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Undergraduate Biology
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SUNY at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5110
631-632-8530
Fax 631-632-1347
| BIO 101.01 - Biology: Humanities Approach Fall 2000
ANNOUNCEMENT (10/31/2000)
I finished EXAM 2 this weekend.
Topics will be:
1. Cell Cycle
2. Mitosis
3. Breakage-fusion-bridge cycle
4. Radiation risks and damage
5. Meiosis
6. Gamete formation (oogenesis and spermatogenesis)
7. Autosomal non-disjunction
8. Sex chromosome non-disjunction
NOTE: I DECIDED NOT TO INCLUDE ASSISTED REPRODUCTION, IVF, OR THE CHROMOSOME THEORY OF HEREDITY (TOPICS TO BE COVERED THURSDAY & NEXT TUESDAY). THOSE WILL BE ON THE FINAL EXAM.
Class Notes
Syllabus
Course meets: Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:20AM to 9:40PM in Javits Lecture Center room 101
First day of class: begins Tuesday September 5, 2000
Holidays (class does not meet): Thursday November23 [Thanksgiving recess]
Last lecture of class: Thursday December 14
Topics to be covered: Note – some will occupy a full lecture; some less than one lecture; and some will take more than one lecture. There is an accompanying reading schedule that correlates text chapters to weekly reading assignments.
- How the human condition may emerge in the new millennium : Why the human condition changes. A comparison of recent centuries and today. How our knowledge of biology changes the human condition. The human condition is not human nature.
Unit one: The cell
- The germ theory of disease: Why the germ theory profoundly changed the human condition. Types of germs – bacteria, viruses, and true cells (fungi and protozoa). The roles of Pasteur, Semmelweiss, Koch, Lister, and Virchow in making life as we know it possible.
- Cells and viruses as organisms: True cells [eukaryotes] have a nucleus; cells lacking a nucleus are called prokaryotes. Viruses are not cells but they are organisms. An organism has a life cycle.
- Organelles and their functions: A cell (or virus) is composed of organelles. Each organelle carries out a specific task for the cell. Eukaryotes have many organelles. Prokaryotes have fewer organelles. Most viruses have only two organelles. Cell biology studies the organelles of cells and viruses.
- The continuity of cell structure: The cell cycle describes the changes in a cell as it goes from one cell to two cells. The stages include M], G1, S, G2 and for cells leaving the cycle, G0.
- Mitosis: The nuclear events of mitosis; the cytoplasmic events of mitosis.
- The breakage-fusion-bridge cycle: How chromosome breakage leads to cell death in dividing cells. It is the basis of radiation damage (NOT mutation) from x-rays and atomic radiation. How radiation dose and exposure determine survival from atomic explosions and accidents.
- Alternation of generations: Most of our body consists of diploid cells (chromosome number = 46); our reproductive cells consist of haploid cells (chromosome number = 23). Some organism have two lives, a diploid and a haploid phase of their life cycle.
- Meiosis: Sperm and eggs are produced by a process of meiosis. There are two cell divisions involved, reduction division and equation division. There are four sperm (each haploid) from one diploid immature reproductive cell. There is only one egg from each immature reproductive cell.
- autosomal aneuploidy: The euploid number in humans is 46 [body cells] or 23 [gametes]. Euploid karyotypes in a gamete consist of 22 autosomes and one sex chromosome. The sex chromosome may be an X or a Y. The autosomes are numbered 1 to 22. Some accidents of meiosis lead to sperm or eggs with an extra or missing chromosome [aneuploid]. At fertilization this leads to abnormal embryos most of which abort. Three autosomal conditions make it to birth: trisomy 13, trisomy 18, and trisomy 21.
- sex chromosome aneuploidy: The surviving types are 45, X [Turner]; 47,XXY [Klinefelter]; 47,XXX [triple X] ; and 47, XYY [double Y]. There is no survival of 45,Y [nullo-X] zygotes.
- Prenatal diagnosis: Fluid from the water sac (amnion) can be used to predict abnormal chromosomes. This is called prenatal diagnosis. It is coupled with genetic counseling for families at risk for birth defects. Why dome people want to take charge of their lives and others take what fate deals them.
Unit two: The gene
- A brief history of heredity: folk genetics; lamarckism; and germplasm as early ideas of heredity. The idea of hereditary units begins in the 1860s. How these units became genes.
- Mendel’s discovery of breeding analysis: the use of individuals to mate and follow their offspring over several generations. Mendel’s first law of the segregation of hereditary units in hybrids.
- The chromosome theory of heredity: Genes are carried by chromosomes. Meiosis predicts their distribution in Mendelian ratios.
- monogenic traits – autosomal recessive: some traits are not seen in the parents but appear in the children. Each pregnancy for these parents has a 25percent chance of having a genetic defect. How these can be represented by genetic pedigrees.
