In Unit 10, I learned about the types of systems in the body. It includes homeostasis, circulatory system, lymphatic systems, respiratory system, nervous system, endocrine system, digestive system, and immune system. We learned about the functions of each of these systems.
Homeostasis includes negative and postive feedback. Postive feedback occurs when things go in one way away from a set point. Negative feedback is when temperature bounces back and forth. Homeostasis also includes important terms like behavioral response and physiological response.
Behavioral response is a response of a whole organism. Physiological response is the response within the body. Homeostasis helps blood glucose levels. It increases blood glucose levels. If it goes up, beta cells of the pancreas are going to secrete insulin and tells the cells to take in more glucose and allows it to go in the cell and goes down to a set point which is around 90-100 milligrams per millimeter. If it goes too low, alpha cells stimulate and secrete glucagon and tells the liver to breakdown glycogen and release glucose. Homeostasis can affect the kidney by helping it release urine from the body. It can affect evolution and can be affected by invasive species and dehydration.
We learned about the circulatory system and respiratory system, which ares systems that transports blood, gases and nutrients. It can collect and carry away waste and maintain body temperature. It can also separates oxygen poor and oxygen rich blood.
In the respiratory system, gas exchange occurs in the circulatory system. It delivers oxygen from inhaled air to the blood and expels carbon dioxide and water. The respiratory system can affect the heart and circulation flow through the body. It flows by entering the right atrium, right ventricle which pumps blood to lungs, oxygen rich blood enters left atrium, then to left ventricle which pumps blood to the body.
In the nervous system, I learned about the functions of the nervous system. The nervous system includes the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. Central nervous system includes the brain, brain stem, and spiral cord. Peripheral nervous system includes the cranial nerves, spinal nerves, sensory neurons, and motor neurons. The CNS processes information. It has four parts that process information which are the cerebrum, diencephalon, cerebellum, and brain stem. The cerebrum controls thought, movement, and emotion. The diencephalon controls the coordinate with the endocrine system and directs info to cerebrum. The cerebellum involves calculating force and direction of muscle contraction and determines body position. The brain stem controls basic life functions. The nervous system also involves spinal cords and neurons. The spinal cord controls reflexes. Neurons are highly specialized cells. There are 3 types of neurons that receive and transmit signals. They are sensory neurons, association neurons and motor neurons. Sensory neurons carry nerve impulses from sensory receptors in the body of the CNS. Association neurons carry impulses from the sensory neurons to motor neurons. Motor neurons carry nervous impulses from CNS to muscles and glands.
The endocrine system is made up of glands that carry functions. It is slower but is a longer lasting control of bodily functions such as reproduction growth and metabolism. Glands are organs that synthesize a substance for release. Hormones are a chemical substance that is produced by glans, travels through the circulatory system to different parts of the body and affects cells with transmitters. In the endocrine system, the glands like the hypothalamus glands link with the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland to control body temperature. There are many other glands in the nervous system that can help deal with hormones.
The digestive system is about the digestion of nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, and vitamins. The digestive system is important for the organs that help break down food. It breaks down food into energy cells can use, nutrients are absorbed and transported to all cells. Undigested material is eliminated as liquids and solid wastes. Nutrients are absorbed by the small intestine and large intestine. The three parts of the small intestine is the duodenum, jejunum, and lleum. It absorbs nutients by entering the circulatory or lymphatic systems and liver stones excrete glucose for future use as a polysaccharide called glycogen. The large intestine absorbs water and solid wastes and eliminates them. The waste is then eliminated through the anus.
The immune system helps protect the body from infection. There are two types of immunity which are innate and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity is the recognition of traits shared by broad ranges of pathogens using a small set of receptors and is a rapid responses. Adaptive immunity is the recognition of traits specific to particular pathogens using a vast array of receptors and is slower response. Adaptive immunity help deal with humoral response and cell mediated response and innate immunity deal with defenses like barrier defenses, and internal defenses. The immune systems deal with pathogens that can enter the body in many ways. Phagocytes and natural killer cells are vital in the immune system as it protects the body in different ways.
The lymphatic system is a system of tubes and sacs throughout the body that collects waste and blood from all tissues. The importance of the lymphatic system is that it clears waste from the body. It's the first line of defense when sickness occurs. Lymph nodes make lots of white blood cells and swell sore muscles from working out and uses them to pump waste out. The lymphatic system can catch cancer before it makes to lymphatic system. The inflammatory responses in the lymphatic system is the process of the body responding to a pathogen entering the body. There are two types of inflammation which are acute local and systemic inflammation that deal with pathogen response.
Since August, I have learned to make good blog posts about the things we do in class like labs, projects and unit reflections. I have accomplished on learning a lot about biology by doing blog posts. The blog posts help me with tests since a good test taking skill is writing a lot than just looking at important terms to study for tests. I am most proud of the blog posts. I have learned a good skills of making good blog posts by adding lots of information, links and pictures to make it look more appealing.
pig dissection blog post
This blog post was about doing a relate and review on the pig dissection we did in the end of the year. I added a youtube video that was made during class when we did the pig dissection. The video is about talking about certain parts of the pig's body using what we learned about each of the systems.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Thursday, May 26, 2016
20 time final reflection
20 time presentation
Our TED Talk went well. We got a good score on our Ted Talk. We talked smoothly and explained the major details of our 20 time project. Our PowerPoint was well made and our speech made the required time limit allowed. The things that we should have done differently was that we should have memorized our parts more. I didn't memorize mine that much and it affected the way the presentation went. If I memorized my parts more then the presentation would have gone much smoother. Watching the video, I would have given ours a 74-75 because we had met all of the criteria but our speaking needed to be a bit better. The experience on giving this talk was nervous for me. I had to prepare a lot with my partner. We had to prepare our speech and powerpoint and do some dry runs to make sure we would meet the time limit. We would have to meet each other to prepare this. Giving the talk was a bit nervous. We were not used to talk to a whole audience as a partner. The takeaway from this experience was that we should prepare more when speaking to an audience and make more eye contact.
For our 20 time project, we decided to make a Rubik's cube program to help solve a 2x2 Rubik's cube in the least moves possible. Here's what we did 20 time reflection.
picture of our 20 time project
picture of 20 time project
This link leads to a picture which is what our Rubik's cube program looks like after it's completed. This took us at least a month to complete. It contains over 200 lines of program that runs the program smoothly.
