In the artificial Pb operon described in the previous problem, you decide to design a different regulatory system, which in this particular case may work better than negative regulation. Required:
a. Design and describe a simple regulatory system for the Pb operon that employs positive regulation of transcription.
b. Where would you make mutations to make the Pb operon to be always active (constitutive transcription)

part 1: the half-life of the element is 22 years.

part 2: it will take 132.02 year for the sample to decay from 308.0 g to 4.8125 g.

explanation:

part 1: there are two ways to determine the half life time.

first way: the half life time can be determined directly from its definition as it is the time required for the sample to decay to its half concentration.

from the data the initial concentration was 45.0 g and decayed to its half value (22.5 g) in 22.0 years.

second way: the radio active decay is considered first order reaction so we can use the laws of first order reactions.

k = (1/t) ln (a/a-x), where k is the rate constant of the reaction,

t is the time of the reaction

a is the initial concentration of the reactant

a-x is the remaining concentration at time (t)

a = 45.0 g the initial concentration at t = 0 year.

at t = 22 year, a-x = 22.5 g

then k = (1/22 year) ln (45.0 g/ 22.5 g) = 0.0315 year-1.

the half-life time (t1/2) = ln 2/ k = 0.693/ k =0.693/ 0.0315 = 22 years.

part 2:

using the same law k = (1/t) ln (a/a-x),

using the given data; a = 308.0 g and a-x = 4.8125 g and the calculated k from the part 1 (k = 0.0315 year-1)

t = (1/k) ln (a/a-x) = (1/0.0315) ln (308.0/ 4.8125) = 132.02 years

percent abundance for cu-63 can be shown as:

63 x + 65 (1-x) = 62.9296

65 - 62.9296 = 2 x

x = 1.035

thus, percent abundance for cu-63 is 1.035

percent abundance for cu-65 can be shown as:

63 x + 65 (1-x) = 64.9278

65 - 64.9278 = 2 x

x = 0.0361

thus, percent abundance for cu-63 is 0.0361

the mass spectrum of cu-63 showing the intense peak as, this isotope is found in nature more abundantly around 92.38 % in comparison to cu-65 which is found 62.58 % naturally