Skype chat with Charis Walko

Today in my science 9 class, we prepared a skype chat with a lady named Charis Walko. She works for a company called Stem Cell technology where they study stem cells. She talked to us about stem cells. She informed us about the three types of stem cells and what she does work wise in relation to stem cells. Our class asked her several questions that we came up with the day before.

Some of out questions

  • Are there other way to obtain pluripotent stem cells? Answer: the only way to obtain the cells are through a human embrio, how ever you can obtain certain cells such as skin cells from the skin, or blood from a bloos cell etc.
  • How do you made the medium for the embryo? Answer: when you are a baby in your mother’s stomach, she provides things like certain essential sugars. The medium that send signals to the cells to grow, contain those same sugars and things
  • How long does it take to creat a sheet of cells? Answer: It is a difficult process and takes around 45 days.

Unfortunatly, my pictures were not uploading BUT you can go to this link to see some of my friends pictures

http://myriverside.sd43.bc.ca/alysony2015/

 

 

 

Gene Mutation Project


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Hi there! I am a gene mutation.

I cause colour blindness. Unfortunately i am a negative mutation and i effect many people. You see, i am located in the X chromosome. Males have one x chromosome and females have two. That is why my gene friends and i effect 1/12 men and 1/200 females. I am a photopigment gene. When one of my bases were removed, i became a mutation. I was caused by deletion. I received the defect from my mother  because colour blindness is genetic. Some cases of my gene, are severe. The most common type of colour blindness is red and green colour deficiency. This is bad but manageable. This is when my host cannot see the colour red or green.

My host had red and green colour deficiency. One day his boss ran in late for a meeting. He threw him his keys and said “go get the green parked truck.” My host had only worked there a few days and had to go and get it. When he realized that there were 7 trucks that looked greenish, he had no choice but to try the keys in each one. By the time he got to the third truck, a parking police had caught him. Luckily his boss came to the rescue.
Colours are all over, and for those who have troubles seeing them can be put into some very tricky situations. Imagine not being able to see the colours you learn in kindergarten, or see the traffic lights clearly! A world in back and white, with the occasional colour. When you are colour blind, depending on the severity, you can see many colours to no colours at all.
There is no way to cure colour blindness because 99% is cause from my gene friends and I. The only way we could really cure my mutation is to receive some sort of gene therapy. Luckily for my host, there are some types of glasses that are capable of enhancing certain colours or shades  through the lenses. They do not give my host the ability to see colours perfectly, however they can see them better, and make out the difference between colours that otherwise would look the same.
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The questions that I came up with were:
-How does the mutation work?
-How do you receive the mutation?
-What does the mutation effect?
-Is it a positive mutation or a negative mutation?
– Where in your body does the mutation work?
– Is there a way to cure the mutation?
-How would this mutation effect someone’s life?
I have successfully answered all of my question using sites such as:
– Wikipedia (Internet site)
– www.colorblindawarness.org (Internet site)
– www.color-blindness.com (Internet site)
-www.lifenoggin.com (Youtube Video)
To retain information, I used Youtube, the internet, and i also talk to my family and friends.
These are some pitures I took to show you what it is like to be colour blind:
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The plan I had: 
My plan was to answer all my questions (the questions above) and truly understand my gene. Then using the facts I obtained i would write a few paragraphs about it. All the sites i used to answer my questions had quite thorough answer and were able to allow me to really understand my gene.
I think that the process went really smooth and it turned out just the way i planned. I incorporated all the information I was planning to and the outcome was great. Next time I would try to incorporate more stories to really give my audience a clear picture of my gene and how it effects people. By addinf more stories i mean to find more stories on how the gene has personally effected people and their lives. I believe that colour blindness is something people should know about because it effects so many people!

Edible DNA model

Today in science 9, my partner Alyson and I created an edible DNA model. What we did was used we remebered that A<—>T and G<—->C

Here are the steps used to creat the model:

– We had to figure out the corrisponding bases

– We had to find out how many we needed of each colour marshmallow

– We collected our materials

– Finally we assembled our structure

We found this activity fairly easy. All it needed was a little bit of planning

Here are some pics from the project:

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