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David Barker
McClintock was a scientist who discovered “jumping genes” by studying corn genetics. McClintock found that when the corn was stressed, sequences of DNA moved from one place to another and triggered changes in the genome. Though she met much skepticism throughout her career, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983, at age 81, for her work.
Barbara McClintock Quotes in Survival of the Sickest
The Survival of the Sickest quotes below are all either spoken by Barbara McClintock or refer to Barbara McClintock. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 6 Quotes
McClintock believed that the jumps are a genomic response to internal or environmental stress that cells can't handle under their existing setup. Essentially, a challenge to survival triggers the organism to throw the mutation dice, hoping it will land on a change that will help. That’s what she thought was going on with the corn plants she was studying—too much heat or too little water triggered the corn to gamble its survival on finding a mutation that could help it survive.
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Barbara McClintock Character Timeline in Survival of the Sickest
The timeline below shows where the character Barbara McClintock appears in Survival of the Sickest. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 6: Jump Into the Gene Pool
Barbara McClintock was a revolutionary thinker who was largely ignored by her peers. She received her Ph.D....
(full context)
Barbara McClintock’s findings were largely faced with skepticism until 1983, at age 81, when she received the...
(full context)
McClintock believed that these responses were caused by internal or environmental stress, spurring jumping genes to...
(full context)
