Thursday, February 25, 2010

Lit fables

After reading the fable titled The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, I think the maxim is that appearances can be deceiving and just because you trust someone, doesn't mean they can always be trusted. Appearances can be deceiving because as shown in this fable, the lamb fell for the wolf's plan and thought it was it's mother. The lambwas then killed, because it was really the wolf in disguise. This fable also shows that because you trust someone, doesn't mean they can be trusted, because the lamb thought it was it's mother, who he believed he could trust, and followed it's 'mother' to his death.

After reading the other fable, The Four Oxen and the Lion, I believe the maxim is that united/sticking together we stand or succeed and divided we fall or don't succeed. This is shown in this fable because the four oxen stuck together so whenever the lion came, the faced their tails together so he would run into their horns, and they lived by doing this. But the one day they divided/split up to eat, the lion was able to hunt them one by one and before you knew the number of oxen went from 4 to1.

After reading the fable The Crow and the Pitcher, I think the maxim is that step by step, you will succeed. This is shown in the fable because a crow came across a pitcher put could not reach the water. Then he placed pebbles into the water to make it rise. Pebble by pebble he soon succeeded and managed to get the water high enough to quench his thirst and save his life.

After reading the fable The Fisher and the little fish, I believe the maxim is something little is worth something great over time. I think this because in the fable the little fish begs to the fisher to let him go and catch him when he is bigger, but the fisher refuses and says he may not catch him later on. The reason why I think this is because the little fish may seem little now, but later on the same fish could save the fisher from hunger.

After reading the fable The Fox and the Goat, I think the maxim is 'look before you leap' as I have once heard, or think before you act. The goat didn't do this and believed the fox without thinking about if it was a lie or not, and ended up being fooled into jumping into the well to escape the 'drought'.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Ask a Geneticist Science

After reading the articles on the sites given, I learned many interesting facts about genetics. One of the articles compared humans and chimps (this can be read here). I learned that we are about 98% the same, and that we have different amounts of chromosomes (humans=46,chimps=92), but about the same number of genes. Another thing I learned is that chimps only have double the number of chromosomes we have because two of our chromosomes=1 chimp chromosome. So, you could say we have the same number of chromosomes, but in reality and according to this article we don't. This all supports that we have have the same number of genes, the sections of the two genomes that code for our genes only differ by about 1.2%. This proves we are about 98% the same. Even though humans and chimps have similar chromosome and gene numbers, the main reason that makes us different is that the amount of protein in our brains differ from the amount in the heart and liver. The differences of the amount of protein being made in our brains is what is considered the answer to what makes us different from each other. All of this information is very interesting to me, and I am sure you will be interested by these fascinating discoveries, too. Once again, you can read the full article by clicking here.