TITLE: TONGUE ROLLING

ABSTRACT:

The purpose of this research is to identify the population of dominant and recessive

traits of tongue rolling among UPSI students in between FSMT, FSKIK and FBK. The

research was done on 120 students from these three faculties. 40 students are from faculty of

Science and Mathematics, 40 students are from faculty of Language and Communication, 40

students are from Faculty of Art, Computer and Creative Industry. Each respondents were

provided with a questionnaire that ask them regarding speed test, pronunciation, ability of

respondent to roll tongue, ability of parents to roll tongue as well as the number of their

siblings that were able to roll tongue as well as not able to roll tongue. After we collected the

entire questionnaire, the number of students that were able to roll their tongue and the number

of students that were unable to roll their tongue were counted and interpreted in table. The

total number of respondents can roll tongue are 95 while respondents cannot roll their tongue

is 25. FSKIK has the highest number of respondents who can roll tongue. According to the

speed test result, respondents from FSMT and FBK show around 30< x ≤ 40 second while

respondents from FSKIK show highest time taken around 20< x ≤ 30. Ability of

respondents’ father roll their tongue show highest for faculty FBK, ability of respondents’

mother roll their tongue show highest tongue for faculty FSMT. Some of the respondents

have siblings cannot roll their tongue while the respondent able to roll tongue. Besides, the

distribution of male and female between siblings can or cannot is not significant. This is not

affected by sex-linked but assort randomly.

INTRODUCTION:

The tongue-rolling trait is frequently used in Biology lessons to demonstrate the basic

principles of genetics. Tongue-rolling is commonly thought to be controlled by one gene with

two different forms, or alleles. Simple traits like these are called Mendelian, after Gregor

Mendel, a biologist who lived in the 1800s.Mendelian inheritance is a scientific description

of how hereditary characteristics are passed from parent organisms to their offspring, it

underlies much of genetics. Published data suggests that around 65-80% of people can roll

their tongues. Some studies have shown that northern England has fewer tongue-rollers than

southern England, right-handers are more likely to be able to roll their tongues, and more

men than women can tongue-roll. Thus, this investigation is needed to find out does tongue

rolling is affected by genes or environment and affect the ability of a person.

OBJECTIVE:

1. To find out whether tongue rolling affected the ability of a person.

METHODOLOGY:

1. Prepare a questionnaire and distribute to respondents.2. Observe whether the respondents have the ability to roll tongue.

Results :

FSMT FSKIK FBK0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

QUESTION 1: Ability of respondent to roll tounge

YESNO

Ability to roll tounge

Num

ber o

f res

pond

ent

FacultyAbility of respondent to roll tongue

YES NO

FSMT 32 8

FSKIK 35 5

FBK 28 12

TOTAL 95 25

FSMT FSKIK FBK0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

QUESTION 2 : Ability of respondent to say alphabet R and S correctly

YESNOEXCEPTED

Ability to say alphabet R and S

Num

bero

f res

pond

ent

Faculty

Ability of respondent to say alphabet R and S correctly

YES NO EXCEPTED CHINESE AND INDIAN

FSMT 33 5 2

FSKIK 35 3 2

FBK 31 5 4

TOTAL 99 13 8

0<x≤10 10<x≤20 20<x≤30 30<x≤40 40<x≤50 50<x≤60 60<x0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

QUESTION 3 : Time taken to read tounge twister

FSMTFSKIKFBK

Time range (s)

num

ber o

f res

pond

ent

Faculty Time taken to read tongue twister (s)

0<x≤10 10<x≤20 20<x≤30 30<x≤40 40<x≤50 50<x≤60 60<x

FSMT 0 1 31 62 0 0 0

FSKIK 0 2 13 10 6 5 4

FBK 0 2 13 6 5 5 9

TOTAL 0 5 57 78 11 10 13

0<x≤10 10<x≤20 20<x≤30 30<x≤40 40<x≤50 50<x≤60 60<x0

5

10

15

20

25

QUESTION 4 : Time taken to read text

FSMTFSKIKFBK

Time range (s)

Num

ber o

f res

pond

ent

Faculty

Time taken to read text (s)