Our TED Talk went well. We got a good score on our Ted Talk. We talked smoothly and explained the major details of our 20 time project. Our PowerPoint was well made and our speech made the required time limit allowed. The things that we should have done differently was that we should have memorized our parts more. I didn't memorize mine that much and it affected the way the presentation went. If I memorized my parts more then the presentation would have gone much smoother. Watching the video, I would have given ours a 74-75 because we had met all of the criteria but our speaking needed to be a bit better. The experience on giving this talk was nervous for me. I had to prepare a lot with my partner. We had to prepare our speech and powerpoint and do some dry runs to make sure we would meet the time limit. We would have to meet each other to prepare this. Giving the talk was a bit nervous. We were not used to talk to a whole audience as a partner. The takeaway from this experience was that we should prepare more when speaking to an audience and make more eye contact.
For our 20 time project, we decided to make a Rubik's cube program to help solve a 2x2 Rubik's cube in the least moves possible. Here's what we did 20 time reflection.
picture of our 20 time project
picture of 20 time project
This link leads to a picture which is what our Rubik's cube program looks like after it's completed. This took us at least a month to complete. It contains over 200 lines of program that runs the program smoothly.
Pig dissection lab relate/review
The pig dissection lab relates to unit 10, physiology. We learned about our human body and the systems it contains. It contains the circulatory and respiratory system, nervous system, endocrine system, digestive system, immune system, and lymphatic system. We learned about each of these systems and how it helps function the whole entire body. Without these systems, you would not survive. In the pig dissection lab, we identified the parts using our understanding of the systems. We had to identify parts from the external anatomy, digestive system, respiratory system, endocrine system, circulatory system, and urogenital system by cutting the pig's skin and mouth open and identifying them. My group would the dissection video tutorial which consists of identifying certain parts of the pig's body and explaining the functions.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
20 Time Reflection
During this 20 time experience, I have learned a lot about myself. I've challenged myself by looking up material that I did not know much about and learning more about it to put into a Ted Talk. I chose to do computer science with my friend, who wanted to do it very much. I chose this because my friend and I were interested in it. Our goal was to create a 3x3 Rubik's cube using computer science. In order to achieve this goal, we would first determine which coding language we would use. We would then use the language to program a solver to solve a 3x3 Rubik's cube. We would use a real Rubik's cube to help make the program act like a real cube that could solve a 3x3 Rubik's cube and the net to help with cube movement. This did not go too well. We decided to make a 2x2 cube using a computer science coding language since making a 3x3 cube was going to be too difficult to do and would not get enough time to complete before the deadline. We didn't quite finish the 2x2 cube and will not make the 3x3 cube. We learned about what we were capable of doing using our computer science skills. When we started doing our program of making a rubix cube solver to solve 3x3 cubes, there were many possibilities of solving a 3x3 cube. There were so many possibilities that we decided not to do it and do the 2x2 cube because it would be easier to do. If we had a chance of doing this project again, we would still stick with the 2x2 cube since we didn't finish it last time and maybe do the 3x3 after we complete the 2x2 cube. We would continue this challenge to help improve on our computer science skills. We would also share this to others because there are some people that would be interested in doing this project and would also give people new challenges for doing projects relating to this project.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Unit 9 Reflection
In Unit 9, we have learned about taxonomy and how certain types of organism evolved the world. This includes bacteria and viruses, fungi, plants, invertebrates, and chordates. We learned about each these types of organisms in great detail. We have done presentations on what on earth evolved. This unit was difficult to understand since there is a lot of information to absorb.
For bacteria and viruses, we learned that they come in a variety of shapes that includes spheres, rods, and spirals and are smaller than Eukaryota cells. We learned about several types of bacteria which include gram positive and gram negative. Gram positive bacteria have simpler walls with a large amount of peptidoglycan and gram negative bacteria have less peptidoglycan and a toxic outer membrane and are more likely to be antibiotic resistant mobility. Most mobile bacteria propel themselves by flagella scatted about the surface or concentrated at one or both ends. HIV are retroviruses that use revers transcripture to copy their RNA genome into DNA. Some key terms are flagellum which are protein whip like structures that are used to propel organisms. Bacteria, Archaea, and eukaryotes that contain flagellum are composed of different proteins and are likely evolved independently. Another key term to know is chemoheterotrophs which are heterotrophic bacteria that take in organic molecules, photoautotrophs which use light to convert carbon dioxide and water into carbon compounds and chemoautotrophs which use energy directly from chemical reactions involving ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, nitrates, sulfur or iron. Viruses are not cells and are small infectious particles consisting of nucleic acid enclosed in a protein coat and a membranous envelope.
We learned about Fungi. Fungi have many traits which include their walls being made of chitin, and can absorb food through Hyphase. They are multicellular organisms with yeast. They have many parts that include hyphae, mycellium, fruiting obdy and a spore. These parts help grow fungi like mushrooms. The diversity of fungi include sac fungi, bread molds, and club fungi. They are important in many ways like they can be used for food, antibiotics and as model systems for molecular biology.
We learned about plants and have evolved through natural selection and can be understood through the understanding of the evolution of plants. The major adaptations of plants is that they can survive in most conditions. The most major plants include Bryophyta, ferns and gymnosperms. There are two types of angiosperms which include monocots and dicots. Monocots have a single seed leaf which have parallel leaf veins with flower parts being in groups of three. Dicots have two seed leaves that have netlike veins and have flower parts in multiple of 4 or 5.
Invertebrates are important for this unit as they help evolve Earth and have many phylums. Most invertebrates are very diverse are categorized by body symmetry, tissue layers and developmental patterns. Sponges and Cnidarias are phylums and are very simple as they are very old and are similar to other animals on Earth. Sponges are related to protists and Cnidarias have four major classes that include scyphozoans, anthozoans, hydrozoans, and cubozoans. Another type of phylum are platyhelminthes which include flatworms, mollusks, and annelids and are closely related to phylas. Another phyla is phylum molluska which are diverse as well. They have a complete digestive tract that have two openings which are the mouth and anus. They have a radula, mantle and ctenidia. Another phylum is the Arthropods which have exoskeletons, jointed appendages, segmented body parts and are classified by five groups which are the trilobites, crustaceans, chelicerates, insects and myriapods. They have been given a circulatory system and have sensitive organs and compound eyes. Insects have 3 pairs of legs, a head, thorax and an abdomen and are dominant terrestrial arthoropods. Crustaceans are a diverse group of arthropods and share several common features. They can vary in structure and anatomy. The last phylum of invertebrates are echinoderms. They are similar to vertebrates and have an external skeleton.
