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Introduction to Genetics NotesBIOGENESISBefore we can get into the nuts and bolts of genetics, we have to understand where, when, and how it all started.When?Roughly ____________________________________________, the universe began. Q: How can we approximate the age of the universe?The Big Bang Theory suggests how the universe has evolved over the last 14 or so billion years. Notice that I did not say that the BBT explains how the universe was created! This is a huge misconception among the uneducated. The BBT has been falsely portrayed as blasphemous. Science, in general for that matter, has long been viewed as the antagonist against the church. Unfortunately, this opinion started nearly 700 years ago and has been a thorn in the side of progress for far too long. If you really look at what the church and science are saying, it’s surprisingly similar. But, that is for another time and place!Carl Sagan once said, “To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first start with the universe.” Q: What does Carl Sagan mean by this?The universe began long ago as suggested by the Big Bang Theory. At the birth of the universe, all that existed was ____________________ and ________________. As the universe expanded, these tiny bits of matter collided and created slightly larger bits of matter called _______________________________________________. This happened in a process called _________________________________, which only occurs at really extreme conditions (namely heat and velocity). Over time (much, much time) these atoms congregated together some 10 billion years later to eventually form what we now know as the Earth. The Earth’s formation began about ______________________________. During the Earth’s aging process, some heavier atoms were formed, like __________________________________. One billion years after the earth had existed (about 3.5 billion years ago), we have evidence of what is currently known as the oldest fossil of a living thing. Whoa! Evidence of life on earth that existed over 3,500,000,000 years ago! What did it look like? Well, it was very small measuring in a microscopic 0.0004 inches long. Two questions should pop up right now.Q: How do they know if it was living if it’s a fossil of something that small?A: There are groups of them clustered exactly as we find the bacteria of today cluster.A. They are most often surrounded by pyrite (fool’s gold), which is a by-product of bacteria that metabolize sulfur and sulphates. Q: How do they know this fossil is as old as they claim?A. Radioactive dating (namely Uranium-238 dating). A measurable amount of a radioactive material is observed in a fossil. We know how long it takes for a sample of radioactive material to decay. This amount is compared to another non-radioactive material that does not change in the sample. From this information, we can accurately determine the age of the sample.But, the question remains… How did life get here?Well, as suggested by the BBT, all of the necessary ingredients to create life were present on the planet Earth starting about 3.5-4.0 billion years ago. At first, we were looking at key atoms like Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen. As the Earth finally began to settle down, the crust took shape and the liquid, hot magma boiled under the surface. Occassionally, ________________occurred. This is when the crust breaks open and a violent release of the stuff inside the Earth spews forward. Some of this ends up turning into new crust, but importantly, some of it is released upward as a gas.Q: What happens when oxygen gas mixes with hydrogen gas?Q: What happens when carbon mixes with hydrogen under intense heat?Q: What happens when nitrogen gas mixes with hydrogen gas?Q: What happens when nitrogen atoms meet up with other nitrogen atoms?Q: All in all, when all of these combinations get together, what have we created?With our atmosphere created, we can now start working on a water cycle. More and more outgassing occurs, and more and more water is created. Eventually you have a water covered Earth.Now, these primitive oceans are nothing like what we enjoy on the beaches today. The water would be hot and it would most likely reek of rotten eggs. But, in this hot, rotten egg stew, we have all of the basic fundamentals for early life to begin. In this water, we have the essentials for stuff like this…NH3 + H2O + N2 + Hydrocarbons => _____________________________________Q: How do we know that these ingredients just lying around in the ocean could possible join together in a way that forms essential components for life?__________________________ are the building blocks of proteins which are the key component in cell function and structure._____________________________________are the energy that a cell uses_______________________ are the basic building block of cellular genetic material (DNA)To skip forward a few billion years…We know that oxygen gas and carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas make up most of our atmosphere. This is the same as it was 3.5 billion years ago when we think life began on this planet. We also know oxygen and carbon dioxide inhibit the formation of organic compounds. Q: What is an organic compound?The Theory of Evolution predicts, through telling evidence, that life on Earth started in the ocean. Q: Why is this significant?Go back in time 3.5 billion years ago. The toughest question to answer is this – how did life spring forth out of all this mess?A. Scientists have tested many different amino acids, nucleotides, and ATP under conditions that we think were here on Earth so long ago. They subjected this concoction to energy and VIOLA!! something happened! Small things popped up that started to show characteristics of what we now consider all living things to have in common. One of these ‘things’ that showed up in these experiments were called ________________________. ___________________ could bud and make new microspores (reproduction on the simplest level). Also, ‘things’ called ______________________ showed up. _________________________ can grow larger. Both of these mysterious things could absorb things from their surrounding areas, which allowed them to bud and grow.Q: So… what are we missing?A. Quite a bit, unfortunately. Even though we have proven in the lab that life-like things could arise from a mixture of life-essential ingredients, we still do not know how they eventually developed into hereditary forms. That is, they had no recognizable DNA so they could not respond to natural selection. Remember, however, this is a very young science and we are currently making progress in our attempts to understand how life developed here on Earth. ................
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