0<x≤10 10<x≤20 20<x≤30 30<x≤40 40<x≤50 50<x≤60 60<x

FSMT 0 0 1 21 13 5 0

FSKIK 0 2 13 10 6 5 4

FBK 0 0 5 17 10 3 5

TOTAL 0 2 19 48 29 13 9

FSMT FSKIK FBK0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

QUESTION 5 : Ability of respondent's father to roll his tounge

YESNO

Ability of father to roll tounge

Num

ber o

f res

pond

ent

FacultyAbility of respondent’s father to roll tongue

YES NO

FSMT 26 14

FSKIK 25 15

FBK 32 8

TOTAL 83 37

FSMT FSKIK FBK0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

QUESTION 6 : Ability of respondent's mother to roll her tounge

YESNO

Ability of mother to roll tounge

Num

ber o

f res

pond

ent

FacultyAbility of respondent’s mother to roll tongue

YES NO

FSMT 33 7

FSKIK 27 13

FBK 29 11

TOTAL 89 31

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤40

5

10

15

20

25

QUESTION 7 (i) : Number of Male Siblings

FSMTFSKIKFBK

Range

Num

ber

of si

blin

gs

Faculty Number of male siblings

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤4

FSMT 13 18 9 0

FSKIK 10 11 10 9

FBK 18 15 7 0

TOTAL 41 44 26 9

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤40

5

10

15

20

25

QUESTION 7 (ii) : Number of Female Siblings

FSMTFSKIKFBK

Range

Num

ber o

f sib

lings

Faculty Number of female siblings

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤4

FSMT 7 19 14 0

FSKIK 10 11 9 10

FBK 11 22 6 1

TOTAL 28 52 29 11

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤40

5

10

15

20

25

QUESTION 8: Male Siblings That Can Roll Their Tongue

FSMTFSKIKFBK

Range

Num

ber o

f sib

lings

FacultyNumber of male siblings ability to roll tongue

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤4

FSMT 16 15 7 0

FSKIK 9 13 9 9

FBK 22 12 6 0

TOTAL 47 30 22 9

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤40

5

10

15

20

25

QUESTION 9: Female Siblings That Can Roll Their Tongue

FSMTFSKIKFBK

Range

Num

ber o

f sib

lings

FacultyNumber of female sibling ability to roll tongue

0<x≤1 1<x≤2 2<x≤3 3<x≤4

FSMT 5 20 8 0

FSKIK 12 10 9 9

FBK 15 21 4 0

TOTAL 32 51 21 9

LEGEND:

R = can roll tongue

r = can not roll tongue

(1) Cross A

Mother X Father

Parental genotype : RR X RR

Homozygous dominant Homozygous dominant

Gametes:

F1 generation: RR

Phenotype ratio : All RR

Genotype ratio: All offspring can roll tongue

(2) Cross B

Mother X Father

Parental genotype: Rr X Rr

Heterozygous Heterozygous

Gametes:

F1 generation: RR Rr Rr rr

Phenotype ratio: 1 RR : 2 Rr : 1rr

3 R_ : 1 rr

Genotype ratio: 3 can roll tongue : 1 cannot roll tongue

(3 ) Cross C

Mother X Father

R R

R Rr r

Parental genotype : RR X rr

Homozygous dominant Homozygous recessive

Gametes:

F1 generation : Rr

Heterozygous offspring

Phenotype ratio: All Rr

Genotype ratio : All offspring can roll tongue

(4) Cross D

Mother X Father

Parental genotype: rr X rr

Homozygous recessive Homozygous recessive

Gametes:

F1 generation: All rr

All homozygous recessive offspring

Phenotype ratio : All rr

Genotype ratio : All offspring cannot roll tongue

R r

r r

DISCUSSION:

In order to properly explain the different patterns of inheritance, it is all about

genetics. DNA is present in each of our cells, and it contains all of the information that makes

us human. Humans have  thousands of genes encoded in their DNA, each of which plays an

important role in life. Everyone has two copies of every gene; one inherited from the mother,

and one inherited from the father. In this report, we are investigating whether the ability of a

person to roll tongue affect the ability of a person in speaking.

As we know that, tongue rolling is a simple two alleles character with the allele for

rolling, for the symbol R, being dominant over the allele for non-rolling, for the symbol r.

Tongue rolling was demonstrated according to Mendelian genetics. It was based on first

Mendelian law that is Law of Segregation. This law states that during gamete formation, the

paired factors segregate randomly so that half of the gametes received each of it respectively.

From the studied of inheritance, the process of passing characteristics to the next generation,

it came to conclusion:

The characteristics of an organism are passed along from parent to child by pieces of

information called genes. Every gene represents a single of information containing

one characteristic.

