Scientists are now convinced that the \"Illinois death spiral\" is an alien life

Question

Scientists are now convinced that the "Illinois death spiral" is an alien life form. It has 10 modified versions of every amino acid, which requires a specific code for 200 amino acids. Astonishingly, scientists found that this amoeba still only uses all four of the usual bases. (A) hypothesize how the "Illinois death spiral" is accommodating all of these new amino acids unambiguously, (B) support your hypothesis mathematically, and (C) What rule of the standard genetic code is apparently being broken?

Explanation / Answer

A. the illinois death spiral accomodates 200 amino acids, because it has a 4 base codon so that the possibility of combinations increases and the number of amino acids increase.

B. if the codon is of 4 bases and there are 4 types of bases in total, so the no. of combinations that can be made would be : 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 256 combinations or codons which include stop codons as well, and the remaining extra codons could be used for the same 200 amino acids.

C. the standard rule of a codon being 3 nucleotides long is being broken also the rule that the genetic code is universal and could be utilized in all the organisms uniformly is also being broken.

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