Being a human biology major, I have learned a lot about evolution and how it is very much a topic with my different views. I have also learned a lot about many different science topics ranging from basic biology to genetics. A lot of the topics covered with week for class were previous topics I have covered many times throughout my college career in many different classes but taught in a way to understand it different depending on the class. 

Evolution seems to be always the “answer” on why we look, act, do, basically why life happens. Why some people get sick, pass off, look different and I could go on and on forever I feel like and I am sure many of you can as well. Without evolution we would not have all these changes with the way we look and are able to do certain things and there would be no bad mutations but also no good ones that alter DNA in healthy way. Today’s world is a huge melting pot as we know, and those people came from many different backgrounds filled with different genes and before then came many generations before us. Meaning we would all look the same based on our genetic make-up if evolution never occurred. Even our bodies have evolved many times, a widely known example would be lactose intolerant! Most of us humans today can drink milk, but many people still cannot drink milk. This is due to many years ago as our ancestors were drinking milk frequently, mutation around the gene coding lactase was more frequent which led to future generations carrying this gene to be passed on. 

The readings and videos did not make me think differently as I have seen many similar videos over and over in my different science courses. However, the video made by National Geographic did really make everything click more. Seeing something I learned in my genetics course apply to something so cool in that video made me like my major more but also tie everything I have ever learned together even more with how close most of us are. It really showed how no matter where you came from and the environment you live in now, there are people out in the world that share your DNA all from common ancestors many years ago. I was extremely fascinated with the part of the article regarding genetics and the environment. A huge topic in pretty much all science courses is that lifestyle plays a huge role on survival. In biology with humans and animals out living each other and becoming survival of the fitness and in genetics getting a mutation in your normal DNA that codes for something way different and gets passed on which makes the next generation resistant to many things.  This meaning that having good genes that have been passed down will help you in the future out live certain groups for example. This also means that because of your environment you might be more risk for certain diseases. An example of this is sickle cell in Africa. Certain mutations with the alleles may give you sickle cell, but also will make your body have faulty RBC which prevent that individual from getting malaria.