Safari does Chromosomes and Cats

              The Safari was on the road for Valentines Day this year, and what better way to celebrate than by meditating on our genes, and dancing in an enchanted castle... and for some of us, doing both at the same time, such is the joys of multiple avatars! Two places you need to see, and the addresses are, yes you've guessed it, at the end of the post. This is the first part of our two part trip, this time on VIBE grid, the HG Address is, as always, at the end of the post.

              Our first stop was at one of the VIBE grids, this time the Genome regions built by Max Chatnoir.
              Clowey Greenwood, who manages these four regions, named for the heroes of genetics, Crick, Mendel, Huxley, Hooke,  met us on the welcome region and showed us around.

Clowey Greenwood

             This is an exceptionally interesting place, you can learn so much here, and it's both profound and accessible - thanks to a deliciously imaginative set of  builds.


Aime Socrates: wizard touched everything...played with flowers color
Clowey Greenwood: of course, that's what it's for
Wizardoz Chrome: yes ! Interesting!!
Thirza Ember: yes, that's fun, tiptoeing through the tulips and watching them change color!

 Clowey Greenwood @biome.bio-se.info:9000: my favorite on this island are the cats, you can figure out why calicos are 99% of the time females... males that are calicos by the way actually have 2 X genes and 1 Y gene, so they aren't normal males anyway
Aime Socrates: ok lets see the cats !

thirza ember: i love the simple design of the cats
Clowey.Greenwood:so the color genes are on the X chromosome. Since males only have one they can be black or orange but not both females have 2 X genes and so they can be black, orange, or both (calico or tortie)... I think it's kind of cool because it's not distracting with a lot of detail, all this was built by Max Chatnoir and she scripted everything.

Aime Socrates: i understand the choice of cats now, chatnoir couldn't deal with dogs
Clowey.Greenwood: white is on another chromosome, so they can have white. And a gene that determines whether they are faded colors or bright is on another gene. So a light black would be gray or blue... the pure white gene is actually dominant so a white cat actually has another color hidden
TMBD Cathouse: Click on the parents to get kittens
Clowey Greenwood: I used these islands for university biology courses: it makes concepts so understandable
Larysa.Firehawk: Clowey, You have done a fantastic job.
Tortie Mom x Black Dad: Check both sex and colors of kittens.
Clowey Greenwood: thanks. I wish I could take credit for building all this but I didn't. Max Chatnoir did. She also has Genome on Second Life but it is only one region - here, since my university houses the server, we could expand it for her
Larysa Firehawk: But to use it to teach people, that would be fantastic in and of itself.
Clowey Greenwood: at no cost
Wizardoz Chrome: and you'd have fun doing things so much less boring:)

Larysa Firehawk: A great thing to get children into.
Clowey Greenwood: yes. The students really understood the concepts. On Crick there's a place where you can click on models of human chromosomes and learn about some trait (often disease) on that chromosome.
Thirza Ember: i was afraid to touch those things, in case I caught something!

Thirza Ember: how did you and max and nova meet, Clowey?
Clowey Greenwood: I learned about Second Life from a NASA scientist. I made an avatar that night and it took about 3 days for me to find the science sims where I met Max. She has been in SL since 2004, I've been in since 2007, and now house the VIBE, NOVA, Biome, biome4kids, and genome grids on a server at the university where I recently retired. I met Nova through Stephen Gasior when he started Science Sim. He approached Nova and I to participate. INitially I think we were the only 3, that's been a few years ago.
Phred.420: any thoughts on this new sequencing method using a nanopore?
Thirza Ember: have you seen the scripts that satyr has made available for his farm, clowey? You could combine them... he has breedable animals you could breed up cats like crazy
Clowey Greenwood: I taught a boatload of graduate courses first on Second Life then, when the price went up double and the university quit paying, I taught them on Biome. the students loved that. It was an online program. When I retired they also retired the program


 Larysa Firehawk: This is the BEST!!!
Clowey Greenwood: most of the parts have click on information, and you can ride on the mitochondria (the things with the yellow swirls. if you all are in the cell, walk a few steps so people don't rez on top of you.
Phred 420: Look, I'm a virus!
Wizardoz Chrome: dangerous phred!
Phred 420: soon i will have as many copies as Thirza
Clowey Greenwood:I taught a class for people who were going to be teachers of elementary students,: they had to use this model and prepare a presentation, i have heard back that quite a few of them are using them still.
There is just so much to see on these four regions, you can visit again and again and still discover previously unknown corners, and learn so much about how genes work. Bravo to all involved in this wonderful build, and thank you for making it available to the hypergridding public.

               

        
HG Addresses:
VIBE Genome Island                                     genome.bio-se.info:9000