Speaking Task 2. Speak about Science and Scientific Phenomena for 2-3 minutes. Agree/disagree and express your opinion, respond to classmates' questions while discussing the following questions: 1. What does genetics, as a science, study? Explain. 2. What is DNA? What is the structure of DNA? 3. Speak about interesting facts about genetics and DNA. Explain your answer. 4. What are some other facts from the sphere of Science you want to share?

Genetics is the branch of biology that studies heredity and variation in living organisms. It explains how traits are passed from parents to offspring through genes. Genes are segments of DNA that carry instructions for building proteins, which determine everything from eye colour to susceptibility to certain diseases.

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the molecule that stores genetic information. Its structure is a double helix — like a twisted ladder. The sides of the ladder are made of sugar and phosphate molecules, and the rungs consist of pairs of nitrogenous bases: adenine (A) with thymine (T), and cytosine (C) with guanine (G). This complementary base pairing is the key to DNA replication and protein synthesis.

There are many fascinating facts about genetics and DNA. For instance, all humans share about 99.9% of their DNA; the tiny differences make each person unique. If you stretched out the DNA from a single human cell, it would be about two metres long, and all the DNA in your body could reach the Sun and back many times. Another interesting fact is that humans have roughly the same number of genes as a mouse or a fruit fly, but our complexity comes from how those genes are regulated.

Beyond genetics, science is full of wonders. For example, a teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh about six billion tonnes because the matter is incredibly dense. Or consider that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. These facts remind us how much there is still to explore and understand.

0 0 Пожаловаться