- Feb 2018
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But the Allied campaign failed, and the Nazis punished the Netherlands by blocking food supplies, plunging much of the country into famine. By the time the Netherlands was liberated in May 1945, more than 20,000 people had died of starvation.
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“We found a 10 percent increase in mortality after 68 years,” said Dr. Lumey.
What is the significance of this data? What questions do you have about the data to validate it? If you were asked to discuss these findings in a DBQ, what concerns would you have? What other information do you need to draw an informed conclusion?
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In middle age, they had higher levels of triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. They also experienced higher rates of such conditions as obesity, diabetes and schizophrenia.
This would be the product of epidemiological studies. "Epidemiology is the study of the incidence and causes of disease. Most epidemiological studies are observational rather than experimental because it is rarely possible to investigate the causes of disease in human populations by carrying out experiments." (Oxford Biology textbook Allott, A)
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carefully controlled
Why are they using animal trials instead of humans? What do they mean by carefully controlled? Why is this easier in animals? From your textbook: Edward Jenner was an 18th century scientist who noted that a milkmaid claimed that because she had caught the disease cowpox she would never develop smallpox. He infected an eight-year-old boy with cowpox. After a brief illness, the boy recovered. Jenner then purposely infected the boy with smallpox to confirm that he had the ability to resist the disease. He was the first person to use human beings as research subjects in testing a vaccine. He did not do any preliminary laboratory research nor any preliminary animal studies before experimenting with human beings, his subject was a small child well below the age of consent, and he deliberately infected him with an extremely virulent, often fatal, disease-causing agent. Here is a great link about the Nuremberg Code of Ethics to provide more of a historical background.
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epigenetics.
Here is a great paper written about epigenetics. What are some mechanisms that silence genes? What normally happens to epigenetic tags in gametes? Embryos?
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They seem to silence genes
By what mechanism do these methyl groups silence the DNA?
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Dr. Lumey and his colleagues propose that these methyl groups disrupt how cells normally use genes.
Notice the language that they use in this paper to describe the research. What have they found? Causation or correlation? How could they statistically determine the strength of the correlation? What are the implications of these findings?
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Pregnant women, it turns out, were uniquely vulnerable, and the children they gave birth to have been influenced by famine throughout their lives
Question: Can changes in the environment lead to heritable changes? If so, how? What implications are there for Mendelian genetics if these changes are in fact heritable?
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