Homework 4

1.  Give several reasons why Mendel's pea plants were a good choice for an experimental organism in genetics. Give an example of an organism that would be a poor choice for genetic research, and explain your choice.

 

 

2.  What conclusions would Mendel have come to if he had chosen snapdragons instead of peas for his study material?

 

 

3.  What is the significance of using upper- and lowercase versions of the same letter (for example, A and a) for the dominant and recessive trait, respectively, rather than a capital A for dominant and a B (or b) for recessive?

 

 

4.  How does a Punnett square work?

 

 

5.  What is epistasis, and how does it influence the inheritance of a particular trait?

 

 

6.  How does the process of inheritance in humans differ from that of plants?

 

 

7.  What is the distinction between the terms gene and allele?

 

 

8.  What scientific efforts ultimately led to the discovery of the molecular structure structure of DNA by Watson and Crick?

 

 

9.  What are the chemical components of DNA, and how do these components combine to form a DNA molecule?

 

 

10.  How does DNA replicate itself?