My roles in the Genetic Testing in Newborn Infants project were parent of a newborn and a lawyer. This project taught me that as a parent of a newborn I would have to take into consideration the stress that testing my child would put me under as well as how much testing and treating my child for possible diseases would cost. As a lawyer I would have to take into consideration the rights of the parents and the child and also the policies and ethical controversies that the screening may cause. With both rules a lot of long hard thinking would have to be done.

     If I had a newborn infant I would want he or she to be screened for treatable diseases. This is something that could save the lives of my child and many others and I see nothing wrong with it. The screening seems to be a very useful thing and I think all hospitals should perform the screening on all infants before they are released from the hospital. The heel of the child is simply pricked to obtain a sample of blood, and the few moments of tears from the prick are a small price to pay for the treatment of any diseases the child may have. If I had a child I would not hesistate to have it screened, as I would want my child to be healthy and have the best life it could possibly live.

1) Cells produce through both mitosis and meiosis. Through these processes the cells are duplicated to produce either identical copies (mitosis) or copies with some variation (meiosis). Depending on the type of organism, either process could occur, as mitosis occurs in organisms that reproduce asexually and meiosis in organisms that reproduce sexually.

2) Gametes, or parent cells, are produced during meiosis. Gamete cells are used to produce a zygote, and both donated half of their traits to the zygote during fertilization. Meiosis produces gametes because variation is necessary for the donation of traits to the zygote. In meiosis the the original maternal cell goes through meiosis I and produces two daughter cells. These cells go through meiosis II and produce a total of four daughter cells, or two sets of gametes.

3) Mitosis and meiosis have their similarities as well as their differences. Their big similarity is the fact that they are both reproductive processes. Also, both processes result in the production of daughter cells through cytokinesis. However, in mitosis only two daughter cells are produced while in meiosis four are produced. The big difference between the two processes is their purposes. The purpose of mitosis, which takes place in somatic cells, is to produce two diploid cells while meiosis, which takes place in the testes and ovaries, is to produce gametes, haploid cells, for sexual reproduction. While both processes include five stages of prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, and cytokinesis, meiosis has these five stages twice which is how four daughter cells are produced as opposed to two. Also, mitosis produces no variation in its daughter cells, as they are identical to the original parents. Meiosis produces much variation since chromosomes are crossed over in prophase I.

1)     Basically sexual reproduction is derived from meiosis. Asexual reproduction comes from mitosis. Through asexual reprodution DNA is duplicated to be an exact copy of its original parent cell. This means that over and over when a new organism is produced, it is an exact copy of its parent. If something occurs in the environment to make conditions for that organism unfavorable, then the newly produced organism would not survive well, as survival of the fittest is a definite part of the world. It would be mandatory for a variation of the type of organism produced to change so the new organism could survive. This means that sexual reproduction would be necessary, as it produces a variation in its organisms. This would make it more likely for that organism to survive in unfavorable conditions.

2)      During mitosis when a cell is duplicated, two cells are supposed to be produced. If an animal’s somatic cells have three chromosomes as opposed to two then the animal is not “normal” compared to other organisms. The entire set of cells contains an extra number of chromoses, meaning the organism has triple the correct number of chromosomes it needs. This means that the animal would die, as an organism can only live with either one too many or one too few chromosomes.  The animal could possibly have been exposed to radiation which might have led to mitosis going going wrong, specifically anaphase. Possibly, the chromatids might not have all seperated in half to each side, but an extra one could have seperated to one side.

3)     If the short needles from trees were used to plant more trees that would lead to the production of many new trees that the earth could definitely use. That itself is a major short-term benefit, as many of the trees we already have are being chopped or burned down. Looking at long-term benefits, the world could use more trees to supply us with oxygen and lumber, and this is an easy way to get them. However, say the needles used are not really from a fast-producing tree? Or maybe the tree are not usable to lumber companies or not able to be burned in a fire place. This would make the planting of these trees not as valuable as they were thought to be, though they would still provide us with additional oxygen.