- Captain
Kirk leaves one Qwibble on the planet Qwohog, which has
plenty of food and no predators. If each Qwibble
produces six offspring every eight hours (then the parent
dies), how many Qwibbles will there be by the end of the
week? What is their doubling time?
-
If
a town of 10,000 people doubles every five years, how big
will it be in 2026? Suppose instead toxic waste
contamination kills off 20% per year; how many will be
left?
-
Why
does natural selection favor individuals who overpopulate
their habitat and cause precipitous population
decline? What is the real reason the lemmings "jump
in the sea"? Do the lemmings have alternatives? Explain.
-
Jane Grey interviews a prospective student for the
Westchester School for Mutants. The student is completely
resistant to all forms of influenza, including swine flu,
avian flu, and tribble flu. The condition is dominant and
not X-linked. If this Mutant had a son, what is the son's
chance of resisting next year's sandworm flu?
Suppose we find that the rare individuals who inherit two
copies of the flu Mutant allele have defective immune systems
and die by age 20. How does this modify our definition of
"dominant" inheritance for this
- Suppose the "kwisatz haderach"
trait is determined by codominant alleles plus environmental
influence. Can you explain Alia's unusual phenotype?
- What is the role of population
size, gene frequencies, and genetic drift in evolution of new
species? Explain.
-
If
natural selection means "survival of the fittest," than
how can one "fittest" species evolve into more than one?
How can more than one be "the fittest"? Explain.
-
Explain
how each of the following traits is determined by genes
and/or environment: Huntington’s disease; Diabetes;
Cancer; Spoken language.
-
Explain
the difference between genetic and cultural
evolution. Use an example to show how these may be
confused.
-
Suppose
you ingest 500 Salmonella
bacteria in contaminated turkey, and in three hours you
feel sick; there are now 500,000 bacteria. What is their
doubling time in your body, in minutes?
-
A Klingon anthropologist tries to explain the pointed ears
of Vulcans by the hypothesis that Vulcan women prefer men
with more pointed ears, so many generations lead to Vulcans
with extremely pointed ears.
What
form of natural selection does this illustrate? What
problems do you see with the Klingon hypothesis? How might
the hypothesis be modified?
- Compare
and contrast the sandworm and the camel in terms of desert
adaptation. Include (1) water use, (2) heat avoidance, (3)
digestive chemistry.
- Based on
your graph of water
saturation: Suppose air that is raining at
40 degrees F warms up to 80 degrees F. What is the percent
water saturation? How does the air feel?
- Suppose
you have a dew collector on Dune that provides 12 liters
per meter-squared per year.
If Fremen need to drink 1.5 liters per day: How many
square meters of collector would Fremen need to provide
water for a sietch community of 25 people?
Why do you think a dew collector on Dune would be less
effective than the dew collector in Jerusalem?
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