Cell membrane

In Aristotle’s view, everything in this world can be categorized. Living beings include plants and animal. The plant has nutritive soul and the animal process both nutritive soul and perceptive soul. If we discuss animal further, we can divide animal into rational animal, which is human, and non-rational animal. The essential feature of “being an animal” is perception. From the Aristotle Introductory Reading: “413b2: What makes something an animal is primarily perception.” Perception is…

Genetic Engineering is the modification of an organism 's genetic composition by artificial means, often involving the transfer of specific traits, or genes, from one organism into a plant or animal of an entirely different species. With this new, rapidly growing, technology we are now able to do things that we once thought were impossible. In Ethics and the New Genetics, the Dalai Lama addresses problems that we need to consider as we continue to explore this microscopic world that we have…

In the case of a missing limb, the scientists would take stem cells from the patient and us it for the base of the new limb. If Humans mastered cloning then they could use that technology and the patient’s stem cells to construct a new arm, leg, ear, or whatever was missing without worrying too much about the patient’s body rejecting the foreign limb. In the case of organs the process would…

The mitochondria is one of the most interesting components of the eukaryotic cell. Endosymbiosis is the term modern scientists use for how the mitochondria came to be. Symbiosis translates from Greek to English as “living” “together.” Constrantin Mereschkowsky, known as the founding father of the theory of endosymbiosis, was one of people who started the concept of endosymbiosis, although he had called it “symbiogenesis,” defining it as: “the origin of organisms through the combination and…

As humans we all see ourselves as empowered people. We all feel as though we are the best of god’s creation and are powerful than any other living organism on this earth. Although out of that how much truth is really there? What makes us feel empowered to other living things when they are as much alive as any human is. Does this mean that we are seen as something different than any other living organisms such as an animal or is the human species animals? The definition of Animals is they are…

Gene Therapy & Cancer Cells Gene therapy is often defined as a treatment that uses genes to cure or prevent diseases. Genes, DNA, and protein are all involved with each other, therefore, in many immune diseases, if one fails your whole immune system could eventually fail. This treatment is relatively new; hence it is still a pretty risky experimentation since it involves getting genes into cancer cells. Gene Therapy is often involved in serious cancer cell treatments; its main purpose is to try…

Our Actions and Their Consequences Have you ever wanted to change yourself? You may want to rethink that. During the short story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, Charlie undergoes a experimental surgery to increase his intelligence. The story is a collection of all of Charlie’s progress reports from before to after his surgery. He continually writes better and with more intellect, and then he begins to decline. He gets amnesia and other terrible symptoms, such as depression, and…

external modifications to DNA that turn genes “on” and “off”. Although modifications don’t change the sequence per se, it changes the way the cells “read” genes. Essentially, this is what differentiates genetics from epigenetics. Going further into detail, genetics conceptually deal with gene and gene function. This focuses on how DNA sequences make changes in the cell. However, epigenetics refers to gene regulation. Instead, it focuses on the way DNA is regulated to attain those changes. …

Deciding Actively Listening for the Public Voice, by Robert Cook-Deegan and Jane Maienschein, discusses the issue of genetic engineering and the ethical dilemma and how the United States, government, and people are interacting in the struggle of the ethics behind genetic engineering. The authors present the facts that genetic engineering has laid in the grey area ever since it was first brought to in lab, and still continues to sit in that grey area. Genetic Engineering will occasionally pop up…

deadly disorder where the body cannot break down the three branched- chained amino acids (BCCA): leucine, isoleucine and valine. These amino acids are used to build proteins and when they are not being used they can be broken down and recycled in the cell. The complex that breaks these amino acids down is called BCKD (branched-chain alpa-ketoacid dehydrogenase) and is made up of six proteins. When a person has a mutation in one of the six proteins that creates the complex, the complex does not…