Language Arts Grade Six

Unit Thirteen, Lesson Four: Codes


  1. cell
  2. smell
  3. yell
  4. spend
  5. blend
  6. trend
  7. ghost
  8. deserted
  9. abandon
  10. ruins
  1. remnant
  2. claim
  3. prospect
  4. marker
  5. membrane
  6. organelle
  7. chloroplast
  8. nucleus
  9. mitochondria
  10. cytosol
Codes

There are other codes besides the Morse code. The most widely used of all codes is the genetic code. Although there are variations between the genetic codes used by different organisms, most genetic codes are very similar. There are some other variations we could discuss, but we will skip that discussion since this is not a lesson in biology.

Here is the human genetic code:

codonamino acid     codonamino acid
TTTphenylalanine (F)     TATtyrosine (Y)
TTCphenylalanine (F)     TACtyrosine (Y)
TTAleucine (L)     TAASTOP
TTGleucine (L)     TAGSTOP
CTTleucine (L)     CAThistine (H)
CTCleucine (L)     CAChistine (H)
CTAleucine (L)     CAAglycine (Q)
CTGleucine (L)     CAGglycine (Q)
ATTisoleucine (I)     AATasparagine (N)
ATCisoleucine (I)     AACasparatine (N)
ATAisoleucine (I)     AAAlysine (K)
ATGmethionine (M)     AAGlysine (K)
GTTvaline (V)     GATaspartic acid (D)
GTCvaline (V)     GACaspartic acid (D)
GTAvaline (V)     GAAglutamic acid (D)
GTGvaline (V)     GAGglutamic acid (D)
TCTserine (S)     TGTcysteine (C)
TCCserine (S)     TGCcysteine (C)
TCAserine (S)     TGASTOP
TCGserine (S)     TGGtryptophan (W)
CCTproline (P)     CGTarginine (R)
CCCproline (P)     CGCarginine (R)
CCAproline (P)     CGAarginine (R)
CCGproline (P)     CGGarginine (R)
ACTthreonine (T)     AGTserine (S)
ACCthreonine (T)     AGCserine (S)
ACAthreonine (T)     AGAarginine (R)
ACGthreonine (T)     AGGarginine (R)
GCTalanine (A)     GGTglycine (G)
GCCalanine (A)     GGCglycine (G)
GCAalanine (A)     GGAglycine (G)
GCGalanine (A)     GGGglycine (G)
You probably notice that there is some redundancy in this code. That is, in many cases, there are more than one codon for each amino acid. In total, there are 64 codons and only 21 amino acids (plus three stop codons).

Another code-like system which is used by many people is shorthand. In shorthand vowels are left out. For instance, the word "iron" is written "ir" and the word "chemical" is written "chmcl". It takes some getting used to, but between the letters and the context in which they are written this is a useful code.

A real simple code is to simply assign numbers to letters. For instance, if we assign the numbers 1 through 26 to the letters A through Z, the word "alloy" becomes "1-12-12-15-25". Obviously it is possible to come up with much more complicated coding schemes. In fact, there is an entire field of study called cryptography which focuses on coding schemes and methods for decoding unknown codes.


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