Computationally Comparing Different Genomes

Background Information

Objective:  To have the user compare two very similar organisms to familiarize themself with CoGe while also learning about evolution.

Difficulty:  Easy

Estimated Time:  10 minutes

Lesson

Introduction

     A human genome contains over 3 billion base pairs.  Now, if a scientist wants to identify similar portions of DNA in a human genome to a chimpanzee genome, which is also over 3 billion base pairs long, the scientist would need to use a computer program.  This is where CoGe comes in.  CoGe can be used to quickly take a section of a 3 billion base pair genome and find where that section closly matches another genome.  As you finish this lesson you will not only begin to understand how genetics may be used to determine ancestry but alos understand how scientists can estimate the when seperate species shared a common ancestor.

     This lession will tech you how to...