Many doubt the existence of people like me, they think they're just myths and fairy tales.
But what would you say if I told you there are people like me everywhere, all over the planet we call earth and home.
They're behind you in the supermarkets...
The next day I found myself rushing to work again, I hadn't yet got my car out of the shop yet and the running was good for me in a way. It helped keep my powers in shape.
Into my classroom I bursted before waving at my staring students who had seemed to be there way before I was.
"Hello!" I greeted in a breathy voice as I slowly walked over to my desk and seated myself.
"Late again Prof Wixham, one more late appearance and you'll break a record!" Blurted out one of my students.
It was the same student from yesterday, he always had something smart to say.
"And one more comment from you and you'll be breaking a world record to."-I replied back as I placed down my briefcase and my coffee onto my desk-"And it will be for the boy with the most class flunks of 2015!"
The entire room of students chuckled and whooped as I sat preparing for class with a witty smirk.
Finally I am prepared, so I adjusted my tie and sat up straight and said-"DNA and mutations, that is what we will be discussing for today."-I slowly gave the entire class a glance over before nodding and taking a sip of my coffee-"Does anyone know what mutation is?"
I looked around as each and everyone of my students shook their heads no, except for one and that was Jasmine.
She instead raised her hand high and answered "A mutation is a change in DNA, the hereditary material of life. An organism's DNA affects how it looks, how it behaves, and its physiology. So a change in an organism's DNA can cause changes in all aspects of its life."
A smile crept onto my face as she lowered her hand to her lap.
She was a very very intelligent women, there was always a mysterious beautifulness about her and that's what I loved the most.
"That is...correct!"-I confirmed with a finger pointed straight at her and a huge wide toothy grin etched onto my face-"Brilliant answer."
Jasmine blushed at my words of praise and she couldn't help it and I knew it.
"Mutations are essential to evolution; they are the raw material of genetic variation. Without mutation...evolution could not occur."-I said as I crossed my hands behind my back-"So...today we'll all be discussing DNA and the molecular basis of mutations and first we begin at the head of the matter; the types of mutation."
As I went on to talk I sneaked a bit of glances at Jasmine, she saw me and chuckled lowly.
"D...N...A...."-I voiced loudly to my fully focused class as I opened up my briefcase and pulled out a stack of research papers that I had pre written for that day. I then went onto say-"Since mutations are simply changes in DNA, in order to understand how mutations work, we must first understand how DNA does its job."
I stood up from my seat still holding my coffee and paperwork in my hands as I begun to pace back and fourth.
"Your DNA contains a set of instructions for building a human. These instructions are inscribed in the structure of the DNA molecule through a genetic code. It works like this."-I explained while holding up my research photos for all the class to see-"DNA is made of a long sequence of smaller units strung together. There are four basic types of unit: A, T, G, and C. These letters represents the type of base each unit carries: adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine."
"What are those?" Asked one of my students with a hand held high above him.
A chuckle escaped my lips before I looked up to him and answered "Just be patient young one."
The student nodded and resumed listening as I carried on with the discussion saying "Now back to subject, the sequence of these bases encodes instructions. Some parts of your DNA are control centers for turning genes on and off, some parts have no function, and some parts have a function that we don't understand yet. Other parts of your DNA are genes that carry the instructions for making proteins which are long chains of amino acids. These proteins help build an organism."
"Can you explain further into detail professor about the protein process?" Asked Jasmine as she cupped her chin curiously.
She seemed to be the only one who ever really truly was interested in what I had to say.
"Very well then...the protein coding DNA can be divided into codons sets of three bases that specify an amino acid or signal the end of the protein. Codons are identified by the bases that make them up in the example here."-I explained before holding up another photo of an example for my class to observe and then I continued on to say-"GCA, for guanine, cytosine, and adenine. The cellular machinery uses these instructions to assemble a string of corresponding amino acids, which consists of one amino acid for each three bases that form a protein. The amino acid that corresponds to GCA is called alanine; there are twenty different amino acids synthesized this way in humans."
Amongst the class of sitting students I could only see her, my beloved Jasmine.
Her smile bore such a shine, that it could even blind the sun if it was possible.
"And there are stop codons which signify the end of a newly built protein."-I said before casting my eyes directly onto Jasmine and then I continued and said-"So...after a protein is built based on the sequence of bases in the gene, that very completed protein is released to do its job in the cell."
Finally finished with what I had to say I took questions and answers from each of my students before shortly ending class.
To be continued...
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"Do mutants truly exist and if they did? Would you accept them?"-XandorWixham
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