Chordates are important to taxonomy and helped evolve Earth. They include vertebrates and have seven classes of vertebrates which are Agnatha, Condricthyes, Osteichyes, Amphibia, Reptilla, Aves and Mammalia. Agnatha are jawless fish that have developed from gill arches located around the pharynx and have a lateral line system. Condricthyes are fish with skeletons made of cartilage and include bony fish that have skeletons that are made of bone. Condricthyes also have lobe fins that are paired pectoral and pelvic fins that are round and help support weight and helped evolve the first amphibians. Reptiles that are diverse amniotes. They have ectotherms, covered in scales, reproduce by laying eggs, and have a three chambered heart. They helped evolve the first modern reptiles, bird, and mammals. Aves are birds that have evolved from dinosaurs and have hollow bones, fused collarbones that form a v shaped wishbone and have three fingered hands. Mammals are egg laying and include monotremes that lay eggs like a duck billed platypus, marsupials that give birth to live young that are later mature, and Eutherians that give birth to live young that complete fetal development.
In this unit, we had a what on Earth evolved presentation. We have done lots of presentations on the types of species that have change Earth. My presentation went well even though I was worried that I would not make the presentation at least four minutes long. I did the lobe finned fish and it was difficult getting information that would relate on how it changed evolution. There was little information on evolution and I tried to make it longer by adding interesting facts. I could have improved on how I would present it. I read most of my information on the slides I made and I should have not made my slides too wordy and should of made a document of the imformation for my presentation. For my Ted Talk, I will prepare more to know what I need to present in front of the class. I would also have to memorize more information and speak more clearly.
My What On Earth Evolved Presentation
For bacteria and viruses, we learned that they come in a variety of shapes that includes spheres, rods, and spirals and are smaller than Eukaryota cells. We learned about several types of bacteria which include gram positive and gram negative. Gram positive bacteria have simpler walls with a large amount of peptidoglycan and gram negative bacteria have less peptidoglycan and a toxic outer membrane and are more likely to be antibiotic resistant mobility. Most mobile bacteria propel themselves by flagella scatted about the surface or concentrated at one or both ends. HIV are retroviruses that use revers transcripture to copy their RNA genome into DNA. Some key terms are flagellum which are protein whip like structures that are used to propel organisms. Bacteria, Archaea, and eukaryotes that contain flagellum are composed of different proteins and are likely evolved independently. Another key term to know is chemoheterotrophs which are heterotrophic bacteria that take in organic molecules, photoautotrophs which use light to convert carbon dioxide and water into carbon compounds and chemoautotrophs which use energy directly from chemical reactions involving ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, nitrates, sulfur or iron. Viruses are not cells and are small infectious particles consisting of nucleic acid enclosed in a protein coat and a membranous envelope.
We learned about Fungi. Fungi have many traits which include their walls being made of chitin, and can absorb food through Hyphase. They are multicellular organisms with yeast. They have many parts that include hyphae, mycellium, fruiting obdy and a spore. These parts help grow fungi like mushrooms. The diversity of fungi include sac fungi, bread molds, and club fungi. They are important in many ways like they can be used for food, antibiotics and as model systems for molecular biology.
We learned about plants and have evolved through natural selection and can be understood through the understanding of the evolution of plants. The major adaptations of plants is that they can survive in most conditions. The most major plants include Bryophyta, ferns and gymnosperms. There are two types of angiosperms which include monocots and dicots. Monocots have a single seed leaf which have parallel leaf veins with flower parts being in groups of three. Dicots have two seed leaves that have netlike veins and have flower parts in multiple of 4 or 5.
Invertebrates are important for this unit as they help evolve Earth and have many phylums. Most invertebrates are very diverse are categorized by body symmetry, tissue layers and developmental patterns. Sponges and Cnidarias are phylums and are very simple as they are very old and are similar to other animals on Earth. Sponges are related to protists and Cnidarias have four major classes that include scyphozoans, anthozoans, hydrozoans, and cubozoans. Another type of phylum are platyhelminthes which include flatworms, mollusks, and annelids and are closely related to phylas. Another phyla is phylum molluska which are diverse as well. They have a complete digestive tract that have two openings which are the mouth and anus. They have a radula, mantle and ctenidia. Another phylum is the Arthropods which have exoskeletons, jointed appendages, segmented body parts and are classified by five groups which are the trilobites, crustaceans, chelicerates, insects and myriapods. They have been given a circulatory system and have sensitive organs and compound eyes. Insects have 3 pairs of legs, a head, thorax and an abdomen and are dominant terrestrial arthoropods. Crustaceans are a diverse group of arthropods and share several common features. They can vary in structure and anatomy. The last phylum of invertebrates are echinoderms. They are similar to vertebrates and have an external skeleton.
Chordates are important to taxonomy and helped evolve Earth. They include vertebrates and have seven classes of vertebrates which are Agnatha, Condricthyes, Osteichyes, Amphibia, Reptilla, Aves and Mammalia. Agnatha are jawless fish that have developed from gill arches located around the pharynx and have a lateral line system. Condricthyes are fish with skeletons made of cartilage and include bony fish that have skeletons that are made of bone. Condricthyes also have lobe fins that are paired pectoral and pelvic fins that are round and help support weight and helped evolve the first amphibians. Reptiles that are diverse amniotes. They have ectotherms, covered in scales, reproduce by laying eggs, and have a three chambered heart. They helped evolve the first modern reptiles, bird, and mammals. Aves are birds that have evolved from dinosaurs and have hollow bones, fused collarbones that form a v shaped wishbone and have three fingered hands. Mammals are egg laying and include monotremes that lay eggs like a duck billed platypus, marsupials that give birth to live young that are later mature, and Eutherians that give birth to live young that complete fetal development.
In this unit, we had a what on Earth evolved presentation. We have done lots of presentations on the types of species that have change Earth. My presentation went well even though I was worried that I would not make the presentation at least four minutes long. I did the lobe finned fish and it was difficult getting information that would relate on how it changed evolution. There was little information on evolution and I tried to make it longer by adding interesting facts. I could have improved on how I would present it. I read most of my information on the slides I made and I should have not made my slides too wordy and should of made a document of the imformation for my presentation. For my Ted Talk, I will prepare more to know what I need to present in front of the class. I would also have to memorize more information and speak more clearly.
