecular biology as a self-discipline within the 1960s in Europe and of genomics within the 1990s.