Cricket:
Back in the early 60s, Francis Crick and colleagues demonstrated and deduced
that the genetic code consisted (and still does, mind you) of 3-letter
'words', contains non-words ('stop' codons), and that many code words
are 'synonyms' calling for the same amino acid. These central insights
about biology were achieved with nothing more than a couple varieties
of E. coli (probably accessible from your local sewer) and the bacteriophage
(bacterial virus) T4. By the end of the course, you'll have an active
understanding of how they did it. Start date: today.
Click the above link to proceed to the simulation.
Follow this link to see relevant images from your textbook
Notebook Reports: This link explains the required format of the notebook report, and provides you with a good (that may prove useful in doing problem #2!) and a bad example of a report. The link also explains how to submit your notebook report as electronic entry through the D2L web-site of the course.
The following are tutorials that will probably prove useful. They are accessible from inside the scenario from the 'Flash Tutorials' link in the Protocols menu. Note that the 'leave tutorial' button doesn't work if you access them here; use your browser's back button instead
recombination tutorial
A practice mode for developing your deletion mapping skills is here
Stop codons are starting to rear their ugly heads as stones in the road (ah, the beauty of a mixed metaphor), Follow THIS LINK to read some words that might provide some guidance...
To get the Shockwave plug-in that is required to run the simulations, click the icon below. You'll need to follow a series of installation instructions; just do as your told and click 'yes' whenever it asks your permission to do anything. It's a big (1Meg) download, but you'll only need to do it once. You may already have it installed; if you try the simulation, it will either run OK or take you through the download process. Netscape browser is preferred; if you run into difficulties with Internet Explorer, you might want to try uninstalling the Shockwave plug-in first.
