Enkephalin On My Wrist?

[Sean Nash]

"DNA makes RNA and RNA makes proteins and proteins make us."
~Francis Crick

In the space below... add your comments, questions, discussions, etc., regarding your sharing of the:

"genetic bracelet"
"painkilling keychain"
"mRNA accessories"
"enkephalin jewelry"
"tiny polypeptide string

...with three other people.

Be sure to record the things you say to your interviewees, such as questions, setup for the discussion, etc. Record at least some of their responses followed by a basic summary of the information you gave to them about your strand. It will be interesting to see what kinds of things each of you ended up "taking with you" from this lesson last week. Also pay particular attention to any questions you get later in the discussion as well... after you get into the content of the talk. Even better... any question you might get, but cannot immediately answer, but have to look up for the next time you see them.

Enjoy... and feel free to have fun in conversation. Record images, etc. and bring them back here if you wish.
;-)

[Sean Nash]

What no culminating quiz??
;)

I see earthworms as an emerging trend here...

I also enjoy the "please don't sell me out on your big, fancy-schmancy website" comments... I get those from time to time as well.

[ricky maddox]

All I told them was that it was a bracelet I received in DC Biology from Sean Nash, what do you thank it means.

Mr. Jake Kelly said that he thought it was the genetic makeup for the next bio terrorism weapon. Which I thought was pretty funny coming from an environmental teacher.
Adam Simon said that he thought it was some kind of protein chain. HE only got so close because he said he made a bracelet in his genetics class at Central.
Hayley Gay said that she thought it had something to do with cloning, but she had absolutely no idea. This was cool with me because I thought it was funny. Since Korby was absent last time he helped me in the collection of my data.
I thank I got different results than some other people because I told them which class I got it in, which set them in a biology mindset.

[Sean Nash]

Please reassure us that you ultimately informed of the ins & outs of the "bracelet"... right?

And please... you have to respect the "physical science" mindset of our beloved Mr. Kelly. I can just hear him tossing out his guess on this one...

[Skylar N. Womach]

Okay well first off i layed the bracelet on the kitchen table and asked my mom "so what do you think this is?" She said i dont know looks like some funky wierd charm bracelet to me. Now just to let you know my mom is pretty crazy so i was expecting some wild response but she was "jokingly" just being smart about this whole thing. I told her what it meant and she said you just gave me a headache! lol and went back to what she was doing.

The second person i asked was my girlfriend. She was really trying to figure out what it was but she was clueless, she knew that since this was for a science class that it represented something but she didnt have any idea as to what. So she randomnly guessed that it had something to do with genetics. So i said yeah your right but what kind of genetics? She replied by saying it looks like some type of indian ancestory thingy. I was like yeah kinda but not quite. So i explained best i could what it represented and she understood then the significance of it.

Last but not least i said hey unk what do you think this is? Sarcastically he said a bracelet. Then seriously he said some form of a dream catcher. i said not even close once i explained to him what it meant he asked so why is this enkephalin coded on a bracelet? now that question i could answer.

This experience was mind boggling and fun. My family has very little knowledge about genetics and science in general. So the expressions on there faces where funny because you could tell they were koking around but that they really were curious as to what this bracelet truely was.

[Zachery Langdon]

I had my whole family sit down at the table and I put the beads in the center. I plainly asked them to write down what they thought it was for, what was its meaning and what class it was for. My family was granted as much time as they wanted (even though it only took them a couple of minutes). In the end this was their answers.

Darryl Langdon (Dad), age 46 (Had a lot of ideas, here are some)
“This could be an ancient calendar used by Indians in early B.C.” OR “It could be a calculator used by the Indians” OR “This was therapy beads to calm the sole, the Indians learned this from the Catholic Priest, to forgive them of their sins.”

Carolyn Langdon (Mom), age 47 (More plain and basic)
“It’s for storing small amounts of beads, so you can see what colors you have left”

Megan Langdon (Sister), Age 18 (Hit it for the most part) (Later she told me that they did the same thing last year with Mrs. Bing, but not as in depth)
“It’s a bracelet made by the Indians and it stands for the gene of pleasure- morphine”

After I got their answers I told them that it was the gene code for Enkephalin. My parents thought that it was very interesting and my sister took it as a review.
This was a fun little test.

[Tori Scott]

My dad-Its a charm bracelet.
When i laughed and told him what is really was he said, "i knew that i was just making sure you did"
I dont think so. It was funny. Especially since he thinks he know it all.

My sister- Is it a worm?
I told her no but it stands for something, she said what uglyness cause thats not a bracelet i'd ever wear.
Haha this i thought was funny. When i told her what it really was she said she didnt understand a word i was saying
so i had to dumb it down a bit. She thought it was pretty cool. But recommended different colors:)

My mom- Thats a nice bracelet did you make that?
I promise my mom really isn't an air head. Science just isnt her subject. She did think it was really cool after i explained it all. She even found the indian story interesting

[Samantha Wilson]

In this experiment I asked someone from all different age groups.
I asked some sophmores and juniors i sit with at lunch, they were completely oblivious to what it meant. They said things like, this is a trick, and this is going to be something really dumb and you are trying to fool me. They thought i was trying to give them a big elaborate story, to something so simple when it was really them that was making it more difficult than it was. One replied, he thought it dealt with the planets. Some how involving moons, and color corresponded with what minerals you can find there.