- monogenic traits—autosomal dominant: some traits are passed from generation to generation. If one parent has and the other parent is normal, the children are each 50% at risk of being affected with the disorder. Most autosomal dominant traits that are harmful are of sporadic origin. There are thus two pedigrees: classical autosomal dominant and sporadic autosomal dominant.
- X-linked traits: Some mutations are on the X chromosome. These are usually not seen in the female but a heterozygous female produces two types of sons and thus half her sons are at risk. The daughters are rarely or never affected.
- Mendel’s second law—independent assortment: Character traits are often composed of the activities of two or more gene. Mendel’s second law shows how these are distributed. Independent assortment guarantees that no two eggs or sperm are alike.
- Quantitative inheritance: Nilsson-Ehle’s work on seed coat color reveals some traits are additive or quantitative in expression
- Skin color as a quantitative trait: Skin color in humans is primarily an expression of the amount of melanin in the skin and hair. Miscegenation of whites with blacks produces several shades of brown skin color.
- Race, race mixture, and racism: How the mixing of races in North America differs from South America. Why biologists do not usually use the term race. The dynamic state of skin color and other features that constitute what some call race. Race is a cultural concept.
- polygenic inheritance: Johannsen’s beans vary in size from small to large in a continuous gradation. Bell curves result from random breeding of beans in a field. The consequences of selection and inbreeding on a polygenic trait.
- Human polygenic traits: Human height is a polygenic trait. Human behavioral traits or environmentally influenced traits are difficult to distinguish from a polygenic trait – including talent, personality, life expectancy, and intelligence.
- Measuring and mismeasuring human abilities: The history of intelligence testing, IQ [intelligence quotient] measurements, and mass testing of school children.
- Genius and mental retardation: There are many causes of mental retardation but classification and teaching of the retarded is controversial. Genius is difficult to define and measure. IQ scores may not be useful in predicting those geniuses who become eminent.
- From degeneracy theory to the eugenics movement: A brief history of a bad idea about allegedly unfit people. How the eugenics movement led to social evils. Why dealing with human genetic issues is inherently controversial but cannot be avoided.
Examinations:
There will be three tests. Two of them will be held in class on the day and time we usually meet. The final day and time will be according to the Fall 2000 schedule.
Examination I: Thursday September 28, 2000 will consist of 25 multiple choice questions; ten definitions; and a multipart essay. Counts 25% of your grade.
Examination II: Thursday November 9, 2000 will consist of 25 multiple choice questions; ten definitions; and a multipart essay. Counts 25% of your grade.
Final examination: Tuesday December 19, 2000 at 8:00-10:30AM will be comprehensive, covering the entire course, and will count 50% of your final grade. It will consist of 100 multiple choice questions (no written part). Should a room other than our lecture room be assigned, this will be announced in class and posted on the Web site.
Policy on make-up examinations: If you are sick, have a court date, have a close relative who is severely ill, have car trouble and need a make-up examination, sign-up for the make-up with Darlene Prowse, the Course Coordinator (see below). She will keep a roster of those taking a make-up examination. The make-up for exam 1 and exam 2 will be held during the final examination. When you complete the final, you will pick up exam 1 or exam 2 (in 30 years of teaching no student has ever complained that they did not have enough time to take the make-up during the final). No student will take two make-ups. If you miss the final and you are passing with a C-minus or better you will be given an incomplete. If you have a D or less average you will be given an F as a final grade if you miss the final. The make up for the final will be sometime in the first month of classes of the Spring 2001 semester.
Protect the date of your final: I will not give an early final. Make sure you do not schedule two other finals that date. Make sure you (or your parents) do not schedule a trip abroad with tickets leaving before the 19th of December. If you mess up, you will be stuck with taking a make-up final sometime the month when you get back. Remember, memory has a short half-life and it decays very fast when the semester is over.
An extra 5 points to be added to your final grade (i.e., a maximum of 105 points) for attending ten (10) of the weekly review sessions (the sessions should not all be bunched into one or two weeks). A roster of these optional weekly review sessions with the teaching assistant’s time and dates for such meetings will be distributed in class. Attendance will be signed in at each session and the sign-in sheet given by the teaching assistant to the course coordinator to record your attendance.
The course coordinator is Darlene Prowse. She is in room NG-02 in the CMM/BLL Building, [facing the Social and Behavioral Sciences Building on the North end and the Life Science Building on the South end] daily, from 10Am to 4PM. Please go to her room to pick up handouts you missed getting in class. If you need to check a grade, lost a handout, need to arrange a make-up examination (she may have you call me for approval if you don’t have documentation), or get credit if a TA session was a no-show, call her at 632-8171.
