Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Sweet Sweet Science

I usually say that half my life is Science and the other half Religion. Then I also say half the time I'm thinking of sugar and the other half of the time I'm thinking about cheese. Once in awhile though, I get those two categories mixed up and I end up with something like this. Sugary Science. Is it that I love sugar and science too much or am I just a big nerd? Or all of the above... This is starting to sound like a multiple choice question isn't it? Maybe I should go back to my original plan of being a biology teacher. It's obviously in my blood if I'm doing things like this at home in my spare time.
Anyone at my work would see these 3 pictures and know exactly what is going on and roll their eyes at me, but then I work in a genetics lab. Can anyone else figure it out? Let's be more specific.
Pink is dominant(X)/White is recessive(x)
Normal Sprinkles is dominant(Y)/Too Many Sprinkles is recessive(y)
The parents in this example let's say are xxYY and Xxyy.
You can see the resulting phenotype, but what is the genotype in their offspring in the photo?
How many other phenotypes and genotypes are possible from the cross of these two cookies?
If that was too easy, try it if the parent cookies were xxYy and Xxyy. What are the chances you would get the phenotype of the cookies in the picture? What other outcomes are possible?
I won't even get into how much more complicated it get's when you start using camels... And then if you start crossing the camels with the other animals and it becomes a problem for AP Biology students. If you add in a little bit of Darwin and evolution then you get a circus... and they are so delicious! This is college level genetics stuff below. Don't even bother trying to figure it out.
This post has been brought to you by Darwin and Mendal. Thanks guys! We wouldn't have circus cookies without you...well we would but we just wouldn't understand them as well.

(I did actually work out the answers to the questions above if anyone wants their quizzes corrected. Andy- you should use this as a geocaching puzzle)

5 comments:

Megan D. said...

Ha, ha! U R SMRT. :)

Candi Criddle said...

Ha, ha! U R a nerd.

...but I still want to hang out, so what does that make me?

Unknown said...

You can see the resulting phenotype, but what is the genotype in their offspring in the photo: XxYy

How many other phenotypes and genotypes are possible from the cross of these two cookies: Phenotypes and genotypes are both 2. It's 50/50 pink or white with all of them having normal sprinkles.


If that was too easy, try it if the parent cookies were xxYy and Xxyy. What are the chances you would get the phenotype of the cookies in the picture: 25%

What other outcomes are possible:
25% XxYy, 25% xxYy, 25% Xxyy and 25% xxyy. So 50% pink and 50% white with half of each normal sprinkles and half too many.

Kris and Harrison got me started on remembering how it all works and then went to bed, Jerry said that it would be more interesting if it were plants. I myself like yummy animal cookies, Xxyy are my favorites. I'm guessing nerd is a dominant trait in our family due to the obvious phenotypes.

Winters Outloud said...

Hmmmm.... cookies. Oh, and the science part was cool, too.

KATIE said...

I just realized I never commented back on here. Jailynn's answers were all correct. Plus extra points for indentifying that the nerd trait is dominant in our family so A+...or is it recessive and we all just happened to have it.