My What On Earth Evolved Presentation
Friday, April 29, 2016
Your Inner Fish Reflection
In Your Inner Fish, it explains about the relationships between humans and fish, the evolution of fish, the characteristics of fish, and how fish formed other decendants. We have many things in common which includes bony skeleton, backbones, skulls, and the connection between other species. The characteristics of fish is that they have a one bone, two bone and multiple bones pattern. Throughout this movie, scientists have researched and discovered about the characteristics of fish that had passed on to humans. This includes Dr. Jenny Clark's discovery in Greenland when she found a transitional Ichthestega and its movement. Another discovery was found by Dr. Neil Shubin and Dr. Ted Daeschler when they found a shoulder girdle of a fish that belonged to the stegas by a Pennsylvania highway and it showed how fish moved long time ago. Dr. Shubin also studied embryos and found out that they look like human ones and the last discovery made in the movie was Cliff Tabin's study of chick embryos and showed limb development and the "Sonic Hedgehog" gene which told different cells to do different jobs like growing limb like digits in chickens. Tiktaalik was a an important role in the decendants of fish. Their limbs helped form amphibians with eight fingers, reptiles that colonized land, primates that traversed through the trees and form the human hand. This relates to chordates vodcast as it explained about each taxonomy and its charateristics of species that are included in each type of taxonomy of chordates. The taxonomy for chordates is Agnatha, condricthyes, osteichyes, amphibia, reptilla, aves, and mammalia.
11. What is the "Sonic Hedgehog" gene responsible for?
A protein in the mammalian signal pathway called hedgehog. Mutations in the human sonic hedgehog gene cause holoprosensephaly type 3, a disorder in which the forebrain of the embryo fails to develop and results a loss of the ventral midline. Recently, the Sonic Hedgehog gene has been shown to act as a axonal guidance cue, a subfield to neural development that concerns the process of neurons sending out axons to reach correct targets.
14. What did Tiktaalik use its neck for in the water?
It uses it neck to help hunt for prey. It also helped support its body and help breathe.
11. What is the "Sonic Hedgehog" gene responsible for?
A protein in the mammalian signal pathway called hedgehog. Mutations in the human sonic hedgehog gene cause holoprosensephaly type 3, a disorder in which the forebrain of the embryo fails to develop and results a loss of the ventral midline. Recently, the Sonic Hedgehog gene has been shown to act as a axonal guidance cue, a subfield to neural development that concerns the process of neurons sending out axons to reach correct targets.
14. What did Tiktaalik use its neck for in the water?
It uses it neck to help hunt for prey. It also helped support its body and help breathe.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Jellyfish
Jellyfish are a non polyp individuals that belong to the phylum, Cnidaria. This relates to the invertebrates vodcast because it's a animal from Cnidaria and share many traits of a Cnidaria. They are free swimming marine animals that have a bell shaped like an umbrella and have stinging tentacles that can kill prey. Jellyfish have occurred for at least 500 million years and are the oldest multi organ animal alive. There are four classes of jellyfish that belong to the Cnidaria. They are scyphozoa, cubozoa, hydrozoa, and staurozoa. There are 200 species of scyphozoa, 20 species of Cubozoa, 50 species of staurozoa and 1000-1500 species of hydrozoa jellyfish. The unique part of a Jellyfish is that they are useful for many resources that we use today. They are used for an appetizers that are served in restaurants. They are prepared by putting sesame oil and chili sauce. Another part of a Jellyfish that make them unique is that their glowing goo can be used to power medical devices. Their digestive, circulatory, respiratory, nervous and osmoregulatory are not very specialized. Jellyfish's bell height can range from a millimeter to two meters tall and their lifespan is from a few hours to several months.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Unit 8 Reflection
This unit relates to these blog posts
Hunger Games lab
Bird Beak Lab
In Unit 8, we learned about the constant change in our world. It includes the gradual change over time, natural change, gene pool, speciation, structural evidence of evolution, evolution in populations, and the origin of life. We have also done some fun labs during this unit. The gradual change over time includes variation which is any difference in traits within a population and exists because of meiosis, mutations and sex cross over. Artificial selection occurs in the gradual changes as it occurs when humans select a certain trait from a certain population that they want and mate individuals with the certain trait that was chosen. This results in species changing over time and a new breed is created. Natural change is about Charles Darwin's observations and conclusions. He discovered that evolution is caused by natural selection.
He made 4 observations about evolution that is caused by natural selection. The observations are that all species that sexual reproduce have a high genetic variation in traits, traits are inherited from parents to offspring, all species are capable of producing more offspring that the environment can suppor
t, and competition is stiff. The conclusions he made were that there are winners and losers and populations are the winners. In swimming in the gene pool, it's about the total of all alleles in a population. It includes genetic variation, and change in gene pool when allele combination when individuals of the population have offspring. Allele frequencies measures genetic variation. Allele frequency is how common an allele is in a population and can be calculated for each allele in a gene pool. The steps for determining the allele frequency is adding up the total for all alleles, adding up the total for each type of alleles, and dividing the number by its total. Natural selection in a gene pool favors on a certain phenotype. The better phenotypes survive and reproduce. Winners pass on their alleles to their offspring. Also, lethal alleles stick around. If they are recessive, they will stick around and can be beneficial if condition changes.
Speciation is about how species form. It is the rise of two or more species from an existing specie. It's caused when a population is split into two and eventually the two populations cannot reproduce. There are many causes of speciation which include behavioral, geographic, and temporal isolation. These can cause speciation to occur depending on its behaviors, geographic location, and timing of speciation. Speciation over time can cause new species to rise and can have common ancestors. The decendents have common traits that are given to the new species. There are two patterns of speciation which include graudualism,
and punctuated equilibrium. Gradualism occurs slowly, but new species arise. In punctuated equilibrium, new species rise suddenly as speciation occurs quickly due to sudden reproductive isolation. In structural evidence, there are many types of evidence that relate to evolution. It includes developmental evidence which includes embryology, which studies similar stages of embryo development, and evo devo which is the study of evolution in a developmental process. Another type of evidence is vestigial structures which is when evolution has leftovers and adaptation are benefit ancestors and are no longer needed in decendants. Another good type of evidence is fossils which can show change over time. Index fossils are species that are understood well and used for comparison. There are also many types of structures that relate to the body parts in a specie. In evolving populations there are many types of change that changes natural selection. They are directional selection, stabilizing selection, and disruptive selection. Another type of change includes genetic drift which is when a random event changes a population and results in a change in allele frequency, gene flow which moves alleles from one population to another, mutations, which produce new genetic variation that natural selection can act on, sexual selection, which selects certain traits to give to other species to improve mating success, and natural selection which selects traits that gives an advantage for survival. In the origin of life,it shows how life is formed. It's shown by abiotic synthesis or small organic molecules, joining them, forming macromolecules, packaging molecules into protocells, and origin of self replication molecules. It was discovered by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey when they showed that abiotic synthesis of organic molecules in reducing atmosphere is possible. A geologic time scale is for breaking down time periods in a time line. There are several era in the geologic time scale that covers from the formation of Earth to now. Earth has changed rapidly throughout the years.
