Adapted from Alien Orphanage, Lovingood Ms
Beep, Bop, Chirp, Beep! A distress signal coming from the distant planet of Tomlinson appears on your spaceship’s computer screen. The message states, “This is Captain Diego and I am on a humanitarian mission. I am studying the population of a local species called Speer and I have inadvertently mixed up all of their offspring! Their DNA structure seems identical to ours. They reproduce sexually and most of their physical phenotypes seem to be determined by simple dominant and recessive alleles.A law was recently passed that allows the people of Tomlinson to mix traits. This is the first generation of offspring that could ever be heterozygous. All parents are homozygous for all traits. The Speer families are very upset with me and they want to end my time on this planet. “I really need assistance!”
Part 1: As geneticists, your only course of action is to help Captain Diego.When you land on the planet, Captain Diego is excited to see you have come to help. He explains to you that the Speers are not very bright and do not know which of the Speers are their children. The Speers placed all of the children in an orphanage until they could determine to whom each child belongs. Captain Diego hands you his notebook containing all of the information he gathered from the parents. Help Diego determine which child belongs to each set of parents. Pleaseprepare a professional report of your findings, the data you used, and how you scientifically made this determination explaining the role of genes and chromosome in sexual reproduction.
Part 2: The Speers believe in selective breeding and the parents of all male children choose their child’s mates at an early age. Now that Treason’s parents realize that they had a male Speer, they want to go ahead and select his future bride. His parents want Treason to have children that are not colorblind. Who would you recommend to Treason’s parents to choose as his future mate to decrease that Treason’s offspring will be colorblind: Huli Lee or Eniga? Is it more likely for Treason and this recommended mate to produce a male with colorblindness or a female? Pleaseprepare a professional report of your findings, the data you used, and how you scientifically made this determination.
Captain Diego …Logbook
In the attempt to figure out which child belongs to whom I interviewed citizens of Tomlinson and documented descriptions for each couple and for each orphan.
Speer parents 1:
Francis and Waddle Speerson
Francis has three legs and three long antennas. He is known to have anger problems and cannot say any words with the letter R in it. There is no indication that he is colored blind. He has a large wart on his left knee. He has a wonderful blue tint to his body.
Waddle also has three legs. Her two antennas are known for their beauty. She often sings her favorite song “Roger Rover Runs in the River”. She gets mad at her husband Francis for the silliest things. She is a striking blue color and appreciates being able to see all variations of color.
Speer Parents 2:
Roy and Moon Speerman
Roy is a very nice member of the Speer population. He is known as the “two-legged wart free guy”. He has three antennas and is blue in color. He loves art but has difficulty distinguishing between the colors. Roy enjoys singing songs that start with the letter “R” to his lovely to his wife.
Moon is never angry at Roy. She fell in love with him because their two legs are so similar. She has no warts and cannot say words with the letter “R”. She also appreciates art and loves to use many different colors on his canvas. She is a lovely shade of yellow and her two antenna tan well.
Speer Parents 3:
Wendel and Dorcas Speerite
Wendel is the mayor of Tomlinson. He walks around the streets with his two yellow legs. He can see all variations of color. He often combs the hair on his three wart free antennas. He was elected because of his polite disposition, he never seems angry. His family saying is “Speerites are radicle”.
Dorcas is a very angry member of Tomlinson. She has grown up being color blind. Many people on Tomlinson recognize her by her three blue legs and two warty antennas.
Traeson:
Traeson is known around town as a very angry person. He often runs up and down the streets waving this 2 wart filled antenna and yelling at his friend. He calls Roger by his nickname “Round Rog”. Traeson’s friends all find the yellow and blue spots on his three legs very attractive, but he has a hard time distinguishing between them.
Huli Lee:
Huli is a beautiful blue and yellow Speerite. She has two antennas with no warts that match her two legs. Since many people around town have one more leg than her she loves to give her extra shoe to charity. When she gets excited she often states”Romper Room Rucas”.
Eniga:
Eniga has blue skin and three legs. She has two very nice antennas with many warts on them. She seemed very angry about not being able to find her parents and stated, “This situation is ridiculous”.
I found the following information in the medical archives, maybe you can figure out what it means: