You are a recently graduated chemist and you just secured your first job working at Ortho Pesticides. The
company's premium line of ant control chemicals
... [Show More] which all uses the same active ingredient, Killemall,
seems to be no longer effective, but only in much of northeast Oklahoma. Products with Killemall are
highly effective in all other regions of the country. Your job is to figure out why the products no longer
work in only this one region and to develop a product that does work. Which of the following is a viable
explanation for why the products stopped working in northeast Oklahoma paired also with a functional
strategy that will likely create a working product for this region?
Products with Killemall were widely used in northeast Oklahoma, but the people of the area could not
afford the full recommended dose of the products and were thus often using insufficient quantities of
Killemall products as control measures for pests. This strategy initially reduced numbers of unwanted
pests, but it did not fully control the pest populations. Instead, many pests were exposed to Killemall at
sublethal doses. Some of these exposed pests had accidental mutations already present that allowed
them to metabolize the Killemall into a chemical that was nontoxic. This trait was thus selected for and
further rounds of selection as Killemall was used at continued bellow recommended doses drove the
pests to evolve even greater defense against the Killemall. You discover that you can make a chemically
minor change to the Killemall, to create the new Reallykillemall, which is now so effective at controlling
pests that small affordable quantities can be used in this region to get the pest population back under
control.
You are an explorer studying ice-caves in Antarctica. You bring equipment to keep you warm enough to
live in the caves but you accidently let the heating device get too close to a cave wall. The wall melts
away to reveal a tunnel that has never been explored before by modern humans. You bravely enter the
cave, and shortly after emerging several hours later from the cave, you begin to experience difficulty
forcing your muscles to produce the movements required for breathing, you find it difficult to make your
legs move so that you can walk, and you promptly fall over on your side, completely limp. Shortly before
you lose consciousness you experience a perception of nothing, and then you felt nothing at all. Select
an explanation from the following that describes what happened to you.
You encountered a never before known parasite that consumes neurotransmitters in synaptic clefts. You
experienced paralysis and stopped breathing when your nerves were no longer able to communicate
with your muscles. You lost other sensations and brain functions as the neurons in your brain were no
longer able to communicate with each other. [Show Less]