In this unit, we've done many labs relating to this unit. We did the hunger games lab, and the bird beak lab. The hunger games lab covered the swimming in the gene pool vodcast as we collected food and created more offspring by allele frequency. In the bird beak lab, this related to change, its all natural vodcast as it covered Darwin's observation and conclusions. In this lab, we've picked up food using different types of beaks. We would count our food after a certain time limit and determine how many offspring were made. The more food picked up, then more offspring would be made.
In this unit, I want to learn about the how the Earth has changed rapidly besides the formation of the Earth. I have been more assertive especially doing group work, but still need to improve. I am still sometimes passive and I need to speak up more than before. I need to have more eye contact when I talk to others.
Hunger Games lab
Bird Beak Lab
In Unit 8, we learned about the constant change in our world. It includes the gradual change over time, natural change, gene pool, speciation, structural evidence of evolution, evolution in populations, and the origin of life. We have also done some fun labs during this unit. The gradual change over time includes variation which is any difference in traits within a population and exists because of meiosis, mutations and sex cross over. Artificial selection occurs in the gradual changes as it occurs when humans select a certain trait from a certain population that they want and mate individuals with the certain trait that was chosen. This results in species changing over time and a new breed is created. Natural change is about Charles Darwin's observations and conclusions. He discovered that evolution is caused by natural selection.
He made 4 observations about evolution that is caused by natural selection. The observations are that all species that sexual reproduce have a high genetic variation in traits, traits are inherited from parents to offspring, all species are capable of producing more offspring that the environment can suppor
t, and competition is stiff. The conclusions he made were that there are winners and losers and populations are the winners. In swimming in the gene pool, it's about the total of all alleles in a population. It includes genetic variation, and change in gene pool when allele combination when individuals of the population have offspring. Allele frequencies measures genetic variation. Allele frequency is how common an allele is in a population and can be calculated for each allele in a gene pool. The steps for determining the allele frequency is adding up the total for all alleles, adding up the total for each type of alleles, and dividing the number by its total. Natural selection in a gene pool favors on a certain phenotype. The better phenotypes survive and reproduce. Winners pass on their alleles to their offspring. Also, lethal alleles stick around. If they are recessive, they will stick around and can be beneficial if condition changes.
Speciation is about how species form. It is the rise of two or more species from an existing specie. It's caused when a population is split into two and eventually the two populations cannot reproduce. There are many causes of speciation which include behavioral, geographic, and temporal isolation. These can cause speciation to occur depending on its behaviors, geographic location, and timing of speciation. Speciation over time can cause new species to rise and can have common ancestors. The decendents have common traits that are given to the new species. There are two patterns of speciation which include graudualism,
and punctuated equilibrium. Gradualism occurs slowly, but new species arise. In punctuated equilibrium, new species rise suddenly as speciation occurs quickly due to sudden reproductive isolation. In structural evidence, there are many types of evidence that relate to evolution. It includes developmental evidence which includes embryology, which studies similar stages of embryo development, and evo devo which is the study of evolution in a developmental process. Another type of evidence is vestigial structures which is when evolution has leftovers and adaptation are benefit ancestors and are no longer needed in decendants. Another good type of evidence is fossils which can show change over time. Index fossils are species that are understood well and used for comparison. There are also many types of structures that relate to the body parts in a specie. In evolving populations there are many types of change that changes natural selection. They are directional selection, stabilizing selection, and disruptive selection. Another type of change includes genetic drift which is when a random event changes a population and results in a change in allele frequency, gene flow which moves alleles from one population to another, mutations, which produce new genetic variation that natural selection can act on, sexual selection, which selects certain traits to give to other species to improve mating success, and natural selection which selects traits that gives an advantage for survival. In the origin of life,it shows how life is formed. It's shown by abiotic synthesis or small organic molecules, joining them, forming macromolecules, packaging molecules into protocells, and origin of self replication molecules. It was discovered by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey when they showed that abiotic synthesis of organic molecules in reducing atmosphere is possible. A geologic time scale is for breaking down time periods in a time line. There are several era in the geologic time scale that covers from the formation of Earth to now. Earth has changed rapidly throughout the years.
In this unit, we've done many labs relating to this unit. We did the hunger games lab, and the bird beak lab. The hunger games lab covered the swimming in the gene pool vodcast as we collected food and created more offspring by allele frequency. In the bird beak lab, this related to change, its all natural vodcast as it covered Darwin's observation and conclusions. In this lab, we've picked up food using different types of beaks. We would count our food after a certain time limit and determine how many offspring were made. The more food picked up, then more offspring would be made.
In this unit, I want to learn about the how the Earth has changed rapidly besides the formation of the Earth. I have been more assertive especially doing group work, but still need to improve. I am still sometimes passive and I need to speak up more than before. I need to have more eye contact when I talk to others.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Geologic Timeline Reflection
1. The three major events in Earth's history is the extinction of dinosaurs, cyanobacteria, and the evolution of land plants. The evolution of land plants changed Earth's landscape and created more habitats for animals to live in. The extinction of dinosaurs marked the end of the cretaceous and began the paleogene period. Cyanobacteria created photosynthesis, which led to the creation of oxygen and the reduction of carbon dioxide.
2. It includes many geological time periods that helped form the Earth today. The thing that surprised me was the amount of time periods there were that helped form Earth. I had never knew that there were several time period. I only knew a few of them and now I know there are lots of time periods that occured before the modern day.
3. We have impacted Earth in a short time by natural resources producing in Earth. It includes the formation of rocks, rivers, landscapes and more where organisms can live well there.
2. It includes many geological time periods that helped form the Earth today. The thing that surprised me was the amount of time periods there were that helped form Earth. I had never knew that there were several time period. I only knew a few of them and now I know there are lots of time periods that occured before the modern day.
