Name _______________________________
Date ________
VIDEO – NOVA – Cracking the Code of Life VIDEO (Cracking the Code of Life – Pham, p. 1)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genome/program.html
Chapter 1 – Instructions for a Human Being
1. What percentage of our genes is shared between us and a banana?
2. Why is our DNA so similar to a banana’s?
3. What is the shape of a DNA molecule?
4. What does DNA look like to the naked eye? (Note: Does it remind you of what you saw in the
DNA Spooling Lab a while ago?)
5. What two unexpected things have scientists learned about our DNA from the Human Genome
Project?
6. What are the four chemicals (bases) that make up the “rungs” of the DNA “ladder”?
Chapter 2 – Getting the Letters Out
7. How similar is one baby to any other babies?
8. How much of the Chromosome 17 actually constitutes genes that code for certain traits?
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VIDEO – Cracking the Code of Life – Pham, p. 2
Chapter 3 – One Wrong Letter
1. (a) What is Tay-Sachs disease? (b) What does it do to a child’s development?
2. How big is the error in the DNA code that causes Tay-Sachs?
3. What are the consequences of that error?
4. Is Tay-Sachs rare or common?
5. How does a baby inherit Tay-Sachs disease from his/her parents?
Chapter 9 – Finding Cures is Hard
1. (a) What is wrong with Riley? (b) What does the disease he has do to him?
2. (a) What is gene therapy? (b) What are scientists hoping to try to fix instead?
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3. (a) What are proteins? (b) How are proteins different from genes?
4. How important is shape to proteins? Explain.
5. What is different about Riley’s genetic code?
6. What does the healthy version of the cell membrane protein do?
7. What happens because of the misshapen protein?
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