Biology 103 Web Paper 3

        When I read an article in The New York Times that said researchers had found evidence to support the

idea that anorexia may have a biological basis, I was initially surprised but then this idea started to

make sense.  In this class we have talked about how the nature verse nurture debate has already been

solved—and that the answer is both nature and nurture.  We talked about how genes and the environment

work together to form the people we are, and a disease such as Anorexia is not an exception.  It is pretty

In the early1900’s, scientists discovered that humans have different 4 types of blood: A,B, AB, and O.  The distinctionsbetween these blood types are based on different carbohydrates and proteinsthat compose the cell membranes. Each of the different types produces different antibodies and antigens(1).  This system of classificationhas proven to be important because different properties make some blood typesincompatible.  For example, if aperson with Type B blood needed a blood transfusion or organ transplant, thedonation could not from a person with Type A or Type AB blood because Type Bblood makes antibodies to the antigen of Type A blood.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time in Baltimore, my hometown, probably knows the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in North America, is not healthy. The thought of Fells Point on a humid night in July or August wouldn’t be complete without the ubiquitous smell of the harbor after a storm, when all of the trash has been washed toward shore. It’s fairly innocuous, just present if you take the time to notice. However, for a few weeks of summer 2007, the smell wasn’t just present, it was overwhelming. Massive die-offs lead to hundreds of decaying fish crowding Fells Point and the Inner Harbor, the parts of town responsible for tourist revenues, and where my sister worked at the Maryland Science Center.

“Consumption”, “King’s evil”, and the “white plague”. What do all of these have in common? They are all different names for the disease which we call Tuberculosis today.{1} Something with such threatening name should surely be quite the evil malady. In fact, “14,000 cases [of Tuberculosis, or TB,] were reported in 2005 in the United States”.{2} 14,000 cases? That’s not a terribly huge amount of people compared to the 2.4–3.3 million lives that AIDS claimed that same year. {3} And TB didn’t even kill all 14,000 of those people.

Klinefelter’s syndrome (KS) is a condition that results in boys who have an extra X chromosome in most of their cells. The first documented case was in 1942 and it is the second most common extra chromosome condition, occurring in about 1 out of every 500-1,000 newborn males. Women who have pregnancies after age 35 are slightly more likely to have baby boys with this syndrome. Affected males are often referred to as XXYs or 47s as the average human has 46 chromosomes while those with Klinefelter’s have 47.

Seasonal Affective Disorder As a Result of the Lack of Sunlight?

In the neural system, each hemisphere of the brain corresponds to the opposite side of the body with one side being dominate. This inborn characteristic of the humans’ renders us lateralized because, for example, the dominance of the right cerebral is responsible for left- handedness and vice-versa. (1) A great majority of humans are right-handed, 85-90% while the remaining percentage is left-handed. (5) But why is there such an unequal distribution? This can be due in part by both social and consumer influences because they help finalize the handedness of a person. For the right-handed culture we live in has lead to many more individuals converting from left-handedness to right-handedness than to right-handedness to left. (16)