Biology Test 1 Flashcards
What is the bottom-up approach to producing synthetic life?
Bottom-up approaches seek to assemble a group of non-living components that collectively will exhibit the characteristics of life.
What does David Deamer feel is the ‘final’ problem that keeps synthetic life (Life 2.0) from being a laboratory reality?
The inability of synthetic systems to make more catalysts.
Deamer, the optimist, says “ Is there any hope? The answer is yes, a faint glimmer of hope.” Which of the following is NOT a reason behind his use of the word hope?
It is not yet clear how to apply von Neumann’s theory to synthetic life.
Deamer proposes the use of ribozymes, which are engineered RNA molecules that don’t naturally exist. Ribozymes can be engineered to perform a limited range of catalytic functions. What other attribute would ribozymes have to have in order to provide a solution to Deamer’s dilemma?
They would have to be able to copy themselves.
When Adam Reid says that he thinks the Venter group did the equivalent in the computer world “to ditching Windows and installing Linux in its place,” what is he saying in criticism of their claim of constructing a synthetic organism?
Venter’s group wrote new (synthetic) software to drive existing (natural) hardware (the recipient bacterial cell).
According to Adam Reid, all criticism of the Venter group’s claims aside, they did make some major contributions. What were these contributions or advances? At least two of these answers are correct and you should choose all of the correct answers.
New methods which advance the ability to synthesize much longer DNA molecules than ever before.
Techniques which allow a genetic program to be successfully transplanted into a recipient organism.
Venter’s group mainly copied the known code of Mycoplasma mycoides into a chemically synthesized DNA molecule. Several errors (mutations) inadvertantly occurred during the production of the synthetic DNA and initially were fatal in that they prevented the successful rebooting of the recipient cell with the synthetic DNA. What is the primary significance of this for synthetic biology?
It shows that it will be difficult to engineer new genes without producing fatal mutations.
Dr. Jim Collins says that “Biology is messy and …often gets in the way of clever engineering”. What is the profound truth in this sarcastic statement?
Biology shows us we don’t understand because our designs don’t work.
Why is DNA viewed as the operating system of the cell since the concept of an operating system (such as the Mac OS or Windows) is a computer concept?
Operating systems control hardware in both cases, but they are distinct from the hardware they control.
The label ‘top down’ has been applied to a management style where all decisions of significance are made by a few executives. We applied the label ‘top down’ to the approach of Venter’s group to synthetic biology because:
It starts with the goal of synthetic biology, a functional living organism, to try to understand how to produce synthetic life.
Which of these is NOT an acceptable analogy to what Venter’s group accomplished?
A baboon heart transplanted into a human.
What motivated the first attempt at biological classification?
A conviction that God created the world in an organized and purposeful way.
Which of these is NOT true of the concept of biological discontinuity?
The gradual accumulation of mutations in genes causes organisms to produce distinct types.
Although the biological world is fundamentally discontinuous, some discontinuities are more significant than others.
The most fundamental discontinuity (for which there are no intermediate forms) is that which separates organisms based on:
whether they have a nucleus.
Who invented the process of classification (taxonomy) and what were the largest categories in their classification?
Linnaeus; Plants, Animals
Which of these is NOT a good reason why classification systems undergo frequent revision?
The growth of scientific understanding of how organisms function.
What is involved in the traditional concept of a universal common ancestor?
The view that all living organisms evolved from a single organism that was the first living thing.
Which of these is the best characterization of the status of biological classification?
There is no consensus on classification because of scientitist’s inability to harmonize all of the discordant data.
What is the significance of the fact that traditionally biologists have represented life with a tree, but that now they have taken to using the shrub as a more accurate characterization?
Highly significant because a shrub doesn’t have a single trunk
What is the meaning in this diagram of the places where lines intersect on this diagram (what do the nodes signify)?
They signify organisms predicted by evolution, but not yet discovered.
Apes and humans both contain genes which are recognizable as very similar and yet have a few differences in their codes. Which of these should NOT characterize the response of Bible-Believers?
Expect that the few differences in the codes of the genes will turn out to be functionally very significant.
Why is a biological classification system needed?
It provides a standard of comparison when I need to determine the identity of an organism I have collected.
The sheer number of different kinds of living organisms demands a logical approach to organizing them.
Many organisms already have common names, so why do we bother to assign scientific names to them in addition to their common name? For example why bother with Canis familiaris since we already have the name, dog? Choose all that apply.
Scientists don’t like the common names that are used
Common names don’t have an obvious rationale behind them
.
Common names may differ from one part of the world to another.
Scientific names are informative and tell us something significant about the organism.
Scientific names mesh with the logic of the classification system.
What language is at the root of scientific names like Canis familiaris?
Latin
Why are scientific names italicized (or underlined) when they are found in print? Think of Canis familiaris.
Because they are Latin terms.
