AP Biology
Summer Reading Assignment
Survival of the Sickest by Dr. Sharon Moalem
Assignment Information
1. Include your name, class hour, and title of the assignment as your heading
2. Your responses must be typed, (10-12 font) clearly labeled and numbered for each chapter.
3. Use good grammar and spelling, but be clear and concise. Your answers should be in your own words
even if page numbers are referenced. (Do NOT copy word-for-word from the book!)
4. You need to start talking and writing like a biologist. By this, I mean your answers need to use
appropriate biological terms and demonstrate a thorough understanding of the key concepts. Incomplete
sentences, answers of a single sentence or a few words, answers that just skim the surface WILL NOT
WORK FOR THIS COURSE!
5. Your answers are due SUNDAY, JULY 28TH BY MIDNIGHT
6. Keep in mind, you will take part in a graded discussion of the book when school resumes.
7. For this book, many of the questions may be answered in one or two sentences, however some
questions will require paragraph responses.
CHAPTER 1 – Ironing It Out
1. What is hemochromatosis?
2. Unchecked, hemochromatosis will lead to what problems?
3. Why did hemochromatosis develop in our genome? What is hemochromatosis connection to the
bubonic plague and macrophages?
4. Why do our bodies need iron?
5. What happens if iron levels are insufficient?
6. How does iron affect the color of ocean?
7. What are chelators? What is their role? Where are they found?
8. Identify the treatment of choice for hemochromatosis? Explain why it works.
9. Is increasing iron always good? Provide examples to support your answer.
10. What is the possible advantage to carrying the CF gene?
CHAPTER 2 – A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Temperature Go Down
1. Describe diabetes mellitus. Discuss potential consequences a person with diabetes faces.
2. Distinguish between Type 1, Type 2, & gestational diabetes.
3. What causes or influences Type 1 diabetes? Type 2?
4. Based on current evidence, how long have climate changes in the past taken?
5. Describe the steps our bodies take to stay warm.
6. Explain how diabetes may have allowed humans to survive the sudden temperature drops.
7. Connect shrinking grapes to peeing when you are cold.
8. Describe the wood frog's methods of surviving the winter.
CHAPTER 3 – The Cholesterol Also Rises
1. Describe the two competing biochemical effects of sunlight on our bodies.
2. Discuss how different populations have dealt with this issue. Use examples from the reading.
3. Explain why our bodies need vitamin D and folic acid.
4. Why does our body need cholesterol?
5. How can sunglasses lead to a higher risk for sunburn?
6. Discuss how human migration, folic acid, vitamin D, and skin color may all be interconnected.
7. Discuss how dark skinned people dealt with lack of sunlight for making vitamin D
8. Why is alcoholism uncommon in the Asian population?
9. Explain why this trait is common in Asians, but almost nonexistent in Europeans.
10. Farming populations maintain what ability that most populations lost? Why?
11. Why is skin color a poor choice for determining race?
12. Account for the differences in hypertension levels between African Americans and blacks living in
Africa.
13. Explain why African Americans are at higher risk for heart disease than the rest of the U.S. population.
14. What is pharmacogenetics? Provide an example.
Chapter 4
1. What did the Greeks use lava beans for?
2. What is favism?
3. What is the connect of the Korean war to the enzyme G6PD?
4. What are free radicals? What problems do we think free radicals cause? Explain.
5. What is the connection between free radicals and G6PD?
6. Describe how eating fava beans can lead to hemolytic anemia.
7. Why is G6PD deficiency more common in males?
8. Fauvism is most common and deadly where? Why?
9. What is the evolutionary purpose of a plant developing fruit?
10. Describe two examples of how plants protect themselves using chemicals.
11. What is umami? Why do we think it exist?
12. What is the evolutionary point of bitter taste?
13. What are the problems associated with selectively breeding toxins in or out of our crops?
14. What did Dr. John Gorrie contribute to society in an effort to fight malaria?
15. Describe the connection between fava beans, G6PD enzyme deficiency, and malaria.
Chapter 5
1. Describe the life cycle of the Guinea worm.
2. Why do we think we might be attracted to a mate's scent?
3. Why do some doctors recommend eating yogurt when taking antibiotics?
4. What is the barrier effect and how does it protect you?
5. What is meant by host manipulation? Discuss THREE examples.
6. Why should pregnant women avoid eating raw meat or cleaning cat litter?
7. How can human sneezing be host manipulation?
8. What is meant by a behavioral phenotype? In your words!
9. What is xenophobia? How might this protect us?
10. What advantage do our competitors have on us when it comes to evolution? What advantage do we
have?
11. Describe the three basic ways microbes move from one host to another.
12. Discuss Ewald's work on how virulence is connected to the type of transmission method.
13. One solution is promoting evolution downward in virulence. Explain. Provide examples to support
answer
14. What two things do all living organisms want to do?
Chapter 6
1. Describe how a vaccine works.
2. What do we traditionally mean by "junk DNA"?
3. Where do scientist think mitochondria came from?
4. Where do we think nearly a third of our DNA comes from?
5. One gene equal one protein was what early geneticist thought - is this still the thought today - if not how
has our view changed?
6. How has our new view of genes affecting how we view evolution?
7. How did McClintock's jumping genes begin to change our view of evolution?
8. What is the modern term for jumping genes?
9. Why did McClintock think genes jumped position?
10. Explain the concept of hypermutation.
11. What does the Weismann barrier state? What could be true if this barrier turns out to not be
impenetrable?
12. How might we account for the individuality of our brains?
13. How do retroviruses change the way we think information flows?
14. Researcher Luis Villarreal proposes who is our partner in evolution?
Chapter 7
1. Discuss the connection between agouti mice, nutrition, epigenetics, and methylation.
2. Why does the Duke study of agouti mice cause us to take another look at Lamarck's acquired traits.
3. Discuss the connection between epigenetics, thrifty phenotype hypothesis, and American obesity.
4. Describe how we think epigenetics can allow a grandmother to influence her grandchildren's DNA.
5. Explain how epigenetics can work after birth by using Meany's mouse study.
6. How can methylation explain why one identical twin gets cancer and the other does not?
7. Discuss the connection between smoking and hypermethylation and it's consequences.
8. What is the current status of drug therapy based on epigenetics?
9. Why do good times tend to favor male births and tough times tend to favor female births?
Chapter 8
1. What is lamin A ? What is it's connection to progeria?
2. Is aging accidental or intentional?
3. What is the Hayflick limit?
4. What are telomeres and what is their role?
5. Why put a limit on cell divisions?
6. What is apotosis and why does it occur!
7. What is the connection between cancer and telomerase?
8. Explain how an organism’s size and position on the food web influences its life expectancy.
9. What appears to be the two benefits to aging for a species?
10. Identify the two human characteristics that probably account for our longer and more difficult
deliveries compared to other primates.
11. Why do human females need help with their delivery?
12. What is the savannah hypothesis?
13. Discus how and why Elaine Morgan disagrees with the savannah hypothesis.
14. How does Kuliukas explain the aquatic ape hypothesis?
15. How do studies of human water births compare to traditional hospital births?
16. In the conclusion what does the author identify as the three things he hoped you developed an
appreciation for?