Science Things I Wish My Teacher had Told Me

[beyelzu]

I am studying for a genetics test today and was reviewing the notes. One of the things that we are studying is how dna is replicated. While I already knew why DNA is read 5' to 3', the figure made me remember asking my bio 1103 teacher who did not know or did not want to tell me. I was left with a just because answer.

So a nucleotide is a phosphate group, a base and a sugar.



The sugar is labelled ribose in this picture but it is actually deoxyribose. Ribose has oh groups on both the 2' sugar and the 3' sugar.

The reason dna is read 5' to 3' is because that is how it is assembled and it is assembled that way because the next nucleotide gets attached to the OH group found at the 3' carbon on the sugar.

so basically 5' and 3' comes from the sugars that are in DNA.

I wish I had been told that instead of just, its 5' to 3'

So what do you wish you science teachers had told you, either because it was really cool or because it would make other things make more sense?

[Crumb]

What does 5' to 3' mean?

[beyelzu]

the carbons in the ribose are numbered 1 to 5.

the hydroxyl group on the 3' carbon(not sure why they use ' instead of just the numbers, although it does distinguish those carbons from the carbons in the base) bonded to the next nucleotide which has a phosphate group attached to the 5' carbon.


this is the phosphate sugar backbone of dna and it is essentially these sugars attached to each other by a phosphodiester bond.



here you can see some bases strung together. DNA strands are complementary and antiparallel. So on the outside looking at the pentagons which are the deoxyribose, that Phosphate-5'carbon-4'carbon-3'carbon-phosphate-5'prime carbon

It shows the orientation of the dna strand by using the orientation of the sugars.

[The Lone Ranger]

Actually, I wish I'd been taught more about the carbon configurations in DNA nucleotides myself. In my first Cell Bio course, the instructor basically said, "it just works this way."

Once I figured out what 3', 5', etc. actually meant, it made understanding why the two strands in a DNA molecule are antiparallel (as opposed to parallel), and why DNA polymerase works the way that it does (assembling one of the DNA strands in chunks, rather than in a linear fashion) about 1,000 times more obvious and intuitive.


Phosphorylation would have been a good thing to have learned about as well, as opposed to "practically every chemical reaction in the body involves ATP at some point." Once you understand phosphorylation, you start to see that an enormous number of chemical reactions in the body involve phosphorylation. It also really hammers home the point that at a molecular level, evolution is a very, very conservative process.



Speaking of which, I really wish my instructors had spent more time talking about evolution. It was essentially a taboo subject when I was in junior-high and high school. But without it, learning about biological diversity is just so much "stamp collecting," as someone once put it. Once I started reading about biological evolution on my own, all the stuff I'd learned about biological diversity, classification and taxonomy suddenly made sense. That's precisely why I emphasize the subject of evolution in all my classes; even my Human Anatomy & Physiology classes. As Dobzhansky pointed out, "Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."



Along similar lines, my high school chemistry classes basically consisted of memorizing valences. But once I understood something about orbitals and valence shells and electron configurations, it suddenly became obvious why atoms bond the way that they do, and why some form covalent bonds while others form ionic bonds (and why some don't normally form bonds at all).

[Qingdai]

I wonder if part of the reason some of the stuff wasn't taught was the instructors didn't get instruction in it themselves? Evolution has been around for quite a while, but for me (in my 40s) the DNA sequencing information is rather new. There's a lot of things I learned in microbiology which have changed over the years.
For example, there's a bacteria which lives perfectly well in an autoclave!



Again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermophile

[thedoc]

Many subjects are moving very quickly now especially in the sciences. When I graduated and got my teaching certificate I needed to get 30 more credits to get the permanent certification, (which actually will expire if you stop teaching), and the credits can be in anything, not necessarily in your major. When I took physics in HS the teacher had taught my parents and hadn't upgraded his knowledge since he started teaching. Public school teachers are not required to keep up to date. I was taught a lot that was not correct in HS and college and I'm sure that hasn't changed much.

