Visions Chapters 7 and
8
1) Kaku describes a predictive law which makes it possible to peer into the future and make reasonable estimates when certain medical milestones will be achieved. The law states “The number of DNA sequences that we can determine doubles roughly every two years.” What name does Kaku use to refer to this law?
a) Gene doubling scenario.
b)
c) Gene prediction law.
d) Gene
coding doubling law.
2) How does Kaku say doctors may someday treat aging?
a) As a polygenic illness.
b) With a “genetic cocktail” that will slow aging.
c) As a reversible phenomena.
d) Both
A and C above.
3) William Hazeltine says medicine will become what?
a) An art.
b) Prevention-based.
c) Only for the elite.
d) Practicable
by anyone.
4) Erwin Schrödinger was repelled by the sorry state of biology. In a time when many biologists were still influenced by “vitalism” Schrödinger asserted that living things could be understood by the quantum theory of atoms and that life was governed by a genetic code (a phrase he coined) locked in the arrangement of our molecules. He wrote a book about this. What is the name of the book?
a) “The Double Helix”
b) “The Molecular Basis of Life”
c) “What is Life?”
d) “Vitalism Exposed”
5) By 2020 many scientists expect the cost per base-pair of DNA could be an infinitesimal fraction of a penny, making what possible?
a) The assembly of living beings from molecules in a lab.
b) The creation of new medicines.
c) Personalized DNA sequences.
d) Biological
computers.
6) By using homologous genes to show the genetic distance between species biologists can do what?
a) Determine how far apart habitats are for two species.
b) Determine when species diverged.
c) Determine how long a strand of DNA is.
d) Determine
which species can inter-breed.
7) The Human Genome Project is the beginning of an entirely new science. It’s turning biology into an information science. From a computer science point of view gene sequencing problems are challenging algorithmic questions. In the past biologists learned about life by analyzing the interior of living specimens (in vivo). In the last century, they learned to study life in glass (i.e. in vitro). In the future they will study life via
a) computers, (i.e. in silico).
b) electron scanning microscope.
c) astrology
d) laboratory
experiments
8) The DNA chip does what?
a) Squeezes an entire DNA laboratory onto a single chip.
b) Creates computer-designed DNA.
c) Creates human-designed DNA.
d) Stores
a textbook and online class on DNA analysis.
9) The rapid progress towards personalized DNA sequencing should continue steadily and unabated for the next twenty-five years. By 2020 we should have a nearly complete Encyclopedia of Life. It is largely a by-product of what?
a) The large number of biologists working on the project.
b) Atomic energy developments.
c) Cold war technology.
d) The
fact that DNA sequencing techniques are easily automated and computerized.
10) Imagine a protein molecule that consists of a large collection of Slinky coils bound together by string. Now shake this strange contraption. At first, it seems as if the resulting motions are completely random and impossible to predict. But actually the final configuration of these coils, no matter how complicated, is nothing but what?
a) The shape that will best serve the purpose it was designed for.
b) A shape determined by the molecules surrounding and outside the protein under consideration.
c) The state of minimum energy.
d) The
shape of greatest complexity.
Visions Chapter 8
11) In 1996 doctors at the
a) Shrink and stop lung cancer from growing and in one case, wipe it out altogether.
b) Combat aging.
c) Combat HIV.
d) Eliminate
Alzheimer’s.
12) Leroy Hood predicts that over the next 20 to 40 years we will be able to eradicate what?
a) Heart disease.
b) Pulmonary disease.
c) Neurological diseases.
d) The
major diseases that plague
13) Doctors expect to have by 2020 almost a complete encyclopedia of perhaps hundreds of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes giving us an understanding of the molecular basis for cancer and opening up scores of new ways of attacking it. This will give us what?
a) A unified theory of cancer.
b) A way to put our knowledge of cancer on the internet.
c) A way to make designer babies.
d) More
complicated classes in college.
14) The mysterious biological clock that determines when normal cells die and explains why cancer cells are immortal is called what?
a) Chronogenes
b) Telomeres
c) Thanatos-genes
d) Hebe-genes
15) What is it that acts as a “cap” on the end of our genes that keeps them from getting “frayed”?
a) Cap genes
b) Lace-tip genes
c) Telomeres
d) Selvage
genes
16) When cancer cells produce telomeres they “forget” what?
a) How to die.
b) They belong to and have the same identity as the host body.
c) What part of the body they belong in.
d) Their
social security number.
17) __________ new harmful genes enter the human gene pool every generation. As a result the battle against genetic disease will never end.
a) one million
b) ten billion
c) fifty million
d) one
billion
18) Genetic defects may have caused what?
a) The American Revolution
b) The French Revolution
c) The Russian Revolution
d) Both
a) and c)
19) W French Andersen came up with a method of gene therapy whereby he modified a virus so it would contain a gene the patient was lacking, and then infected the blood of a girl who needed the gene. The gene then inserted itself in the patient’s DNA as a normal virus would. The difference is, this virus has been made harmless, and inserts a necessary gene in the patient’s DNA. What is the name of the girl mentioned in the book?
a) Rena Davis
b) Samantha Halos
c) Ashanthi Desilva
d)
20) Germ-line therapy has already been used in animals and …
a) there is great commercial potential that has already been exploited.
b) there is no foreseeable barrier to extending this technology to humans.
c) this technology can only be used in beneficial ways.
d) this
technology has no effect on sex cells.