Mutation Story

I was born as a genetically mutated gene on the X chromosome. I cause the light-sensitive cells in the retina to fail and not properly respond to variations in wavelengths of light that let people to see different colors. This caused my host; a woman, to be colorblind. I am special because it is really rare for a woman to be colorblind, women have a 0.5% chance of being colorblind while men have a 8% chance of being colorblind. This is because men have only one X chromosome, and if that chromosome is genetically mutated they are colorblind. But women have two X chromosomes so both chromosomes have to be genetically mutated for the woman to be colorblind, if only one is genetically mutated then she will be just a carrier of the gene and not actually be colorblind. Being a carrier means that her kids may be colorblind. This greatly affected my host’s life because she wanted to be a painter, and it’s essential to be able to see colors when you’re a painter. So for years she struggled with this disability but one day she heard about these special glasses that let colorblind people see colors. She bought these glasses and for the first time in her life she was able to see colors for how they actually look.

The questions I searched up were “What causes colorblindness?” and just “color blindness”. Then I searched up “glasses for colorblindness”. I used the digital tools of google. I opened websites which looked like they had what I needed, I quickly looked through them and then narrowed them down to the three websites that had the information I needed. Then I read through them and got ideas/facts which I used in my Mutation Story. The websites I used for this were:

http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/causes/

http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/colordeficiency.htm

http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/

http://enchroma.com/technology/

The process was simple but I had to do lots of reading and research to find out about this disorder. One thing I think I could’ve done better is completing this assignment on time.