I will be available for office hours every day (Monday to Friday) in room 376 Life Sciences. I come in about 8AM and stay to 5PM. My door is open when I am in my room and you will not be interrupting me if you come in (unless you see me talking with another student). I have a posted schedule of times when I am teaching or active in committees or eating lunch. You can always call me at 632-8549 to check if I am in. In an emergency call my home 751-3712 [but do NOT do so after 10PM because my wife gets up about 4:30 AM to work in a hospital].
Reading Assignments
The text for the course is Carlson’s Biology and the Human Condition. It is a reprint of a text I wrote that Thomson Learning Custom Publishing has printed (2000) and bound and it is available only from the campus bookstore (Wallace’s).
Chapters 1 to16 and some of the essays will be used for Biology 101.
| Week | Chapters assigned |
| Sept. 5 & 7 | Ch. 1: The Human Condition
essay in back of book: What is Science |
| Sept. 12 & 14 | essay in back of book: The Germ Theory |
| Sept. 19 & 21 | Ch. 2: Cell Structure, cell division, & the cell cycle |
| Sept. 26 & 28 | Ch. 3: Radiation Damage: how chromosome breakage leads to cell death
essay in back of book: The Radiation Controversy |
| Oct. 3 & 5 | Ch. 4: The Formation of Sex Cells and the Consequences of Non-disjuntional Errors |
| Oct. 10 & 12 | Ch. 5: Fertility & Infertility |
| Oct. 17 & 19 | essay in back of bookL Origins of the Gene Concept |
| Oct. 24 & 26 | Ch. 6: Mendel's Laws & Genetic Disorders |
| Oct. 31 & Nov. 2 | Ch. 8: Prenatal Diagnosis
Ch. 9: Genetic Counseling |
| Nov. 7 & 9 | Ch. 10: Complex Traits & Multiple Factors |
| Nov. 14 & 16 | Ch. 11: Skin Color as a Quantitative Trait |
| Nov. 21 & 23 | Ch. 12: Miscegenation & the Emergence of New Races |
| Nov. 28 & 30 | Ch. 13: The Early Eugenics Movement: a Misuse of Genetics |
| Dec. 5 & 7 | Ch. 14: Intelligence Testing & the IQ Controversy |
| Dec. 12 & 19 | Ch. 15: Genius & Retardation |
Note: additional readings will be placed on the Web site & announced in class and on the Web site.
About Biology 101.01
In Biology 101 two concepts are stressed – the cell and the gene. In Biology 102 three concepts are stressed – the life cycle, the molecular basis of life, and evolution. These five concepts give us the major principles of biology. All five of the topics are connected to one another and while the emphasis will clearly be on the cell and the gene other parts of biology will be brought in to make sense of what’s going on. This is because a living organism is all five of these concepts at once and they cannot be totally isolated from one another. In Biology 101 our major focus will be on the biology of human life and those organisms that are significant to our health.
This course deals with a lot of issues of value. The more we learn about life, the more we can use that knowledge to protect ourselves from harm. The medical uses are largely desired, especially by those who are ill or whose relatives are ill. But things are not always as simple and clear as they sound. Some people only believe in treatments and are wary of preventive measures that involve controversial procedures such as prenatal diagnosis with elective abortion. Some people feel sorry for those who are infertile but feel that in vitro fertilization is not legitimate even though the couple involved are using their own eggs and sperm to produce a child. We will explore many controversial issues because that is a major concern of this course. It is my hope that by providing you with the biology you need to know you will wrestle with your own consciences and values in making decisions about yourself and your future family.
This course also touches on issues that concern matters other than health. When we discuss cell biology our insights into what life is and how it works disturbs many people who think science is “playing God” by making such inquiries. Many of our elective options for reproduction raise concerns about eugenics and the past abuses of the eugenic movements in the United States and in Nazi Germany. Our philosophic ideas of what life is are often jolted by new findings in molecular biology.
We will see that our knowledge of the cell leads us to an understanding of many birth defects arise. Similarly when we explore the individual gene, we will learn how mutations arise both naturally and by artificial means. This leads to a large number of controversies. How do we protect ourselves from unwanted exposure to radiation and chemicals that induce mutations. What is our responsibility, if any, to passing on our own genetic defects? These are not easy questions to answer. Sometimes we make trade-offs between our genetic risks and our political safety or the type of industrial world in which we wish to live.
I do not want you to get the impression that this is a course that devotes all its attention to controversies. I will bring these in when appropriate and my job will focus on giving you the biology behind each of these issues so you can reflect on them in the context of your own values. I believe that knowledge is exciting and creates a deep pleasure as we gain more insights into the complexities of the universe. Just as reading a lot of poetry or novels greatly enhances our appreciation of the humanities, immersing ourselves in new ways to look at life from the biologist’s vantage point provides an equivalent thrill and satisfaction.
Review Materials
Exam 1 from 1996
Exam 2 from 1996
1996 Final Exam
Exam 1 from 1997
Exam 2 from 1997
Supplemental Reading
BIO 101.01 TA Review Sessions
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