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Highlight
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Selected Student Projects: Genetics
and Culture Course
Below are projects from students in the course representing different
disciplines. Additional projects can be viewed at
the course website. |
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| Title: Genetic Etch-a-Sketch Medium: Computer, C++ program written in Code Warrior using ascii graphics. Author: Christian Gove, Design|Media Arts, UCLA, 2002 |
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| Summary: I
wanted to create a "living" program in
the sense that it would constantly yield unpredictable
results. After seeing the behavior of the trail's
path, I found that it isn't completely random. Two
behaviors emerged from the trail moving according
to the genetic base pairs, straight movement and
looping movement. The behavior is reproducible. If you want to examine how the computer showed any given part of the code, the program only needs to be fed that part of the code and provided that none of the data has changed, will display in the same way repeatedly. The program isn't creating content, it is only simulating life by interpreting living content. The base 4 information of genes is translated into base 2 binary: A = 00 T = 11 G = 01 C = 10 Then the binary information is used to turn the "pen" of the ascii drawing diagonally right or left. Each time it moves to a new place, the orientation of the pen changes to face the angle that it came from in the previous turn. Thus what was a diagonal movement before, in the second turn will be a vertical or horizontal movement. Each base pair corresponds to two movements on the grid. |
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| Title: Color Blind Medium and Dimensions: Two 30-inch diameter rotating turntables, containing two concentric circles of 25 clear water cups. Color medium is an acrylic emulsion. Legend - [paint color : nucleotide]: · [Red : Adenine w/ Green : Thymine] · [Blue : Guanine w/ Yellow : Cytosine] *Each cup represents one codon. Author: David Gerns, Physiology, UCLA, 2002 |
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Summary/Statement: Our
eyes are remarkable sensory organs capable of distinguishing
light, depth, and color. The ability to interpret different
types of color (red, green, and blue) is processed by
color sensitive cones in our eyes. Two specific cone
pigments, red and green, have been studied immensely
over the years due to the common occurrence of a condition
known as red-green colorblindnes |
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s.
Red-green colorblindness is an X-linked disease, the
product of incomplete crossing over of our X chromosome.
Essentially, the genes which encode for the red and green
cone pigments in our eyes get mixed up and misplaced,
leaving individuals either more sensitive to green or
more sensitive to red color. "Color Blind" is
an adaptation of the genetic sequence for the red cone
pigment (red opsin) transformed in to a performative
enactment. As each nucleotide is read aloud the corresponding
color is placed in to the water.
