Artificial sweeteners, such as NutraSweet and Splenda, have no nutritional value in terms of calories, yet they taste sweet to human subjects.

a) Explain how compounds with no nutritional value can be perceived as ‘sweet’ when ingested.

b) For most of their adult lives, mosquitoes feed on nectar (i.e. sugar water). When you run taste preference tests on lab mosquitoes, you find that though they drink large amounts when presented with sugar water, they avoid drinking water that has been sweetened with Splenda. Describe what might explain this pattern of results, in terms of gustatory receptors in insects.

Describe three (3) specific ways human sexual reproduction produces genetic diversity in offspring.

Consider this hypothetical situation: you are heterozygous for an autosomal recessive genetic disorder and your potential reproductive partner is also heterozygous for that same recessive genetic disorder.

a. Do you and your potential partner exhibit the recessive phenotype?

b. What is the probability the offspring of this breeding pair will have the recessive phenotype?

c. Would you have children with this person? Why or why not?

d. Should people known to be carriers of a recessive genetic disorder be legally prohibited from having children? Why or why not?

You are studying the source of a new virus that has recently infected humans. You suspect that the virus was transferred from oter primates (they exhibit a similar infection), specifically chimpanzees, gorillas, or orangutans. You sample blood from several infected humans and sequence some viral genes. You then build a phylogenetic tree with the human sequences and all the known strains from each primate. Draw a hypothetical phylogenetic tree that would suggest that the virus came from gorillas, and this transfer occured twice independently. Label chimp sequences (c), gorilla (g), orangutans (o), and humans (h).

Sterility is associated with loss of function (LOF) at a gene Z. The gene has 5000 bases where LOF mutations can occur. Assuming the human mutation rate is 2x10^-8 per generation. Homozygotes for LOF alleles at Z are sterile, and heterozygotes have mild sterility issues. The heterozygotes for LOF alleles at Z have 20% fewer children than an average individual I the population, but suffer no other ill effects. A) What is the frequency of the Z allele under mutation-selection balance? B) What proportion of the individuals in the population are sterile due to being homozygous for a LOF mutation at Z?

1.     What unique challenges doe the federal government face in managing its IT project portfolio?

2.     The federal government CIO focused primarily on asking agencies to identify high-risk projects. What other information might be valuable for the CIO to receive from agencies?

3.     The current communication effort is focused on identifying and managing high-risk projects across the federal agencies. What are the other ways in which the CIO could use communication across federal agencies to improve performance?

4.     What are the relevant human considerations in reporting high-risk projects?

Piaget's stage theory ends when children enter puberty, with his formal operational stage. Perry studied how college students progress beyond formal operational stage: first how they move from a dualistic (right versus wrong) view of the universe to a more relativistic view, and second, how they develop commitments  within this relativistic world. We have not discussed Perry in class. I am interested in knowing whether you agree or disagree with his perspective on human cognitive development. In other words where do you position yourself stage wise.

A relative of yours has recently been diagnosed with mitral regurgitation, a heart condition where the mitral valve does not function as it normally should. Your relative knows you are studying human physiology and asks you the importance of valves in heart function.

1. a) Describe the pathway of blood flow through the heart starting from the vena cava and ending at the aorta. Include in your answer the role of the valves in ensuring the one-way direction of blood flow
2. b) From your knowledge on the normal role of the mitral valve, what are two potential complications that could arise as a result of mitral regurgitation?

Is smoking during pregnancy associated with premature births? To investigate this question, researchers selected a random sample of 111 pregnant women who were smokers. The average pregnancy length for this sample of smokers was 262 days. From a large body of research, it is known that length of human pregnancy has a standard deviation of 16 days. The researchers assume that smoking does not affect the variability in pregnancy length. Find the 99% confidence interval to estimate the length of pregnancy for women who smoke. (Note: The critical $z$-value to use, $z_c$, is: 2.576) ( , ) Your answer should be rounded to 3 decimal places.

Topic: Neuroscience

1. (a) How do neurons communicate with each other? What is this process called? Explain in detail how information from one neuron gets passed on to another and do not leave out any stages in this process.

Key words you must use in your explanation: synapse, post and pre-synaptic neuron and their structures, vesicles, neurotransmitters, receptors, excitatory and inhibitory.

(b) In the beginning of our lecture on neuroscience, we discussed a quote from Hippocrates that summarizes the neurosciences perspective on the human mind. Please explain the main message or “essence” of this quote. Is Hippocrates a monist or a dualist?

Is smoking during pregnancy associated with premature births? To investigate this question, researchers selected a random sample of 131 pregnant women who were smokers. The average pregnancy length for this sample of smokers was 262 days. From a large body of research, it is known that length of human pregnancy has a standard deviation of 16 days. The researchers assume that smoking does not affect the variability in pregnancy length. Find the 95% confidence interval to estimate the length of pregnancy for women who smoke. (Note: The critical z -value to use, z c , is: 1.960) ( , ) Your answer should be rounded to 3 decimal places.