3. We have impacted Earth in a short time by natural resources producing in Earth. It includes the formation of rocks, rivers, landscapes and more where organisms can live well there.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Hunger Games Final Analysis
1. In this lab, we determined the change in allele frequency. It simulated the percentage of species with certain traits by the alleles.
2. Knucklers because they passed their genes better. The chances of getting a knuckler from mating was 50%, the chance of getting a pincher was 25% and the chance of getting a stumpy was 25%.
3. My hypothesis was if species survive in an environment over time, then evolution will occur. My hypothesis was correct. According to graphs we made, the "a" allele was more frequent than the the "A" allele. After the first trial, the frequency for "a" were more frequent than the "A" allele. This happened because more pinchers(aa) were produced than stumpys(AA). For example, In the second trial the frequency for the "A" allele was 37% and the frequency for the "a" allele was 63% in the third trial, the frequency of the "A" allele was 19% and the frequency for the "a" allele was 81%. Population evolved over time because of the amount of stumpys, knucklers, and pinchers were different for every trial. More knucklers produced over time than the pinchers and the stumpys. Natural selection had caused species to change over time by evolution. This was caused when the knucklers survived better in the environment than the stumpys and pinchers and more knucklers were produced than the other two phenotypes.
4. The things that were random was the sizes of people's pockets. People with bigger pockets could pick up more food and the people with small or no pockets could not pick up as much food as they could which resulted into evolution of populations that had bigger pockets than other and could survive better in the environment. Another thing that was random in the lab was where the food was placed during rounds. Most of the time, food was placed around the area, but sometimes, the food was placed in one spot or in a few spots which made it easier for people who were near the area with a lot of food get food easily and the ones that get more food survive and produce more offspring better than others. Another thing that was random in the lab was the places people were. Every round, people were in different places around the area and when every round would start, the people who were near the food got more of an advantage to get more food. The things that were nonrandom was the mate choice and trait. At the end of each round, we would pair up with other species with same or different genotypes and flip a coin to figure out what the offspring would be by determining the genotypes and its trait. This affects evolution by how mate choice always occurs in evolution.
5. Yes, if the food amount was larger in an environment, more species with certain traits would survive better in the environment and more offspring will be made and if there was less food in an environment, less species with certain traits would survive and less offspring will be made.
6. Yes, there would be a different amount of species with certain phenotypes every round and the allele frequency would change.
7. The relationship between natural selection and evolution is that they both contribute to population change.
8. People competed with others for food, found spots with food with no one around them, pushing and shoving other people around for food and pick up more food at once This would affect the allele frequency by increasing the frequency for each allele.
9. In evolution, the species and allele frequency change and natural selection acts on unneeded organisms like genotype and phenotype because natural selection weeds out populations by their traits. Evolution is made to change populations over time.
10. None
2. Knucklers because they passed their genes better. The chances of getting a knuckler from mating was 50%, the chance of getting a pincher was 25% and the chance of getting a stumpy was 25%.
3. My hypothesis was if species survive in an environment over time, then evolution will occur. My hypothesis was correct. According to graphs we made, the "a" allele was more frequent than the the "A" allele. After the first trial, the frequency for "a" were more frequent than the "A" allele. This happened because more pinchers(aa) were produced than stumpys(AA). For example, In the second trial the frequency for the "A" allele was 37% and the frequency for the "a" allele was 63% in the third trial, the frequency of the "A" allele was 19% and the frequency for the "a" allele was 81%. Population evolved over time because of the amount of stumpys, knucklers, and pinchers were different for every trial. More knucklers produced over time than the pinchers and the stumpys. Natural selection had caused species to change over time by evolution. This was caused when the knucklers survived better in the environment than the stumpys and pinchers and more knucklers were produced than the other two phenotypes.
4. The things that were random was the sizes of people's pockets. People with bigger pockets could pick up more food and the people with small or no pockets could not pick up as much food as they could which resulted into evolution of populations that had bigger pockets than other and could survive better in the environment. Another thing that was random in the lab was where the food was placed during rounds. Most of the time, food was placed around the area, but sometimes, the food was placed in one spot or in a few spots which made it easier for people who were near the area with a lot of food get food easily and the ones that get more food survive and produce more offspring better than others. Another thing that was random in the lab was the places people were. Every round, people were in different places around the area and when every round would start, the people who were near the food got more of an advantage to get more food. The things that were nonrandom was the mate choice and trait. At the end of each round, we would pair up with other species with same or different genotypes and flip a coin to figure out what the offspring would be by determining the genotypes and its trait. This affects evolution by how mate choice always occurs in evolution.
5. Yes, if the food amount was larger in an environment, more species with certain traits would survive better in the environment and more offspring will be made and if there was less food in an environment, less species with certain traits would survive and less offspring will be made.
6. Yes, there would be a different amount of species with certain phenotypes every round and the allele frequency would change.
7. The relationship between natural selection and evolution is that they both contribute to population change.
8. People competed with others for food, found spots with food with no one around them, pushing and shoving other people around for food and pick up more food at once This would affect the allele frequency by increasing the frequency for each allele.
9. In evolution, the species and allele frequency change and natural selection acts on unneeded organisms like genotype and phenotype because natural selection weeds out populations by their traits. Evolution is made to change populations over time.
10. None
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Bird Beak Lab
In the Bird Beak lab, the question was if natural selection occurs in a population, then how do changes in selective pressures affect the evolution of the species. My hypothesis was if natural selection occurs in a population, then less offspring will be created for each bird beak. In this lab, our group used different types of beaks to grab different types of food. The types of food that were included in this lab was seeds(macaroni, and paper clips), leaves(rubber bands), and toothpicks(seed pods). We did an experiment where we excluded toothpicks and were given 30 seconds to grab food from the table and count them up to determine how many children were made from each type of beak This was repeated 3 times. At the end, my hypothesis was incorrect. The results were about the same as our part one solution. The spoon beak bird raised one chick, the binder clip beak bird raised 16 chicks, the scissor beak bird raised 11 chicks, and the tweezer beak bird raised 19 chicks. This was caused by how we had other types of food to rely on. The bird beaks heavily relied on getting leaves, and seeds. The seeds pods were not beneficial for the bird beaks.
An error that could have occured during this experiment was counting how much food we had each round. We may have miscounted the amount of food we had every round. This was caused by not counting the food carefully enough. The effect of this was that we had miscounted the amount of chicks raised and also the results from the whole experiment. A suggestion to reduce this error is to count carefully by five's or counting at least twice to make sure you counted right. Another error that could have occured in the experiment is the timing. During the rounds, we had 30 seconds to grab food from the table. We may have been given too much or little amount of time to find food. This was caused by not paying full attention to the time and as a result, our data may not have been accurate. This can be reduced by getting a timer that can stop at a certain time limit to get exact results.
