The Secret of Life: Immortal Coils

Instructions: Write your answers on a separate piece of paper.

1. What was Karl Stetter (German microbiologist) looking for in the sulfur ponds around volcanoes?

2. How realistic is it to imagine that we could recreate extinct species from DNA samples trapped in amber?

3. If it is possible in theory to bring back an extinct species (assuming an intact DNA sample was available), consider that it is now very near to the day when human clones could be created from the DNA in frozen tissue samples. What would be some of the consequences of this?

4. What is the human genome project? What are scientists attempting?

5. What is the significance of the fact that all living things use the same genetic language of DNA. We also share many of the same genes with other species. What does this mean?

6. Why are nematode worms interesting from a scientific point of view? Why study nematodes instead of “higher” forms of life, such as humans?

7. Consider the moral/ethical consequences of genetic engineering. Is it ethical to put human genes in animals (which is currently being done) or to grow genetically human organs in an animal host (possible in the near future)?

8. Only about 1% of our DNA distinguishes us from the chimpanzee. (We are more different from other species, such as worms or yeast). Why does human DNA that has been inserted into a defective yeast cell allow the yeast to function properly?

9. Even if we are all descended from the same ancestors, why do we still share any genes with organisms that have been evolving along a different path for over a billion years? What could we possibly have in common with these primitive creatures?

10. In what way is the design (evolution by means of natural selection) of a living thing different from the way a human engineer or architect might design an efficient structure?