In most normal human somatic cells, telomeres shorten with each division. In stem cells and in cancer cells, however, telomere length is maintained. In the synthesis of telomeres: Telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein, provides both the RNA and the polymerase needed for synthesis. the direction of synthesis is 3'~5'. the polymerase of telomerase is a DNA-directed DNA polymerase. the RNA of telomerase serves as a primer. the shorter, 3'~5' strand gets extended.

Provides both the RNA and the polymerase needed for synthesis

Explanation:

Telomerase is an enzyme which extends the telomere sequences present at the end of the chromosomes. The telomerase enzyme acts as DNA polymerase as well as provides the RNA which serves as a template strand rather than the primer.

The polymerase acts as a reverse transcriptase enzyme and synthesizes the DNA strand from the  RNA template. Since the telomerase provides RNA and acts as DNA polymerase, therefore, it is known as the ribonucleoprotein molecule.

Thus, the selected option is correct.

The correct option is Genetic drift greatly affects small populations, but large populations can recover.

Explanation:

Genetic drift is an evolutionary mechanism in which the allelic frequencies in a population change through many generations. Its effects are harder in a small-sized population.  

Genetic drift results in some alleles loss, even those that are beneficial for the population, and the fixation of some other alleles by an increase in their frequencies. The final consequence is to randomly attach one of the alleles.  

Genetic drift has important effects on a population when this last one reduces its size dramatically because of a disaster -bottleneck effect- or because of a population split -founder effect-.

In the exposed example, the hurricane caused a disaster in both populations, reducing the number of individuals on the island and in the mainland. Henry saw a decrease in genetic variation in the island species, but not in the mainland species. This could be because the island population was smaller than the mainland population, so it was more affected by the disaster. The loss of some alleles in the population caused a decrease in genetic variation in the island population.