[thedoc]

In many places there is a resistance to allow anything to be taught that contradicts some religious beliefs.

[Doctor X]

I wish I had been told that turkeys cannot fly. . . .

--J. "Oh the Humanity!" D.

[S.Vashti]

I wish I had learned stuff about intra-cellular membranes much earlier, it would have made the movie in my head make much more sense, and would have provided a good ground (pun intended) for connecting ideas about cellular metabolism.

[ceptimus]

I wish they'd taught me that winds are named after the direction they come from rather than the (much more obvious to me) direction that they're blowing.

I must have been about 17 before I realised the trick they'd been playing on me. Before that I always wondered why a north wind was supposed to be cold - if it's blowing north then it must have come from the south, so it should be warmer, right? I suppose, if I thought about it at all, I thought it was due to weird Coriolis forces that cause winds to blow in circles.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Doctor X

I wish I had been told that turkeys cannot fly. . . .

That would have fit into everything else you learned.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

I wish they'd taught me that winds are named after the direction they come from rather than the (much more obvious to me) direction that they're blowing.

I must have been about 17 before I realised the trick they'd been playing on me. Before that I always wondered why a north wind was supposed to be cold - if it's blowing north then it must have come from the south, so it should be warmer, right? I suppose, if I thought about it at all, I thought it was due to weird Coriolis forces that cause winds to blow in circles.

Well thats all wrong anyhow,

They Call the Wind Mariah proper version -...

&feature=related

[Angakuk]

That is one of my favorite songs. I remember first hearing that song when I was about six years old, 1961 or thereabouts. It has such a haunting quality. I particularly like the line
And now I'm lost, so gone and lost
Not even God can find me.

[Angakuk]

Back on topic.

How is babby formed?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Back on topic.

How is baby formed?

PFM.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

That is one of my favorite songs. I remember first hearing that song when I was about six years old, 1961 or thereabouts. It has such a haunting quality. I particularly like the line
And now I'm lost, so gone and lost
Not even God can find me.

Let's just hope you can find your way back someday.

[Janet]

I wish they hadn't simplified genetics so much in high school. It's kind of off-putting to have your teacher tell you that if one parent is blue-eyed and one brown-eyed the kids will either be one or the other when you have one blue-eyed parent and one brown-eyed parent but you and your siblings have green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes and hazel eyes among you. Also hair, both parents had brown hair when I was born but we had blond, red and several shades of brown among the kids.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Janet

I wish they hadn't simplified genetics so much in high school. It's kind of off-putting to have your teacher tell you that if one parent is blue-eyed and one brown-eyed the kids will either be one or the other when you have one blue-eyed parent and one brown-eyed parent but you and your siblings have green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes and hazel eyes among you. Also hair, both parents had brown hair when I was born but we had blond, red and several shades of brown among the kids.

It's not just that they trim it down and simplify it, they then present that verson as if it were the end all and be all of the subject. My daughter and I were talking about something she had learned and when I tried to tell her that there was more to it and it was more complicated, she argued with me and said that her teacher said this was all there is to it. Some Teachers are afraid to admit that they don't know everything.

[S.Vashti]

I do recall when my high school algebra teacher made an off-hand comment to me at the end of one class. He said it's not always true that 2+2=4., it depended on the mathematics you were using-there were several kinds of math.

I was actually angry. I thought I was being cheated and told lies my whole life. I didn't know about other maths, and I felt I should have been told that, because in grade school, this single type of math was all we learned and we learned it as if it was the only type of mathematics there was.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by thedoc

Let's just hope you can find your way back someday.

Not a problem. I now have a GPS device.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Not a problem. I now have a GPS device.

Ahh, 'God's Pulpit for Services'.

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

That is one of my favorite songs. I remember first hearing that song when I was about six years old, 1961 or thereabouts. It has such a haunting quality. I particularly like the line
And now I'm lost, so gone and lost
Not even God can find me.

In the movie (i.e., in the clip you've linked to), I'm pretty sure that's

And now I'm lost, so Goldurn lost

.

