1. You scoop up a water sample from a local pond nearby, because you are curious about the possible microbes that might live there. After looking at several slides that held drops of the sample, you noticed two different kinds of cells: One kind was very small and had no separate internal structures; the other kind was much larger, and it contained several kinds of internal structures that were physically different from each other. Please name each cell and briefly describe their overall similarities and differences.
2. PKU (phenylketonuria) is an enzyme deficiency disease that only develops in individuals who are homozygous recessive for that gene. An individual with PKU has parents that do not have this disease. What is the parents' genotype for the gene responsible for PKU? What is the probability that they may have another child with PKU? How many future children of the affected individual will be carriers? Explain your answers.
3. Humans share 99% of their genes with chimpanzees, 90% with mice, 50% with fruit flies, and 37% with celery. Please explain the evolutionary significance of these data.
4. Describe the major land biome where you live. How have human activities changed the landscape and how has this affected native species? Include specific examples.
5. At the beginning of the spring, Dr. Betty Burner notices that there is an equal distribution of long and short stemmed the dandelions in her backyard. By the end of the summer she notices that the majority of the dandelions have short stems. This observation is an example of what biological principle? Develop a hypothesis as to why there was an increase in the proportion of the short stemmed dandelions within the population.
6. Use what you have learned about energy transfer in food chains and the second law of thermodynamics to explain why it is an environmentally good choice to eat a plant based diet. Include the following terms in your answer: producer, herbivore, omnivore, trophic level, resources and energy
7. If researchers establish that Myrothecium verrucaria is an effective biological control agent against kudzu, they must then demonstrate that the pathogen will not harm desirable species such as soybeans (a close relative to kudzu). Describe an experiment that could fulfill this purpose, including all steps of the scientific method. Identify control(s), dependent and independent variables.
8. Describe a nutritious meal which contains the four "large molecules of life," identify their composition and structure, and describe one function they perform in the cell. Pick one of the molecules and discuss the possible consequences of not including it in your diet.
9. Describe how the information in DNA determines the phenotypes of a trait. Be very specific as you start from inside the cell to a specific characteristic.