Seth Enochs
Ms. Sheehan
Biology, Period 6
January 12, 2015
Biological Cheating There are four types of blood types in the ABO blood group (A, B, AB, and O). Blood types A and B are dominant alleles, so they will show up over blood type O alleles. Differences in blood types are due to the presence or absence of antigens and antibodies. Antigens are molecules that are located on the surface of the red blood cells, and antibodies are molecules that are located in the blood plasma. The shape of the antigens are what determines the blood type. The U.S judicial system does not recognize ABO blood typing as an acceptable way to determine paternity because many individuals can have the same blood type. Mr. Johnson suspects Mrs. Johnson has been cheating on him with Mr. Wilson so he wants to find out if any of the children are Mr. Wilson’s. The goal of our study was to use what we know about the inheritance of ABO blood types to determine if Mr. Johnson can be excluded as the father of any of Mrs. Johnson’s children. Our claim is, We think that 2 of Mr. Johnson’s children are not his biological children. The guiding question of this study is, Are all of Mr. Johnson’s children his biological offspring? Our procedure began with the artificial blood and blood wells we were given. We poured 2 drops of the child 1 blood into the A well and the B well. We then mixed the drops with two drops of A antigen in A and B antigen in B. Then, we mixed the 4 drop pools for 20 seconds with a toothpick. If the blood clumped, it was the correct antiserum and confirmed the blood type. We then repeated the process for the other two children. Child 1 had blood type A (I^A I^A or I^A