Genes vs Jeans

GENES VS JEANS

In this series of work, I explored the denim jean and the DNA gene. Is it more important to spend our money for designer jeans or for research needed on designer genes? When someone mentions the word, “jeans”, do you think of Levi’s or DNA? While researching both jeans and genes, I found some similarities that tweaked my interest. Mendel is considered the “father of genetics”, while Levi Strauss is commonly known as the originator of the blue jean or ‘waist overall’, in 1873. Eloesser-Hanemann made black waist overalls called Frisko Jeans as early as 1860 and called them, “Can’t Bust Ums”. In 1927, Lee introduced a zip-up version of the waist overalls called “Union-Alls”, and called the zipper a “Whizit”. Babe Ruth was the first celebrity to endorse the zipper.

In the gene copy of DNA replication, each strand of the double helix is pulled apart like a zipper. If you reconnect the DNA from different sources and zip it together, you get gene splicing, a new sequence of DNA genetic engineering. In the 1940s, biologist George Beadle and Edward Tatum discovered, “The role of the gene is to make enzymes and each gene is responsible for one specific enzyme”. Today, stone washed jeans are manufactured by using organic enzymes (proteins). DNA genes determine how we look but you can look good in the right pair of blue genes. Stretches of DNA are called genes. We also have stretch jeans. Both jeans and genes are cloned. Blue jeans and genetic engineering are big business.