Tutoring biology, terms come up. The tutor mentions assortative mating. Assortative mating is the situation where individuals choose mates “similar” to themselves. With humans, one could imagine this as tall people choosing other tall people as mates. Technically, it’s phenotype …
Tutoring biology, terms about evolution come up. The tutor mentions convergent evolution. Convergent evolution is the process in which species that aren’t related, nor similar, develop corresponding facilities. An example often given is flying: honeybees and hummingbirds can both fly, …
Tutoring biology, extinctions might come up. The tutor mentions a lesser, yet still important, one. There are five known mass extinctions recorded during Earth’s existence; the Pleistocene isn’t one, but a “lesser” extinction. It led to the end of such …
Tutoring biology, terms are important. The tutor mentions the ideas of genotype and phenotype. Continuing about genes and alleles (see my posts here and here), the concepts of genotype and phenotype seem to follow logically. Genotype and phenotype are concepts …
Tutoring biology, the concept of dominance comes up relating to genetics. The tutor gives a simple explanation. Continuing with concepts from my post on genes and alleles, dominance seems logical to visit next. The following is a simplification. Let’s imagine …
Tutoring biology, terms related to evolution arise. The tutor mentions homologous and analogous. Homologous structures are ones that might not have the same function now, but have developed from a common structure seen in the embryos. A human arm and …
Tutoring biology, terms are important. The tutor mentions the ideas of gene and allele. The following explanation is a simplification, but focuses on the concepts. Typically, we might imagine a gene as a segment of DNA that codes for a …
Tutoring biology, ideas about evolution arise. The tutor mentions punctuated equilibrium. Punctuated equilibrium suggests that, during the process of evolution, a species might remain relatively unchanged for a long period (the equilibrium), then suddenly undergo a period of rapid change …
Biology: punctuated equilibrium and the fossil record Read more »
Tutoring biology, clarifying terms is sometimes necessary. The tutor distinguishes between recombinant DNA and recombinant chromosomes. Recombinant DNA contains sequences from more than one source organism. It can refer to DNA produced by splicing together samples from different species. (See …
Biology: recombinant DNA vs recombinant chromosomes Read more »
Tutoring biology, terms come up. The tutor mentions polymorphism. In comp-sci circles, you might hear about polymorphism connected with object oriented programming. Yet, polymorphism is also a thing in genetics. Polymorphism, in genetics, refers to the idea that a given …