I am 27 years old and I never graduated college I dropped out the last year and decided to follow an institute program in film.
As happy as I am with what I do, I guess I was always fascinated in evolution and biology.
Is it too late for me to be able to study? Or is there a way in fact since I never graduated  college?

Thank you and Best Regards,
Fady

thanks ;D

Thanks (",)

Additionally, how would I explain the difference their the cells of Archaea and Bacteria? I usually have the children draw basic diagrams of cells of the different kingdoms, but I am having a hard time figuring out how I would have them differentiate between Archaea and Bacteria. All the information I've found deal with the difference being with ether linkages and cell walls lacking peptidoglycan. I have no idea what these things are, and even less of an idea on how to teach it to young children. Any ideas?

Also, my wife tells me that you can tell when a plant has been over-watered because its leaves turn yellow. If this is true do you know why? I can't fathom it.

Thanks once again for you standard excellent help!

WARNING - this question is quite upsetting and involves animal suffering.

I witnessed something horrible on my way to work this morning. The car in front of me ran over the rear end of a squirrel. As I drove past it the poor thing was running around the round and appeared unable to move the rear half of its body. I was shocked, didn't know what to do, and drove on in horror. I really wish I'd stopped and put the poor thing out of its misery.

Does anyone know what fate a squirrel like this (an American grey in London, UK) would have in store? I'm really hoping that it would have died of internal injuries very quickly with as little suffering as possible but I'd love someone to give their opinion on this if only to lessen my worry.

I need an outlet and I can't tell my wife since she'd be even more upset than me. Thank you very much for any help you can give me.

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2. I had a minor disagreement with my biology teacher about gene therapy. I said that it can only be used to cure single recessive genetic disorders (e.g. cystic fibrosis) by the addition of the a functioning dominant allele of the gene. Due to recessive-dominant relationship, the domianant allele (the added, working one) will be expressed and not the persons own faulty one. This makes complete sense to me but for some reason she had no idea what I was talking about. Bear in mind that I am an A Level student and my knowledge isn't very extensive but all the example I have read about have been recessive single gene defects (cystic fibrosis, MD, sickle cell anemia, heamophilia). Since it's difficult enought trying to use gene therapy to cure recessive diseases, wouldn't it be even harder to cure a dmoniant disease. Am I right or is she?

3. In gene therapy wouldn't adding another allele mean that you have 3 alleles. If a recessive disorder needs two recessive alleles 2 work and those 2 are present, dpes adding a dominant allele automatically negate this so the dominant allele is expressed instead?

4. I understand epistasis to be the interaction of genes at different loci in which the epistatic gene masks the expression of the hypostatic gene. I also understand that dominance is the relationship between alleles in which one the dominant gene masks the expression of the resessive allele. I was just wondering how this expression is masked. I can't help but think it's like the lac operon when a regulator gene makes a repressor protein but the lac operon is temporary and epistatic and dominant interactions are permanent. Is there a repressor protein that permanantely binds to the masked gene?

5. Following the above question, how does our body know whether an allele is recssive or dominat. Is there differences in the DNA sequece that signal that the allele is a dominant one or a recessive one?

6. I know that as we get older out telomere shortens causing senescence. If we were able to keep  all our telomeres from shortening (and providing we remained eternally free from disease) could we hypothetically be immortal as we wouldn’t be affected by the afflictions that come with old age.

I am currently obssessed with genetics and have about a trillion other questions. I understand that this post is extremley long and I appreciate any help I can get.