[thedoc]

Kingston trio,
But then one day I left my gal. I left her far behind me and now I'm lost, so gol' darn lost not even God can find me.

Paint your wagon soundtrack,
And now I'm so lost, so gone and lost, not even God can find me,

The Browns,
Now I'm so lost so doggone lost not even dark can find me,

Unknown Lyrics,
And now I'm lost, so Goddarn lost, not even God can find me,

Seems to be quite a bit of variation.
Listening to the clip it's 'gol' durn', Oh well, what was in the original production?

From Wikipedia

Notable acts who have performed the song include:

101 Strings[23]
Ed Ames[17]
Baja Marimba Band[17]
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers[24]
The Browns[25]
Arthur Conley[24]
Sam Cooke[26]
The Country Gentlemen[27]
Vic Damone[28]
Eddie Fisher[29]
Robert Goulet[5]
Burl Ives[17]
Michael Jackson[30]
Richard Kiley[31]
Kingston Trio[32]
Frankie Laine[33]
Liza Minnelli[30]
Vaughan Monroe and his Orchestra[34]
Jim Nabors[17]
P.J. Proby[24]
John Raitt[35]
Pernell Roberts[36]
Zoot Sims[37]
Smothers Brothers[38]
Bryn Terfel[24]
Josh White[39]
Earl Wrightson[40

[Joshua Adams]

I never really grasped the scientific method when I was in grade school. I'm not even talking about philosophical problems with there being some single method, or whatever. I mean I didn't even understand it on the terms (I suppose) they were presenting it in. I'm sure the experience of doing school science projects is familiar to many of you--making the poster board with your Hypothesis and Prediction and Data and Conclusion, and whatever else it was supposed to have. My confusion surrounding the meaning and purpose of some of these terms was profound. Back then, I'd say useful things like "My Prediction is that the hypothesis will turn out to be correct." The Hypothesis, in turn, would have been something like "X is going to happen when I do the experiment."

Obviously, the hypothesis should have been something a bit broader than the experimental design itself, with the prediction being the experimental outcome that the hypothesis says will happen. Not knowing this makes the required forms seem really baffling and arbitrary. I mean, like, duh, I predict my claim will be true, or I wouldn't be claiming it, right? I don't remember ever being set straight, or marked down, for these confusions. I was always one of the best students in my class, though, in terms of grades and reputation for intelligence. And there was usually an event where everyone's projects were displayed together and we got to walk around looking at them, and I'm pretty sure I would've caught on if I was the only one making a hash of things that way. So it seems plausible, in retrospect, that the teachers didn't really grasp the subject, either, and were transmitting that confusion to their students pretty evenly.

Kind of a similar issue, not specifically science-related, but it took me a while to figure out the whole writing essays and citing sources thing. I would write essays and just cite whatever crap I could find that agreed explicitly with my thesis, rather than, you know, citing reputable sources for evidence, and then drawing my conclusion from that evidence. I'm pretty sure I even cited some random dude's, like, geocities site (lol, babby itt) to support my opinion about something or other in social studies. Again, I don't really remember getting any feedback saying I was doing it wrong. I usually got excellent grades on everything, to my recollection, despite (what seem to me now to be) such fundamental misunderstandings of what a citation is even for.

I've forgotten a lot of the details of what was taught in classes or textbooks, like most people I'm sure, so I really can't say whether my early education was reasonable in terms of the facts or not... but those things stuck out to me as some serious failures that should have been corrected by schooling, but weren't. I can only imagine how bad the work was of the students that were actually getting poor grades...

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by ShottleBop

In the movie (i.e., in the clip you've linked to), I'm pretty sure that's

.

I'm pretty sure you are right about that clip that thedoc linked to, not me. Not being sure what the correct lyric was I copied my lyrics from a website. I suppose that one would need to have access to the original sheet music to verify the original lyrics. Whether it is "goldurn" or "so gone" the sentiment is the same.