Citations

"Charles II of England." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.

"Computer viruses vs biological viruses." Science in Africa, Africa's First On-Line Science Magazine, Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. Prod. Troy Miller. Perf. Derek Richardson, Eric Christian Olsen . 2003. Film.

She's the Man. Prod. Andy Fickman. Perf. Amanda Bynes, Channing Tatum. 2006. Film.

"Haemophilia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web.  

"Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003) - IMDb." IMDb - Movies, TV and Celebrities. N.p., n.d. Web.  

Journal #10: Computer and Biological Viruses

Recently, my computer has shut down due to a virus (which I have no idea how I got in the first place, anyway), and not only are there malfunctions with it (the fact it kept shutting down at inconvenient moments)—there were also constant spamming coming from my e-mails and social network accounts, a nuisance made aware by my friends. Fortunately, I managed to fix it on my own, a process that left me utterly exhausted, as I know nothing about computers. However, the research I have done on computer viruses during that time certainly shown me some resemblances between it and biological viruses, hence the derived name “computer virus”.

Everybody loves viruses.

Some of the similarities I have found between the two different viruses are firstly, the contamination part.  Both biological and computer viruses are spread through some sort of contact. For example, I downloaded a movie streamer onto my computer, as in the way eating with dirty hands will invite the virus into your body. Just like a biological virus, the computer virus has to be compatible with your computer in order to damage it (how nice); thus, the resemblance the lock and key system of a certain virus for a certain host. Also, the two viruses could be prevented: biological ones by vaccination and just precautions, and computer ones by anti-viruses programs and precautions as well (like not downloading some suspicious programs). Likewise, the two viruses are nasty things that use the host relentlessly at the host’s expense, and could only “live” with a host ; a computer virus could potentially damage the hard drive of a computer and delete files (luckily I got all my files backed up), a biological virus could potentially infect and kill a host. However, both the computer and biological host have some defences to work against these detestable, little parasites.  For example, I used a scan to locate and delete the corrupted file and certain viruses could be wiped out by our white blood cells. With these similarities, it’s really no surprise a computer virus is named after its biological counterpart.

Biological Virus

Journal #9: She's The Man: A study of Intrasexual/Intersexual Selection

 

I was watching the chick flick, She’s the Man, when I have noticed that it touches one of the mechanisms of evolution—sexual selection. The main character is teenaged Viola, a girl whose soccer team got cancelled, and so she decided it would be a really good idea to enter a boy’s school as her brother, in order to continue playing. Of course, much drama ensues and soon the eruption of confused love triangles emerged, and with that, the clichéd intersexual and intrasexual “selection” amongst the characters also ­arises.

Viola, or, "Sebastian"

Viola, dressed up as a Sebastian (her twin brother) meets the good-looking Duke, with whom she falls in love. However, he is interested in Olivia, who develops a crush on “Sebastian”. Meanwhile, Viola’s sexist ex-boyfriend Justin, sees Viola and Duke in a suggestive position, and swears to “take it to the field”. First of all, this movie is an excellent, and entertaining, example of sexual selection. Intrasexual selection could be shown through several relationships: for example, Viola, who tries to win Duke’s affection from the good-looking Olivia; Duke and “Sebastian” fighting over Olivia (or more like Duke was being obtuse and convinced that Sebastian is “stealing his girl”) and also Justin and Duke’s quarrel regarding Viola. All of these are sexual selection within the same gender (well, technically with “Sebastian”), fighting for mates of the opposite gender. On the other hand, intersexual selection is also shown at the end when the other gender picks a “mate”: Duke has chosen Viola after all is, of course, revealed like a happy move should end things with, Olivia picks Sebastian (the real one, who came back) and Justin—well, Justin gets nobody.

And of course, happy ending.

Journal #8: Royal Families and Founder's Effect

I remembered a while back, when my socials teacher was mentioning the commonality of royal families’ inbreeding, in order to “keep the royal blood” within. One of the said families developed a hereditary genetic disorder called haemophilia, in which the affected individual’s body is impaired in the way that their blood does not clog. With a bit of research, haemophilia proves congruous to my hypothesis, considering the inbred lineage: it is a recessive trait (although I am oversimplifying here). 

King Charles II of Spain, who suffered from many genetic disorders

                                                                                          

Most of the descendants of these inbreeding families carried many rare genetic disorders, one of the famous examples being Charles II of Spain, who suffered from numerous (manymanymang) disabilities, mental, physical and emotional. These inbred-born birth defects do embody the concept of founder effect. Reproductively isolated and with a controlled, along with very small, gene flow, each of those royal families have a relatively high frequency of inherited disorders. Considering the genetic diversity, or in other words, not procreating with someone very genetically similar to themselves, is the key to life: as it prevents the expression of deleterious, recessive genes (aka bad, harmful traits). Moreover, traits like Hapsburg jaw and hemophilia are quite prevalent in participants of inbred lineage, but do not represent the majority population (I have never met one whose tongue is so engorged they drool)—indicating a bit of reference to bottleneck effect, or the population not representing the allele frequencies of the initial one, as well. The range of recessive genes is pretty remarkable, despite the tragedy of it all (bleeding to death from a paper cut?). However, I do have one question: do they eventually turn into a new species, if given enough time for their reproductive isolation? Or just simply meet their recessive deaths, leaving no descendants behind?

Journal #7: Misconception of Evolution?

Searching for a comedy film, I was browsing through a list in IMDB when I came across the title Dumb and Dumberer. Intrigued, I proceeded to clink on the link to learn a bit about the plot before choosing to watch it. During that, its promotional picture has shown up, and it looks like this.

This model of “evolution”, used in an entertainment context and though it is a comical and effective advertisement, it does little to set straight many people’s misconceptions on evolution. Heck, if I were not studying Biology, I probably would have thought this was a correct portrayal of evolution, as well.

From this promotional picture, I inferred that the two main characters, Harry and Lloyd, are so incredibly dim-witted that the “simple” apes themselves are more advanced than they are. Moreover, this picture also suggest the evolutionary representation most people thought it true: as time goes on, the species (usually on the left, and looking minimal) gradually becomes more complex and into a whole different species altogether. The classic example being the apes—there is an idea in which we, as humans, came from monkeys or apes or something to that variety. I, along with most people I know, thought it true for a while. However, now, with some knowledge in this matter, I can state confidently that this notion is incorrect. Apes and humans share a common ancestor, but diverged into different species before some traits; thus, our appearances are both similar and differentiating. We are not transformed apes. Also, if the evolutionary history is made into a visual representation, it should be this:

Evolutionary history!

—where the evolutionary relationships with other organisms, and the divergence, are shown. Once again, oh, the things you learn in biology.