Thursday, September 2, 2010

European Corn Borer/Clinical Trial

The past few days in Bio 111 we have been working on and studying about clinical trials. I also did a virtual lab from the textbook called "How does the European Corn Borer Affect the Yield of Corn"?  designed to help with identifying dependent and independent variables.  I learned about a double-blind clinical trial which means neither the volunteer participating in the clinical trial nor the physician or doctor know what type of medicine or cure they are going to be using.   In the virtual lab I learned that certain types of corn resist pests better than others and that nowadays, corn plants have been genetically engineered and selectively bred in order to resist insect pests better.  I also found out that a control is the variable in an experiment which never changes.  I learned that with a low infestation of insects corn yields tend to be a bit higher and when the infestation levels are high, corn yields are comparably low.

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