Extra Credit questions – Section 4.
1. Describe how splicing of pre-mRNA leads to increased diversity and complexity
within an organism.
2. Describe how the genetic code was cracked – how did scientists determine that
the triplet codon was responsible for specifying a single amino acid in a protein?
3. Explain how DNA fingerprinting is used by forensic scientists to determine the
identity of a criminal. Make sure to include a description of each scientific
process used.
4. How was Dolly the sheep cloned? Why did she die so young?
5. Explain how the human genome was sequenced. Make sure to include a
description of each scientific process used. What were some of the interesting
pieces of information that came out of the human genome project? Whose DNA
was used to sequence the genome?
6. What is microRNA? How is specifically generated in a cell? How does it exert its
effects, and what are those effects?