http://biologica.concord.org/webtest1/web_labs_genophenotype.htm
In the picture, I have displayed the dragon that I created. The original dragon was on top with the dragon to be altered located below. I managed to find success and create a copy of my first dragon from the second dragon due to changing the different alleles.
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/virtual_labs/BL_05/BL_05.html
In this picture, I had crossed two heterozygous flies who had the dominant long-winged trait. This gave me an expected offspring of a 1:2:1. In other words, it is expected that one of the offspring will be homozygous with the dominant trait with long wings, two will be heterozygous and display the dominant trait of long wings, and one will be homozygous for the recessive trait and have short-wings. (I used the Punnett Square to provide these results.)
The Punnett Square in this lab proves itself to be a helpful way of determining what is expected to be the traits of an offspring. Genetic inheritance affects us every day. For instance, our hearing, eyesight, and brain functioning was all in large part due to our genes. It is why we look like our parents, or grandparents. It's why we look like our brothers or sisters, maybe even a little like our cousins. Genes also affect us with our stereotypical world. Blondes are supposedly dumb, blacks are supposedly gangbangers, yet most of us know that that is not necessarily true. We have genius blondes and we have blacks in political offices, leading people.
Genetics plays a large role in our daily life and their are great hopes for the future advancement of genetic engineering research. It is hoped that one day, we will be able to live longer, healthier lives, that we may be able to find the cures for today's incurable diseases. Bone cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer...Cancer may become a thing in the past. Not only is that an objective, but the possibility of parents being given the chance to choose their child may become available in time. Whether we develop diseases such as Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Down Syndrome can be determined and given a percentage of likelihood with help from the Punnett Square. Genetic engineering may even be able to alter their genes so that no one will develop it and the diseases will become extinct.
A genotype is a trait or characteristic that is written into the genes of the DNA of a living object while the phenotype is the characteristic that the offspring will have. Alleles can be dominant or recessive and they come in pairs which determine the characteristic that is to be displayed. The lab provided a chance to put these alleles, geno- and phenotypes to work and look at what pairs create fruit flies with long wings, the dominant trait represented with a capital letter, or short wings, the recessive trait represented with a lower case letter. If two homozygous dominants (two capital letters) are crossed, all the offspring are expected to be homozygous dominant. If only one homozygous dominant is crossed with a heterzygous dominant (one capital, one lower case), then the expected offspring are expected to be two homozygous dominant, and two heterozygous dominants. If two heterozygous pairs are crossed, then the expected outcome would be one homozygous dominant, two heterozygous dominants, and one homozygous recessive (two lower case letters). Now, if two homozygous recessives are crossed, all the offspring are expected to be homozygous recessive.
These labs provided an easy and fascinating way to determine the possible genotypes of the offspring by playing around and changing the alleles of the parents. It's interesting to see how parents both showing the dominant trait can have three children showing that dominant trait and still have one child who shows the recessive trait. Genetic inheritance does play a large part on people's lives and it is nice to know that there is a system that can provide statistical analysis to determine the odds of giving birth to a child with a certain disease or handicap.
Works-Cited
Picture of duplicated dragons:
http://biologica.concord.org/webtest1/web_labs_genophenotype.htm
Picture of scenario 5 for the fruitflies:
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/virtual_labs/BL_05/BL_05.html
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