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A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock Chapter Summary & Analysis - Chapter 3, Becoming a Scientist Summary

This Study Guide consists of approximately 31 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Barbara McClintock.
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Chapter 3, Becoming a Scientist Summary and Analysis

Most of McClintock's teachers supported her, despite the fact that she was female. They would often talk outside of class and left her free to study as she pleased. By her second year of graduate school, she knew what she wanted to study - chromosomes. She picked up some new techniques for chromosomal analysis for studying chromosomes under the microscope.

Evelyn explains that chromosomes are found in the nucleus of the cell; she describes the process of mitosis and meiosis. McClintock apparently found this fascinating. These processes of chromosomal reproduction made it clear by the 1920s that they both carried genes and had something to do with inheritance. One limitation of genetics at the time was that geneticists studying mostly fruit flies and corn. McClintock learned the shape, size and other traits of all ten corn chromosomes. She enabled a detailed cytogenetic analysis of corn which would have been...
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This section contains 605 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
Purchase our A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock Study Guide
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A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.
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