THE FARM REVEALED

PROGRAMME 1: SELECTIVE BREEDING AND TRANSGENICS

ACITIVITES

Clip-related activities

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Selective breeding
Clip 1: 03:26 – 05:06

• Opens with the narrator saying, 'Giles Corin is on his way to meet one of the most extraordinary…'
• Closes with the farmer saying, '…or the more muscle, on the more muscle.'

These cattle have been bred in the time-honoured manner of selective breeding.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. Did you know that the first chapter of the book is about domestic pigeons? How did the process of selective breeding inspire Darwin's theory of natural selection? In what way are selective breeding and natural selection similar?

The Belgian Blue is a very extreme and strange looking animal. Can you think of wild, undomesticated animals that are strange and freaky? Why might they have evolved like that naturally?

Are you a super-taster?
Clip 2: 16:06 – 17:24

• Opens with Dr Chris Smith saying, '…there are some more subtle behaviours…'
• Closes with Dr Chris Smith saying, 'Still, nonetheless, a genetic trait.'

Another behavioural trait that turns out to have a genetic basis is your taste in food. Some people are born with more taste buds than others and this makes them very sensitive to strong tastes. These people are super-tasters and tend to be more fussy about food. They tend to dislike anything that is even slightly bitter. They often don't like Brussels sprouts.

Before doing the tongue test find out who likes Brussels sprouts and strong coffee.

To test who is and who isn't a super-taster you need some blue food colouring, some cotton wool and a piece of paper with a 7mm hole punched in it. Swab some food colouring onto the front of the tongue. You will see a blue tongue with pink dots on it. The pink dots are called papillae and they contain taste buds. Count how many papillae you can see through the hole in the paper.

• Non-tasters have less than 15 papillae
• Average tasters have 15-35 papillae
• Super-tasters have 35 and over papillae.

Super-tasters are the only people who can claim that their genes are responsible for their dislike of Brussels sprouts!

Scientific research, led by US Professor Linda Bartoshuk, suggests around a quarter of the population are non-tasters, 50% average tasters, and the rest super-tasters.

What proportion of the class are super-tasters? Does this match the population as a whole?

Some people don't like Brussels sprouts, but they turn out to be non-tasters. Ask them what it is about sprouts that they don't like. Discuss the complexity of human behavioural traits in relation to taste.

Food choices are based on psychological associations, mood, food texture and colour and much, much more besides genetics. All human behaviour is a complex mixture of genes and experience, or nature and nurture.

Further activities

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Eugenics

Read the article about the founder of the British Eugenics Society:
www.channel4.com/science/microsites/
S/science/life/biog_galton.html

Discuss the following:

• What is eugenics and why was Francis Galton interested in the subject?
• Is it unethical? Why or why not?
• Is eugenics a realistic possibility?
• Could we really breed a race of super-intelligent humans?

Frankenstein – a modern fable?

Look up the original story of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). There are plenty of synopses on the internet, for example:
www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/Indexes/summary.html

In her story, Dr Frankenstein creates a human being from a corpse. He fails to care for his progeny. The creature is shunned by his creator and by the rest of society because he looks so different – monstrous, even. Eventually the monster takes revenge on his creator's family, with tragic consequences for all.

Discuss the following:

• Is this story a good metaphor for modern day transgenic animals and plants?
• GM crops have been dubbed as 'frankenfoods' by the media. Why?
• Are scares about transgenics and GM based on rational fears or on an emotional horror of all things unnatural?

Discuss the idea of a monster.

• What do monsters have in common?
• Do you think glow-in-the-dark rabbits are monstrous? What about bodybuilding cattle?
• If Dr Frankenstein had cared for his 'monster' instead of abandoning him to general disdain, would the monster have been so aggressive and would the outcome have been so tragic?

The key take-home message in the story of Frankenstein is that the proud and ambitious young scientist Frankenstein creates something (someone) he is unable and unprepared to care for. This is perhaps the single most important lesson that we must learn today.