Emma-Evolution+is+in+the+Air+homework


 * 1) "if we are unlucky..." the author writes we will see evolution in action. What does she mean? Why would it by unlucky to see the avian virus evolve.
 * 2) She means that if the avian flu virus evolves it could evolve so that it more easily is spread from human to human.
 * 3) Define parasite.
 * 4) an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.
 * 5) Define gene.
 * 6) the basic physical unit of heredity; a linear sequence of nucleotides along a segment of DNA that provides the coded instructions for synthesis of RNA, which, when translated into protein, leads to the expression of hereditary character.
 * 7) She compares viruses to tiny parcels. Why? How are these parcels mailed?
 * 8) She compares viruses to tiny parcels because they are just a little pieces of genes that are mailed from one organism to another, either directly, through sneezes, feces, semen and the like, or indirectly, through carriers like insects.
 * 9) 20 million people died of the Spanish Flu during World War II. Yet the author claims to know that this flu virus was particularly deadly not that it was a normal virus but because of the war and wartime "deprivation" people were more likely to get sick and die. What two pieces of evidence indicate this was a very deadly virus unlike the normal flu virus.
 * 10) The Spanish Flu virus was especially deadly in young, healthy adults. The severeness of this virus was also seen after a team of biologists recently reconstructed the 1918 virus and used it to infect mice. Which concluded that the 1918 virus is far, far more lethal in mice than are other human flu viruses.
 * 11) What is H5N1?
 * 12) the virus causing the avian flu
 * 13) Since H5N1 has killed mostly birds, why are we worried about it?
 * 14) We are worried about it evolving, "After all, a few mutations to a bird virus could - in the absence of a vaccine - mean the difference between 60 people dead and several million"
 * 15) Two processes could change the H5N1 in a deadly way: sex and mutation. What is viral sex and how could it change the virus? What is viral mutation and how could this change the virus?
 * 16) Mutations alter the information content of genes; sex shuffles the pack, generating new gene combinations
 * 17) How can mutation lead to evolution (origin of new species)?
 * 18) Virus Mutation - acquire accidental changes to its genetic material - in such a way that it becomes able to travel between people.
 * 19) How can sex lead to evolution (origin of new species)?
 * 20) The virus might infect someone already sick with a strain of human flu, and the two viruses could have sex, thus creating a new virus that contains some genes from each