I asked a teacher, which would like to remain unknown. The teacher as well had no idea of the mystery bracelets true meaning. Also coming up with some elaborate story. The answer to this teacher was it told a story. A story about some kind of growth. This teacher couldn't really come up with anything really, the answers were unclear and didn't tell much about the bracelet. The only thing that was clear to the teacher is it was growth.

The last person i asked was my brother. His answer was almost as good as the sophmores and juniors. He basically said it was some kind of lie. He had no clue what it meant. He said it was some school thing, that the only reason we were doing it was to show our families something we were doing at school. He said it didn't mean anything. That the teachers were just trying to trick us to see how many of us would actually go home and see if our parents knew what it meant.

[Korby Trautman]

My results on this lab were very, very interesting. I asked my grandma, my aunt, and my parents at my grandmas house on Saturday. I first started by asking them what they thought of the pattern on my bracelet, and my aunt thought the pattern meant certain letters and it "spelled" my name. That was the closest thing to being right my aunt ever said. My dad, being funny, tried telling me i was colorblind and thought it made a pattern, and my mom just thought it was random My grandma thought really hard about it, and then asked if it had to do with Native American Indians. My grandma is a big Indian and overall American "know-it-all". I wasn't going to lead them on the trail that Nash did for us, playing with our heads, so I just accepted their answers and gave them more info. "I did this in my DC Biology Class, it has to do with Genetics, and Natural Pain Relief" is all I said. My parents and my aunt were clueless, but my grandma asked if it was one of those bracelets that relieved pain. I told her she was right, but asked what the patterns on the bracelets meant. Once again, no answer from any of them. So i gave the last piece of info, I printed off the chart below. I have never seen so many confused faces in my life. They did not know what any of these things meant, and they just didn't know what to say. It was hilarious, but i had to become the teacher for a bit. I gave them an extremely watered down less on basic coding, and they still were dumbstruck. My parents gave up, but my grandma and my ant wanted to try and learn, but they wanted to try on their own time and see if they could show me the next time i see them...

[MIchelle]

So the three people i conversed with about the bracelets was my mother (45), my boyfriend (18), and my sister (20). The response i received from my mother was "oh, it's a keychain". Nope, sorry mom, but it's not. When i told her it represented something she stated that she believed it was "something to do with statistics". Well she was wrong, but then i proceeded by telling her all the information i knew and she thought it was rather exciting. She said she never knew that. She didn't really have any further questions.

Next was my boyfriend. He is a senior also, but he isn't in any science classes. So, i was rather shocked when he completely knew that it was representing "Something involved with DNA and proteins". So i continued by telling him all about it. He was asking me if the colors chosen were chose for a specific purpose, or if it was just random. I don't exactly know the answer, and it isn't really one that i can research....just ask Mr. Nash.

Next was my sister. Being the "dumb blonde" she is, she thought it was a "friendship bracelet". When i explained to her, she just stated......"why are you wasting my time?". Which is a question i could answer. I was "wasting" her time because it was an assignment. I was "wasting" her time, because i could have asked anyone, but i wanted to get views from many aspects. She thought the information was dull, boring, and something she never needed to know.

In response to the reactions i got from my test dummies, I was rather surprised. You know so many people live their day to day life without even knowing that transitions their own body is taking day after day. Some people don't know what their bodies produce, or what causes certain things. I personally find it exciting. I think it is crazy that as i sit her typing there is a factory of cells, proteins, amino acids, etc.....working throughout my body to keep me functioning as i finish this paragraph. .....

The End!!! :D

[Abby Lucas]

My family had absolutely no idea what the beads represented. And I had forgotten quite a bit of the specific information myself...

Among my family were two nurses--the reason I waited so long to post this. I wanted to see if THEY could possibly get this.

I began by telling them what class it was for and had them go from there.





Once someone said amino acids, I was starting to get confused with ribonucleic acids, but it had little effect on the outcome. They still knew nothing.

After recording the video, they figured out that morphine was somehow related. After which, one of the nurses said endorphin. I told her she was close, but they still couldn't figure it out. (They couldn't even find it on the internet!)





Later on, one of them used a "phone a friend" who happened to be a pharmacist. The pharmacist didn't know anything and his sister didn't either (she is a pharmacist, too.) But they also didn't have the beads in front of them. They were going on the information the others had obtained..."A natural painkiller that is similar to morphine." After no luck with the pharmacist, he called another friend--a doctor, who knew it was enkephalin almost immediately. And, although I didn't manage to get this wonderful moment on video, everyone cheered.