The purpose of this lab was to show how different beaks adapt to different types of food in an environment. This relates to Darwin's observations and conclusions in the constant change vodcast. We learned about the four observations that Darwin made that relates to evolution and natural selection. We also learned about his two conclusions that he made which is there are winners and losers, and population looks like the winners. We used his two conclusions to determine our results.
An error that could have occured during this experiment was counting how much food we had each round. We may have miscounted the amount of food we had every round. This was caused by not counting the food carefully enough. The effect of this was that we had miscounted the amount of chicks raised and also the results from the whole experiment. A suggestion to reduce this error is to count carefully by five's or counting at least twice to make sure you counted right. Another error that could have occured in the experiment is the timing. During the rounds, we had 30 seconds to grab food from the table. We may have been given too much or little amount of time to find food. This was caused by not paying full attention to the time and as a result, our data may not have been accurate. This can be reduced by getting a timer that can stop at a certain time limit to get exact results.
The purpose of this lab was to show how different beaks adapt to different types of food in an environment. This relates to Darwin's observations and conclusions in the constant change vodcast. We learned about the four observations that Darwin made that relates to evolution and natural selection. We also learned about his two conclusions that he made which is there are winners and losers, and population looks like the winners. We used his two conclusions to determine our results.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Unit 7 Reflection
This unit was about ecology. In ecology which is the study of interactions between organisms and their environment, we learned about the basics of ecology which includes the big ideas in ecology, the habitat, abiotic and biotic factors, and levels of organization. The big ideas in ecology include equilibrium which is when environments are heathiest when they are in balance and interdependence which is when all living things depend on another for survival. The types of habitats include the habitat which is all aspects of an area which the organism lives in which includes the biotic and abiotic factors. A niche includes all of the factors that a species needs to survive. The levels of organization is the organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome and biosphere. we learned about food chains and food webs. It includes producers and consumers that includes organisms that can get their food or produce it. The four types of animals are herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and detritivore. A food chain shows how each organism get its energy and the food web is more accurate and shows that organisms can eat more than one thing. Trophic levels are levels in a food chin based on what each organism eats.
In the ecosystem energy vodcast, we learned about the units of energy which includes biomass which is a method of measuring energy which is measured in Joules. We learned about the energy pyramids which are pyramids shown to show how energy is transferred. The 10% rule is a rule that states that of the energy produced, 10% of it is going to the next level of the energy pyramid. If only 10% of energy is passed on, less and less energy is available for the top consumers. This results in fewer consumers and smaller populations at higher levels in the pyramid. We learned about population Ecology. It's the study of populations in relation to the environment. It includes the density and the dispersion of a population. Population Ecology includes the factors that affect populations which in cludes immigration and emmigration, births, deaths, disease, predators, abiotic factors , and population density and dispersion. It also includes exponential growth which is common among bacteria and viruses, cannot be sustained, and has a carrying capacity. A carrying capacity is the maximum population size that the environment can support. Lastly, population ecology includes the logistic growth model which is the rate of increase that slows as the carrying capacity is reached. Populations go through boom cycles. Also in population ecology, it includes human population. It's increased slowly until 1650 and grows exponentially. The carrying capacity on Earth is uncertain and has an average estimate of 10-15 billion.
We learned about Ecosystem recycling. It includes succession, order of succession, and nutrient cycles. Sucession includes ecological and primary. Ecological sucession is the sequence of community and ecosystem change and primary sucession occurs where succession begins with no soil. The order of succession is pioneer species, intermediate species, and climax communities. Pioneer species is grasses, lichens, and mosses. Intermediate species includes shrubs and trees. A climax community includes intermediate species reaches full maturity. Nutrient cycles include the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle and phosphorous cycle. We learned about Ecosystem health. It includes biodiversity, health, and caring for others lives. Biodiversity includes genetic diversity includes all of the different genes within a population and between different populatiions. Species diversity is a variety of species in an ecosystem or throughout the biosphere. Ecosystem diversity is the different types of ecosystems throughout the planet. Healthy facts include the discovery of millions of species extinct on Earth and other statistics that relate to the species and living things. Lives can be saved by medicines and ecosystem services. The causes of specie lost is by losing their habitat, introducing new species and overexploitation. Lastly, we learned about how to protect living things. We can do many things to save living things from dying. We can identify hot spots, protect what we have, planning smart to sustain populations, restoring populations from disturbances that have been made, and thinking globally and making better decisions to save wildlife.
I want to learn more about the ecosystem and why people throw plastics everywhere without knowing that organisms live in the area. I wonder why species are moved frequently to other habitats that they do not recognize well.
In the conservation biologist project, I learned methods on how to work well with groups. I learned to be more assertive to others to a task accomplished without frequent conflicts with other group members. The things that went well was getting the job done. My group was able to get the project done within the due date. Even though during the project, we lost a group member. We were able to get the job done without our missing group without hitting any obstacles along the way. The collaboration was great as it helped me work with groups in a more effective way.
In the ecosystem energy vodcast, we learned about the units of energy which includes biomass which is a method of measuring energy which is measured in Joules. We learned about the energy pyramids which are pyramids shown to show how energy is transferred. The 10% rule is a rule that states that of the energy produced, 10% of it is going to the next level of the energy pyramid. If only 10% of energy is passed on, less and less energy is available for the top consumers. This results in fewer consumers and smaller populations at higher levels in the pyramid. We learned about population Ecology. It's the study of populations in relation to the environment. It includes the density and the dispersion of a population. Population Ecology includes the factors that affect populations which in cludes immigration and emmigration, births, deaths, disease, predators, abiotic factors , and population density and dispersion. It also includes exponential growth which is common among bacteria and viruses, cannot be sustained, and has a carrying capacity. A carrying capacity is the maximum population size that the environment can support. Lastly, population ecology includes the logistic growth model which is the rate of increase that slows as the carrying capacity is reached. Populations go through boom cycles. Also in population ecology, it includes human population. It's increased slowly until 1650 and grows exponentially. The carrying capacity on Earth is uncertain and has an average estimate of 10-15 billion.
