Types of Biological Modification - the Breakfast of Champions cartoon version.

I doodle a bit, and sometimes, it has this Breakfast of Champions look to it - which to be frank is deliberate, since I think it's a great visual style, especially for the purpose of teaching.

Anyway, since, I'm playing around with my relatively new flickr account (mainly set up so that I can start to organize my slides properly on my popperfont site), here's a video of a few goofy slides that highlights a variety of biological "modifications" that can occur. Full narrative below the fold by the way.

Again, the point is that the resultant organism can be different due to nuances at any one of the stages in the movie. In this respect, we have:

The three main macromolecule players (DNA, RNA and proteins) - an organism's code so to speak, which transits with a pic showing the general flow of information, ending with "a really big number" of proteins.

The proteins, in turn, are pretty much responsible for guiding the rest of the organism's metabolic makeup, other macromolecules, etc...

Which basically amounts to the overall anatomy and physiology of the organism (hence the picture of the dinosaur - I don't why I chose to draw a dinosaur).

Next slide relates intellectual experience - or how something can be changed by the things they see, learn, etc - maybe doesn't apply to the dinosaur so much, but definitely applies to impressionable undergrads and faculty profs.

Then a tie with Windsor knot appears. Fashion accessories count right? Might not be biological necessarily, but it certainly changes the organism.

Up next, is a collective "environment" effect, which includes various intakes (air, food), various actions (accidents, exercise, etc).

Oh, and then the appearance of a mate. Hybridization in all of its forms, sex, etc. Variety introduced to the offspring via this route, etc.

And then finally, a caption that shows how, in many ways, a key mechanism to modify things from the outright is to focus on the original 3 macromolecules through the use of molecular biology. In essence, I use this whole slide progression, as a sort of silly prelude to the discussion of genetic modification.

Anyway, it seemed to work well in class, although I don't think I'll be going into making videos as a career anytime soon!