ACKNOWLEDGEMENT “First and foremost, I express my sincere gratitude and indebtedness to God Almighty for the relentless blessings showered on us.” The investigative project gave me a pleasant opportunity to make a real
knowledge
about
various
types
of
phenotypes. I am really proud of the fact that this project is the result of my hard work. With immense pleasure I express my sense of gratitude to our respected Sr.Principal ______for giving us the permission to do this project. I am greatly indebted to my Biology teacher, Smt.______,
whose
valuable
advice
and
guidance made my task easier and better. I am also indebted to all those who helped me
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to complete this project successfully.
Name: XII
PROJECT UNDERTAKEN
TO CONDUCT SURVEY ON A POPULATION TO 2
IDENTIFY VARIOUS PHENOTYPIC CHARACTERS.
CONTENTS PAGE NO
1. Acknowledgements………………………… …….(1)
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2. Project Undertaken………………………………..(2) 3. Aim………………………………………… ……..(4) 4. Introduction………………………………… …….(5) 5. Survey Procedure………………………………….(6) 6. Observation Table………………………………..(10) 7. Self Study Chart………………………………….(12) 8. Inference…………………………………… ……(13) 9. Conclusions………………………………… …...(14)
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AIM To study the frequency of occurrence of phenotypic characters like:
1. Hitch hiker’s Thumb 2. Attached Earlobes 3. Rolling Tongue 4. Kinky Hair 5. Widow’s Peak 6. Movable Earlobes 7. Vulcan Hand sign 8. Hand clasp – Right over left or left over right.
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Introduction Heredity is the branch of Science dealing with the study of resemblances and differences between the parents and their offspring. On the other hand, Genetics is a larger field of Biology, which involves the study of heredity and its reasons governing them. It was in 1901 that the basis of inheritance of characters among the parents and their progeny was discovered by three workers while hunting the literature, that the studies and conclusions similar to those of their own had been published by Gregor Mendel in 1886. Realising the importance of Mendel’s work, they called him “Father of Genetics”. It is in the same spirit and scene that Mendel is still known as the “Father of genetics”.
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Survey procedures A group of girls were selected from class XII and assessed for the purpose of the survey. They were tested for the following characters.
Hitch Hiker’s thumb The persons under survey were asked to bend their thumb as much as possible in the reverse direction. Some people were able to bend their thumb to an ‘L’ shape while others could not do so.
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Attached Earlobes
Here, the earlobes are attached to the skin. The girls are examined for an attached earlobe and on the basis of their ear being attached or not, the observations are noted. The results were tabulated as the table attached at the end of this investigatory report.
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Detached
Attached
Rolling tongue The persons under the survey were asked to swirl their tongues into a roll. The number and names of those people who could and could not were noted.
Kinky hair There are people whose scalp hair is springy and
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there are others whose hair is straight. This character was also noted. The names of those who had kinky hair and those who had straight hair were noted.
Kinky Hair Long Hair
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Straight
Widow’s peak If the hairline of a person has a ‘V’ shape on the forehead, the type of hairline is said to have a ‘Widow’s Peak’. The girls possessing a ‘Widow’s Peak’ were noted and those who didn’t were also noted.
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Vulcan Hand sign Inspired from the famous SCI-FI classic, “Star Trek”, this is a newly derived fun character which is used to distinguish between the goblins and the earthlings. The concerned person is asked to show the palm of their hand with their first three fingers from the thumb paired and tilted towards one side and the other two paired and tilted towards the other side. Those who could do this without strain were listed as goblins and those who couldn’t as earthlings.
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Movable Earlobes Like our primate ancestor, some of us can still move the outer pinnae of our earlobes. Those who could do this amazing trick and those girls who couldn’t were noted.
Hand clasp-right over left or left over right The test subjects are asked to randomly put their hands together. According to which thumb comes on top, i.e. the left or right, the students are noted and listed.
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OBSERVATION TABLE SL. NO.
NAME
HITCH HIKER’S THUMB
ATTACHED EAR LOBE
ROLLING TONGUE
1.
√
√
√
2.
√
X
X
3.
X
√
X
4.
X
X
√
5.
√
X
X
6.
X
√
√
7.
√
X
√
8.
X
X
√
9.
X
X
X
10.
√
X
√
√
X
X
12.
X
√
X
13.
X
X
X
14.
X
X
√
15.
X
X
X
X
X
X
11.
.
16.
. 15
KINKY HAIR
X
SL. NO.
WIDOW’S PEAK
MOVABLE EARLOBES
VULCAN HAND SIGN
1.
√
X
X
2.
√
X
√
3.
X
X
X
4.
√
X
X
5.
X
X
X
6.
√
X
√
√
√
X
X
X
X
√
X
X
10.
√
X
√
11.
X
X
X
12.
X
X
X
13.
√
X
X
14.
X
X
X
15.
√
X
X
16.
√
X
X
NAME
7.
.
8. 9.
.
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HANDCLASP -RIGHT:LEFT
√
Self Study Chart The survey procedures adopted for spotting various phenotypes in the girls of our class were repeated in my partner and me as well. The observations are recorded below:
Name Hitch Hikers’ Thumb
X
X
Attached Earlobes
X
X
Rolling Tongue
√
√
Kinky Hair
X
Widows’ Peak
X
X
Movable Earlobes
X
X
Vulcan Sign
X
√
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X
Hand Clasp Right : Left
X
X
INFERENCE The survey conducted amongst 18 girls including the surveyors, selected at random, gave the following data and the ratios obtained were as follows.
FEATURES RATIO Hitch hiker’s thumb: Non Hitch hiker’s thumb 6:12 Attached earlobe: Non-attached Earlobe 4:14 Rolling tongue: Non rolling tongue 9:9 Kinky hair: Straight hair 3:15 Widow’s peak: Straight hairline
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10:8 Movable Earlobes: Non movable Earlobes 1:7 Goblins: Earthlings 4:14 Hand Clasp: Right over Left 5:13
CONCLUSIONS From the above inference, the investigation done on the frequency of occurrence of phenotypic characters concludes the following:
1. For the phenotypic character Hitch hiker’s thumb, the frequency of non-Hitch Hikers’ thumb was high in the considered population. 2. For the phenotypic character of Attached Earlobes, the non-occurrence of the phenotype, i.e. Unattached
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earlobes are more common in the considered population. 3. For the phenotypic character of Rolling Tongue, the nonoccurrence of the phenotype to its occurrence occurs in equal proportions in the considered population. 4. For the phenotypic character, Kinky Hair, the occurrence of the phenotype in the considered population is very rare. 5. For the phenotypic character the non-occurrence of the phenotype to its occurrence is in the ratio 6. For the phenotypic character, Widows’ peak, the occurrence in the considered population is very rare when compared to straight hairline. 7. For the phenotypic character of Movable Earlobes, the non-occurrence of the phenotype is more common in the considered population. 8.
For the phenotypic character of Hand Clasping, those who put right over left hand predominate over those who put left hand over right hand.
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