Cognitive Science 170
Natural and Artificial Symbol-Using Systems
Name: _________________________
SHORT PAPER #2:
Question: (3-6 pages). Hand in a printout on real paper. If you want
to also send me electronic text, send bare ASCII, RTF, PDF, or PostScript
(no HTML or MSWord!).
- 1. Imagine that one base pair in the protein-coding part of the
DNA sequence of a cell has been changed into a different base pair.
Trace the effects of this change into the metabolic network of the
cell in the following way: briefly describe how the changed base pair
might effect transcription and translation (the molecular biological
senses of these words), and then protein folding and function.
You must outline the main stages by which a one-dimensional sequence of
DNA symbol segments (bases) is transformed into a metabolic network of
chemical reactions controlled by proteins and tell me a little bit about
how and why proteins fold. Since you cannot possibly summarize all of
modern molecular biology in 3 to 6 pages, and since I have not told you
which gene was damaged, concentrate on the architecture of molecular
information transfer and interpretation as you describe
the major stages and parts that are involved.
due by Mon, 5/12/03 (was previous Fri!)