Interview With Katie Pollard: Uncovering the Unique DNA of Human Evolution - Essay Sample

Introduction

In this interview, Katie Pollard provides intriguing answers on different questions related to the DNA of human evolution. After being asked why she was interested in comparing the DNA of humans and chimps, she provided an interesting response. Katie Pollard stated that chimps are close to humans despite living on the trees. It is possible to find little pieces of our genome that are unique to Chimps (Pollard, 2020). Katie Pollard conducted research on a Chimpanzee's genome in 2005 and compared it to the human genome (Pollard, 2020).

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To their amazing discovery, they found out that the human genome is almost 99 percent identical to the one in Chimpanzee. It was amazing given all the differences we see between humans and chimps. Katie Pollard spent months programming, debugging, and running her computer code. The code had a sequence of 118 letters, and amazingly 18 out of those letters were different between humans and chimp (Pollard, 2020). The swiftly evolving sequence was amazing at first, and it was discovered that the sequence is active in the human brain. Katie Pollard indicated that when she first began working in genetics, the primary focus was mainly on genes. But she later discovered that the huge majority of these billion letters in the human DNA are not sending signals about how to make proteins (Pollard, 2020). Finally, when asked whether Darwin would be intrigued by her discovery. She agreed that Darwin made tremendous contributions in explaining the idea of how evolution works. But fast-forwards to today, there are huge computer clusters, DNA sequences to broadly answer the question of DNA evolution (Pollard, 2020).

Understanding Heredity

Of all the branches of science, genetics is the most self-reflective and universal subject. Pythagoras (580-500 B.C.) argued that all hereditary factors originated from a child's father (Krock, 2001). The mother provided only the path, and nourishment for the fetus (Krock, 2001). He further alluded that semen was a mixture of hereditary data moving through a man's body, and gathering fluids from every organ it travels across. Pythagoras's theory could not quite explain the occurrence of shared physical traits between a mother and her child. Empedocles explained that an embryo resulted from the mixture of male and female hereditary traits found in these sexual fluids (Krock, 2001). Aristotle disagreed with Pythagoras by correctly stating that both the mother and father contribute hereditary traits that help in the creation of an offspring (Krock, 2001). He stated that semen was a man's purified blood that could engender a child when coupled with menstrual fluid inside a woman's body (Krock, 2001).

Harvey interestingly argued that menstrual blood did not help in the formation of a fetus, and also questioned the direct role of semen in reproduction. He implied that an egg found inside a female becomes fertilized by means of a "kind of infection" that occurs after a sexual act (Krock, 2001). Darwin's concept of heredity revolved around his idea of pangenesis. In pangenesis, pangenes are produced by every organ of the body and flow through the bloodstream (Krock, 2001). The hereditary element passed from each individual from these pangenes was therefore transferred to one's offspring (Krock, 2001). Finally, McClintock, an American botanist researched variation in the colors of corn kernels on a single cob (Krock, 2001). She assessed pigmentation changes in the corn and viewed it through microscopic evidence that two transposable genes "controlling elements were affecting the corn's pigmentation (Krock, 2001).

Before Watson and Crick And Defending Franklin's Legacy

Genes were discovered in 1865 by an Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel in his research with garden peas (Maddox, 2003). He found out that each gene influenced a single trait on the peas, such as height or color (Maddox, 2003). In 1920, he discovered that genes were composed of protein (Maddox, 2003). Another primary ingredient in the chromosome was deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). It was discovered in 1871 by a Swiss scientist, Fredrick Miescher (Maddox, 2003). In 1936, Oswald Avery, a microbiologist identified the "transforming principle", which explained that genes can carry genetic information from old chromosomes to new (Maddox, 2003). Rosalind Franklin has often been criticized for his discovery of double helix delineation. However, Elkin provided responses to the stance that Franklin took on this matter (Elkin, 2003). After being asked how close Franklin came to deciphering the structure of DNA. Elkin stated that she was very close (Elkin, 2003). Alluding that she had all the strictures of the helical backbone. Franklin discovered that there were two forms of DNA. Elkin also stated that Franklin would have taken at least three months to discover that the two forms of DNA were antiparallel and also the base-pairing idea derived from Watson (Elkin, 2003). Elkin further stated that upon seeing photo 51, Watson planned for a dinner meeting with Wilkins and coerced him to interpret the 34-angstrom measurements (Elkin, 2003).

References

Elkin, L. O. (2003). Defending Franklin's legacy. NOVA, Science Programming on air and online. Disponivel em< http://www. pbs. org/wgbh/nova/photo51/elkin. html>. Acesso em, 18. Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/elkin.html

Krock, L. (2001). Understanding heredity. Nova. Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genome/her_mcc.html

Maddox, B. (2003). Before Watson and Crick. NOVA, Science programming on air and online, April. Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/before.html

Pollard, K. (2020). The DNA of human evolution. Nova. Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dna-human-evolution