Alleles are two or more genes that carry a piece of information about a single

characteristic, for example: one of the allele pair may be for roll tongue and the other

may be for non-roll tongue. Alleles are usually found in pairs, one of which is

dominant, or over powering, and one recessive which is masked by the dominant.

In reproduction each gamete, or reproductive cell, (sperm or egg), has only one of the

pair present.

If a dominant and recessive allele are both present, the individual will be affected by

the dominant allele.

So, the phenotypic expression of a gene is determined by dominance, the allele for tongue

rolling R. For example, for the tongue rolling, if a parent had even one R in the pair, the R

trait will be expressed. This means that the person can roll their tongue. Only in the case of

entirely recessive inheritance, where both parents give their offspring the rr gene

combination, the offspring will not express the tongue rolling. According to the Law of

Segregation, the F2 generation phenotype ratio will give a ratio 3:1. This means that there are

three in four chances that the dominant R gene will be expressed in the offspring, leaving a

one in four chance that the offspring will not be able to roll their tongue.

The respondent is divided into two categories that can do tongue rolling and cannot do

tongue rolling. According to our research, from 120 respondents we had obtained that 95

respondents can roll their tongues, only 25 respondents cannot roll their tongue. FSKIK show

the highest number of respondents ability to roll tongue which are 35. While followed with

respondents from FSMT and FBK, 32 and 28 respondents. This result had been shown that

the phenotype ratio is 3:1 and it followed Mendel Law of Segregation. The numbers of

respondent that can roll tongue are many rather than the number of respondent that cannot

roll tongue. This result shows that the ability to roll tongue is caused by a dominant gene (R)

and not able to roll tongue or known as non-roller is caused by homozygous recessive (rr).

Therefore, the respondents can roll their tongue are inherited the dominant gene (R) from

their parents either in an allele or in a pair.

For question (2), the number of respondents able to say alphabet R and S are almost the

same among all respondent. The ability of respondents to say R and S of FSMT, FSKIK and

FBK are 33, 35, and 31. The number is almost same with respondents can roll their tongue.

For question (3), most respondents from all faculties take time from 20s to 40s to finish

the text given. This does not show the ability of respondents to roll tongue affect the ability of

a person. Since that respondent take the shortest time is from FSKIK, which is around 10 < x

≤ 20 second.

Besides, if the either one of respondent’s parents can roll their tongue. The respondent

also can roll their tongue too. Since, the tongue rolling is controlled by dominant R gene. If

there is one R gene in the genotype, it will show phenotype roll tongue. But, if the parents

are heterozygous, there will be 1 child cannot roll tongue with rr gene. But if either one of the

parents is homozygous dominant, all of her children can roll tongue either RR or Rr.

From the result we analysis, we can conclude that ability of tongue rolling person to read

and speak does not affected by genetic inheritance tongue rolling. This is because reading and

speaking can be practices based on individual knowledge. It does not show that FBK have the

shortest time taken in speed reading text and also tongue twister. Speaking and reading is

affected by environment.

CONCLUSION:

As the conclusion for this experiment an example of Mendel's laws with two traits can

be illustrated in the human trait of tongue rolling. Tongue rolling is the simple genetics

characters and it is influences the genetics of their both parents. This tongue rolling is

establishing the Mendelian First Law.

According to the result from respondent that we have, all the ratio will be obey Law

of Segregation that produced 3:1 ratio. This means that, 3/4 from the offspring can rolls their

tongue. This is proved by many respondent can rolls their tongue compared to respondent

that cannot rolls their tongue. Based on that, we can know that dominant allele will suppress

the recessive allele and show it’s characteristics through the appearances of the offspring.

Then, we can conclude that tongue rolling is the one that can be inherited from their parent

through genetics from one generation to the other generations.

REFERENCES

1. Principles Of Genetics, D.Peter Snustad And Michael J.Simmons, (5th edition), Wiley United State

2. http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/activities/pdfs/inherited%20human

%20traits%20quick%20reference_public.pdf

3. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/5/221.extract

4. http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/be1.shtml

5. http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=125

6. http://www.zerobio.com/drag_gr11/pedigree/pedigree1.htm

GENETICS SBU3033

TITLE: MINI PROJECT- TONGUE ROLLING

Prepared By:

NAME ID NUMBER

PHUA WAN JIEN D20091035127

SALMIZA ZAINAL ABIDIN D20091035074

NORHARYAN ERDAYU BT SAHAR D20091035078

SITI MARDIAH BT MOHD BAHARI D20091035103

PREPARED FOR:

DR. FATIMAH MOHAMED