Lactose Metabolism

Purpose: This assignment requires you to synthesize knowledge from different sources, organize your thoughts and explain evolutionary processes in a way which is clearly and easily understood by your reader. The other writing assignment for this course is related in many ways to this paper and together they are designed to improve your critical thinking and written communication— skills that are challenging but important both within academia and in “real world” careers. Assignment: Read Erica Check’s 2006 article “How Africa Learned to Love the Cow” Nature 444: 994-996 (PDF available on Smartsite) about milk tolerance in humans and answer the following questions in the form of an essay. Why can individuals from only some human populations tolerate milk as adults? In your own words, describe in detail the genetic changes that allow for milk tolerance in adult humans. What do these genetic changes tell us about the evolutionary history of milk tolerance in human populations? Homo neanderthalensis is a fossil human species that lived in Europe and western Asia between about 130,000 and 35,000 years ago; subsisting exclusively on hunted and gathered foods. Based on your knowledge of milk tolerance in humans, would you expect that Homo neanderthalensis individuals were able to tolerate milk as adults? Why? What would you expect to happen if a population stopped drinking milk due to the increased availability of other foods? Use evidence from Check’s article as well as lecture and your textbook to explain your answers to the questions; you do not need to cite any other sources. Pretend that your audience for this paper is an intelligent high school student in a biology class instead of your TA. This student is familiar with basic evolutionary processes and vocabulary (e.g. fitness, selection) but knows nothing about lactose tolerance or other complex evolutionary processes like genetic drift. Format: 1000 words, 1 inch margins, 12 pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, and doublesided. Make sure you have your name, due date and a title (something more inspired than “Essay #1”) on the front page and page numbers. Note on Citations and Academic Honesty: Academia is based on giving credit where credit is due. This means if you get information, facts, words, ideas etc. from someone you have to give them credit for it. So, every time you use or present information that is not your own brain child you should give credit to your source by recording their name and the year they said it at the end of the sentence, and then by giving all the details of the source in the bibliography. Your bibliography is not included in the 1000 word maximum. Please see the Citation Handout posted on Smartsite for the proper citation format for this course and read through the Avoiding Plagiarism Handout, also on Smartsite, to clarify what types of things need to be cited.

Grading Rubric Essay #1 1. Content (13 pts) of 11 pts total A. Correctly answers each question from the essay prompt. It is clear that you understand the answer. Does not quote or paraphrase but explains the arguments in your own words.

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B. Integrates Ideas from assigned reading, lecture and the textbook.

2. Clarity (7 pts) of 2 pts A. Paper Organization: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. Paper has a thesis and a logical order of presentations. B. Paragraph Organization: paragraphs should be unified and coherent, with a topic sentence followed by supporting evidence and transitions which link the paragraph to the topic of the next paragraph. C. Mechanics: Sentences should be clear and active. Correct grammar, spelling and punctuation.

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D. Information is appropriately cited