Interactive Biology, by Leslie Samuel

I’ve decided from here on out to include the slides and the handout in the same post. Below you will find both the slides and the handout for the chapter on Protection, Support and Locomotion, dealing with the skin, skeletal system, and muscular system. I go into the structure and functions of all three, and get into some of the exciting details of how the skin is involved in temperature regulation, how the skeletal system is there for our protection and how muscle contraction actually happens.

These are the actual presentation slides for Chapter 11 in Biology, The Dynamics of Life. You can go through it at your own pace and learn about the wonders of DNA, how this Blueprint results in the production of proteins, and how that results in an organism’s traits. It also covers the topic of Mutations. It’s amazing to think that inside each cell, as tiny as they are, you can find the information that results in all of this complexity that we see. Enjoy!

So you think you understand DNA and Genes? You say you know how the process of transcription works? Yeah yeah, you even understand translation, and you are an expert on Mutations because you’ve watched X-Men ten times. Go ahead and test your knowledge by playing the DNA and Genes Game. Go on, I dear ya!

In this section, I talk about changes to DNA Sequence, a.k.a Mutations. Mutations can lead to some significant problems, but in some cases, they can also lead to a trait that is beneficial to an organism, helping it better survive in its particular environment. There are different types of mutations, and these different types vary in how much of a difference they can make in an organism’s genetic code. Any change to the genetic code can result in a change in the proteins, which can result in a significant change in an organism’s traits.

DNA is expressed and put into action through proteins. These proteins are involved in structural support and they also act as enzymes. Enzymes are involved in all of the chemical reactions that happen in the body. In this lecture, I first talk about the relationship between DNA and Protein and how this relationship leads to all of the traits that an organism expresses. I then go into the differences between DNA and RNA.