Question

Question 1: The alien species has decided that they will use a special ray gun to destroy all of a specific type of organelles from all of the cells of your outer ears. Choose which of the following you would miss the least and discuss exactly what the results would be on a cellular level (hint- think of the functions of that organelle). List any treatments that you would try to counteract the loss of that organelle. Choose one of the following organelles to be removed in all of the cells of your outer ears: nucleus, ribosomes, mitochondria, vacuoles, golgi, ER, or lysosomes

Question 2: The alien species has decided that they want use a ray gun on you that will duplicate or remove one of the 23 types of chromosomes in all of your body cells. You get to choose which chromosome is affected (choose the the one that would impact your life the least). If your last name begins with H-Z, choose a chromosome that will be duplicated (only one will be duplicated so you will now have 47 chromosomes).

Question 3: The aliens have decided to remove one chemical element from the entire earth (one of the elements from the periodic table). 6 points: List and describe which 3 elements would impact life on earth the most if removed and exactly why each of these elements are important to life. 4 points: List and describe which two elements would impact life the least and describe why you wouldn't mind them being permanently removed from earth forever.

Answer 1

Please find the answers below:

Answer 1: Lysosomes: Lysosomes are those orgenelles which are actively engaged in clearing off the unrequired material from the cells such as foreign materials, antigens, chemicals etc. It is important to note here that the external ears are very robust structures and do not generally suffer from such ailments in which an intracellular protrusion of extra-cellular material takes place. Thus, no hydorlytic enzymatic activity is necessary required by lysosomes in the external ears. Hence, it would be least pathological to destroy them from the cells and no treatment modality is specifically required.

Answer 2: Chromosome 7: Chromosome 7 is the one which contains maximum number of introns. Although deletion or addition of any chromosome will be deleterious for the cells, but considering the presence of a large amount of non-coding region in this chromosome, its duplication will pose minimum pathological damage to the cells.

Answer 3: Elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen (maximum required): These three elements along with many other essential elements are absolutely required for sustaining life of earth. Their non-replaceable presence in almost every biomolecule ranging from DNA to protein makes them necessary for the life to be sustained.

On the other hand, removal of heavy elements such as radioactive elements would not pose any deleterious effect for sustaining life on earth since they do not form as an essential part of the life.