6. The film describes two independent sources of evidence that have been used to estimate when maize was
first domesticated: genetic evidence and archaeological evidence. Do these two sources of evidence support
each other? Explain your answer.
7. To demonstrate how two different genes can explain the different traits in teosinte and maize, Dr. Doebley
and colleagues used careful breeding to transplant each gene from one type of plant to the other. In the
table below, draw and/or describe the results of each cross and explain what you can infer about the
function of the genes.
Revised January 2018
Page 2 of 4
Evolution
www. Biointeractive. org

Proteins are the workhorses of the cell, controlling virtually every reaction within as well as providing structure and serving as signals to other cells. proteins are long chains of  amino acids  , and the exact sequence of the amino acids determines the final structure and function of the protein. instructions for that sequence are encoded in  genes  . to make a particular protein, a messenger ribonucleic acid (mrna) copy is made from the gene (in the process called  transcription  ), and the mrna is transported to the  ribosome  . protein synthesis, also called  translation  , begins when the two ribosomal subunits link onto the mrna. this step, called initiation, is followed by elongation, in which successive amino acids are added to the growing chain, brought in by transfer rnas (trnas). in this step, the ribosome reads the  nucleotides  of mrna three by three, in units called  codons  , and matches each to three nucleotides on the trna, called the anticodon. finally, during termination, the ribosome unbinds from the mrna, and the  amino acid  chain goes on to be processed and folded to make the final, functional protein