Cracking the Code of Life

1. Sequencing the human genome may bring to light a number of genes that are the basis for known genetic diseases or that predispose a person to a condition sch as heart disease, cancer, or Alzheimer's genetic disease. Yet finding a gene for an illness may not lead to an immediate cure. Would you want to be tested to learn whether they had a genetic disease of predisposition if no cure was available? Why or why not? 

Personally, yes I would want to be tested because by knowing whether I am liable for a disease may change how I treat my body and the daily diet of food that I intake. Also even if I couldn't change the fact about whether i would get the disease of not i would still want to know about it. Because there are some diseases where you don't find out about them until much later, when it is to late. For example, cancer, i have a liability for getting skin cancer and i like knowing that because i can do things like taking care of my skin as well as if i do get cancer i am prepared for that sort of thing. For of course there isn't a cure for cancer but there are ways that you can prolong how quickly it 'takes you'. So yes i would want to know my liability for genetic diseases however, if some people don't I can see their reasons. 

2. Consider a scenario in which a lab need DNA samples for use in genetic testing studies. Researchers are searching for a variant of a gene that provides resistance to specific bacteria diseases. If the company finds this gene, it may be able to produce a drug to sell to people who have these diseases.

Would you agree to have your DNA be part of the study? Why or why not? Would you want royalties for your part in finding the gene? What if during the testing, the company discovered you had a gene that might result in a health problem later in life? Would you want to be informed? Why or why not?

Yes, i would definitely be willing to submit my DNA for testing. I would have been scared if i found this out but definitely pleased the i know, i think knowing is better than not knowing. Because as i said before in question one i would try and do something about it and i would just deal with it and though i may spend some time dreading it i would treat it the same as death, everybody dies and that idea doesn't affect most people so i don't think that finding out about a health problem in later life would affect the way i live very much either.

3. As more is learnt about genes, there is a risk that the information will be used to define certain members of society by their genetic makeup. Identify the meaning of the terms genetic discrimination and genetic privacy. What are some ways to protect against this type of genetic discrimination?

I think the discrimination about a persons genetic makeup would be unusual however we treat it the same way we treat other discrimination's and though its hard and sometimes violent and sad that's life, however, genetic makeup is not something you can really see so you would have to really get to know a person to learn about that and if you didn't like them then the genetic makeup wouldn't change that and if you did life them the genetic makeup probably wouldn't change you idea of them either. The only time in which i think there may be discrimination about such a thing would be for reproduction and then it is understandable you don't want your child to turn out with some horrible disease that would cause you and the child immense pain and disruption.  

pH Lab

Guiding Question: What happens when you add a neutral to an acid? What happens when you add a neutral to a base.

Hypothesis: The base will turn into an acid because it is being diluted to make it neutral or into an acid. The acid will turn into a base.

Materials:

• Acids: Gurana (pH 4), wine vinegar (pH 3), HCl (pH 1), Blueberry juice (pH 4), pepsi twist (pH 4), green tea (pH 4).
• Bases: Hand soap (pH 7 or 8), shampoo (pH 7or 8), soap (domestos) (pH 13) and windex (pH 10).
• Neutrals: Oil (pH 7), indicator (Cabbage Juice)

Procedure:
1)  Decide on materials how going to mix.
2) Write Guiding Question, and come up with Hypothesis
3) Set up lab.
4) Place 10 drops of neutral into 10 drops of each ingredient.
5)Test each ingredient to see whether they were acids or bases
6) Used red and blue litmus paper to test if the ingredient had changed pH
7) Observed the results

Data Table/ Observations:
After adding 10 drops of neutral (in this case oil) into an acid (in this case Gurana, wine vinegar, HCl, Blueberry juice, pepsi twist or green tea) , it stays an acid but has been diluted and the pH is closer to 7(neutral). After adding 10 drops of neutral (in this case oil) into a base (in this case Hand soap, shampoo, soap (domestos) or windex) , it stays a base but has been diluted and the pH is closer to 7(neutral).

Conclusion: To conclude, though we did not do a very good job with this lab we still discovered some new things.  if you add a a neutral (we used oil) to an acid or base it will dilute to a less strong version of the substance it already was. So seeing as it dilutes it goes closer to a 7 on the pH scale, which is a neutral. However some substances did still have a visually stronger reaction than others. For example, wine vinegar (pH of 3) turns a dark pink color whereas Gurana (pH of 4) turn a lighter shade of pink. As for the bases shampoo (pH of 7/8) becomes a light turquoise colour. But the Domestos Soap (pH of 13) becomes a bright green color which fades to white!! So I think that the bases seemed to have a stronger reaction that the acids. I think that this was probably becauses bases are weaker than acids.

Further Inquiry: As I said in my conclusion the quality and commitment that we showed was low. Therefore there are several things that should be improved if we were to do this lab again. We could have/should have found away to show the before and after piece of adding the cabbage juice which would have made our experiment more scienctific because we could judge off of hard copy materials rather than using our memory. Also if we had recorded our observations during the lab we might have had a lot less trouble writing up the lab. This is the reason we do not have a data table. So we could have done many things better however what we did do seemed to come out quite well.