Welcome to the Furry Paws Genotype Restriction Enzymes program! This project cuts the full genes of any Furry Paws dog into itty-bitty pieces, which can be copied and pasted directly from Scratch into a spreadsheet. Do this with several dogs to compare their genes more easily than ever before! Try it out with your dogs! Or, test the tool with this sample from one Lapponian Herder: PP kk EmE Bb DD slsl awat Ssi mm rr tt cwcw gg Uu lla strcha chaagi hh hh HH Hh Hh Hh HH Hh Hh HH HH HH hh HH HH Hh HH hh Hh Hh hh HH HH hh The name of this program hails from real restriction enzymes, which are used by biologists to cut real DNA into smaller pieces. They are usually used to prepare strips of DNA for gel electrophoresis, but they serve a different purpose here! Notice: Does not work with real pooches.
Furry Paws is a free virtual dog game centering around genetics. The image of a dog seen in the project was generated by the Furry Paws website. The song is Lights by Ellie Goulding. To simplify reading this project's code, here are all of the variables and custom blocks in this project, explained. "PREPARATIONS": A variable. Allows (value of zero) or disallows (value of one) certain lines of code to run. For example, it prevents the dog from barking while the experiment is being run. "HYPOTHESIS": A variable. Serves two different functions. At the beginning, it determines which costume the dog's clones are to put on: Value of one: "What is this?," or the second costume Value of two: "I'm ready to begin!," or the third costume Value of three: "Who are you?," or the fourth costume The values zero and four are used as buffers in the code to prevent any strange interactions with this variable later. Zero is the starting value, while four is the ending value. The first costume, which is the dog, is not used by any clone. While the experiment is being run, "hypothesis" is set back to 0 and climbs from there. It counts which letter of the dog's genetic code should be added to variable "fragmentized DNA" next. "FRAGMENTIZED DNA": A variable. When the experiment is being run, this forms short phrases of genetic code to be added to the list of fragmented genes. "GENETIC CODE": A variable. Holds the dog's genotype for further reference, once it is given. The Answer block could be used in its place, however, sometimes the Answer block behaves strangely when used in long strings of code. "DISPLAY RESULTS": A variable. Tells the pink "I want to do another!" button when to appear. A value of zero signals to wait, and a value of one signals to go ahead with the rest of the code. "STATEMENT": A custom block. Functions as a "when this sprite clicked" block specific to the pink button labeled "I want to do another!." When the button is clicked, it re-triggers the gene-cutting string of code.
