Mission 2: A Thorn Among Roses

MISSION NAME: A Thorn Among Roses

STATUS:

LOCATION: Monte Carlo

DIFFICULTY RATING: 50%

TERMS TO KNOW:

incomplete dominance: when two traits, neither of which are dominant over the other, are combined, the offspring show characteristics of both traits.

BRIEFING:

Well, now that your training has been completed, the GMF feels that you are ready to move out on your own and start working on projects that are a little more complicated. The GMF sincerely feels that you have the potential to rise up and become one of our premiere agents. Hopefully, you've brushed up on your international relations, because this next mission will take you to Monte Carlo, where you will be going undercover into the headquarters of the terrorist group known as the "Lampshades of Darkness" (L.O.D.).

Genetics experts from the L.O.D. have discovered a deadly chemical weapon made of oils that can only be extracted from the petals of pink, thornless roses. One drop of this chemical, if released into the atmosphere, will terminate the lives of every human within a 47.98 kilometer radius. However, these pink, thornless roses are quite rare and a large enough quantity can only be achieved after extensive crossing. GMF intelligence tells us that the leader of the L.O.D., known only as Dale, just purchased several thousand homozygous red, thorned roses and homozygous white, thornless roses from the corner flower stand. We believe that they are using these as the parents in their crosses.

Red - Thorns

White - Thornless

Pink - Thornless

This mission deals with incomplete dominance, a subject that even the most renowned geneticists shy away from. When you cross a homozygous red, thorned rose with a homozygous white, thornless rose, the F1 offspring is composed of pink, thorned roses which are heterozygous for both traits. The pink color is caused because the trait for red color in roses is not completely dominant to the recessive trait for white color, resulting in a pink combination when the flowers are heterozygous. This incomplete dominance is the key to the L.O.D.'s biochemical weapon. Because of the additional characteristic of the thorns, a dihybrid test cross is required to map the possible offspring of these crosses, making the problem a little more complex.

GMF intelligence also showed us a few satellite photos of the L.O.D. headquarters which show that they only have enough land to foster one plant cross at a time. While you're in the L.O.D. headquarters, you will need to find out how long it takes them to complete one successful cross, and how many of the pink roses are required to complete the first biochemical warhead.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to penetrate the L.O.D. headquarters and supply the GMF with the following information:

How many of the pink, thornless roses result from one cross.
How many of the pink, thornless roses are required for one warhead.
How many days it takes to produce enough roses for this warhead.

Once you supply us with this information, we can tell the other government agencies how much time they have until this terrorist group will become a threat.

You will be equipped with the usual tools:

The Punnet Calculator (set up for dihybrid crosses)
Your notebook
Special hints

Remember, time is of the essence. Good luck on your first field mission, and don't blow your cover!