Science - Yr12 Biology

Year 12 Biology

Shark Attack!

Four locations – Four Shark Attacks! – Was one shark responsible for attacking the surfers or were there more?

Last week the Year 12 Biology classes carried out a DNA fingerprinting experiment which allowed them to work out exactly this.

In this experiment students were given the shark DNA from the four attacks sites. Shark DNA that had been extracted from shark teeth that had been embedded in the surfer’s boards. They used a technique called gel electrophoresis to run their DNA samples to sort them into different fragment lengths. By comparing the four samples, they were able to see that out of the four samples, two were the same meaning three sharks were responsible for the attacks.