We learned about Ecosystem recycling. It includes succession, order of succession, and nutrient cycles. Sucession includes ecological and primary. Ecological sucession is the sequence of community and ecosystem change and primary sucession occurs where succession begins with no soil. The order of succession is pioneer species, intermediate species, and climax communities. Pioneer species is grasses, lichens, and mosses. Intermediate species includes shrubs and trees. A climax community includes intermediate species reaches full maturity. Nutrient cycles include the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle and phosphorous cycle. We learned about Ecosystem health. It includes biodiversity, health, and caring for others lives. Biodiversity includes genetic diversity includes all of the different genes within a population and between different populatiions. Species diversity is a variety of species in an ecosystem or throughout the biosphere. Ecosystem diversity is the different types of ecosystems throughout the planet. Healthy facts include the discovery of millions of species extinct on Earth and other statistics that relate to the species and living things. Lives can be saved by medicines and ecosystem services. The causes of specie lost is by losing their habitat, introducing new species and overexploitation. Lastly, we learned about how to protect living things. We can do many things to save living things from dying. We can identify hot spots, protect what we have, planning smart to sustain populations, restoring populations from disturbances that have been made, and thinking globally and making better decisions to save wildlife.
I want to learn more about the ecosystem and why people throw plastics everywhere without knowing that organisms live in the area. I wonder why species are moved frequently to other habitats that they do not recognize well.
In the conservation biologist project, I learned methods on how to work well with groups. I learned to be more assertive to others to a task accomplished without frequent conflicts with other group members. The things that went well was getting the job done. My group was able to get the project done within the due date. Even though during the project, we lost a group member. We were able to get the job done without our missing group without hitting any obstacles along the way. The collaboration was great as it helped me work with groups in a more effective way.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Unit 6 Reflection
In this unit, we learned about Biotechnology. It includes the introduction of biotechnology, bioethics, recombinant DNA, gel electrophoresis, technology of Biotech, and pGLO. In the introduction of biotechnology, we learned that biotechnology is the study and manipulation of living things that benefit mankind. It is a large field that focuses on the understanding of DNA. We learned about the history of biotechnology as it starts from 4000 BC when Egyptians used yeast to bake leavened bread and to make wine to developing ways and splice DNA, which introduced recombinant DNA. Biotechnology is used currently. There are four types of biotech. It includes industrial and environmental, agriculture, medical and pharmaceutical, and diagnostic research. Industrial and environmental includes fermentation of food, beverages, plastics and biofuels. Agricultural includes breeding of plants and animals. Medical and pharmaceutical includes medicine from plants, fungi, animal vaccines and gene therapy. Diagnostic research includes DNA, and comparing and contrasting them.
In bioethics, we learned about the types of them. It includes morals, values, ethics and bioethics. Morals is having a justifiable position, which involves whether something is right or wrong.
Values are what we see as an important thing, and determined by personality and experiences.
Ethics is the study of morals and values influencing our decisions and bioethics is the study of decision making and applies to moral decisions because of the advances in biology. For recombinant DNA, we learned that it's the process of inserting DNA of one organism into the DNA of another organism. This results in a transgenic organism or GMO. We learned about the tools needed for recombinant DNA. The tools are a gene of interest, restriction enzyme, a plamid, and ligase. A gene of interest is when the bacteria needs to know the location and sequence of a gene. The restriction enzyme is an enzyme that cut DNA when it reads a specific sequence and a plasmid is a circular DNA that is found in prokaryotes which contains replication genes that tells the plasmid to be copied. It contains genes that give antibiotic resistance. It is also small enough to go through pores in cell membranes. Ligase is an enzyme that reattaches base pairs. In recombinant DNA, there's is a process that transforms bacteria to produce lots of protein products. The first step is to isolate DNA, which find the gene of interest and organism to insert the gene into. The second step is to get a plasmid which knows what antibiotic it's naturally resistant to. The third step is to find a restriction enzyme that cuts the plasmid once which includes above and below the gene. The fourth step is to mix the digested DNA. The fifth step is to add ligase to attach sticky ends. The sixth step is to mix recombinant plasmid with bacteria. The seventh step is the plate the bacteria on agar with a mixed antibiotic (only if they have the plasmid). The eighth step is to grow the transformed bacteria and transfer it to a broth to make the bacteria express the gene. The ninth step is the extract and purify out the protein in the inserted gene produced.
In the technology of biotechnology, we learned that it includes Polymerase Chain Reaction, and Gel Electrophoresis. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is a procedure to amplify a specific DNA region. It yields millions of copies of DNA sequence and is the first step in preparing DNA for many experiments. The steps of PCR is denature is double stranded with heat, anneal, primers to single stranded DNA that is above/below region of interest, primer, small fragments of DNA that bind with a specific sequence, and extend primers with DNA polymerase which shows a new double stranded DNA. This cycle repeats a lot. PCR is uesd to detect diseases, and used for genetic engineering. Gel Electrophoresis is electricity used to separate DNA fragments based on size. We learned that small fragments travel faster than larger fragments. It's used in fields of forensics, molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry and more. We did a lab for Gel Electrophoresis where we used dyed candy to test colors and see which one traveled faster on the electopherogram. We swirled the dye with a special liquid that would help identify the bases. We then centrifuged it and put the dye in the wells. We waited for 10-15 minutes and checked on the gel.
We learned about pGLO. pGLO is a type of plasmid that it has a way to get bacteria to glow fluorescent glow under a light. We did a pGLO lab where we added Luria broth to one petri dish, Luria broth and ampicillin to one petri dish, luria broth and ampicillin to another and luria broth, ampicillin and arabinose sugar to another. The results we got was that the petri dish with luria broth, ampicillin and arabinose sugar got a lot of bacteria and the luria broth with ampilcillin got a little bit of bacteria.
In this Unit, my strengths are learning about pGLO and how it's made, Gel electrophoresis, and bioethics. I know the processes and terms of these by how we did the lab and the vodcast. My setbacks is Recombinant DNA and PCR. I do not have a clear understanding of these and I need to study these more.
In bioethics, we learned about the types of them. It includes morals, values, ethics and bioethics. Morals is having a justifiable position, which involves whether something is right or wrong.
Values are what we see as an important thing, and determined by personality and experiences.
Ethics is the study of morals and values influencing our decisions and bioethics is the study of decision making and applies to moral decisions because of the advances in biology. For recombinant DNA, we learned that it's the process of inserting DNA of one organism into the DNA of another organism. This results in a transgenic organism or GMO. We learned about the tools needed for recombinant DNA. The tools are a gene of interest, restriction enzyme, a plamid, and ligase. A gene of interest is when the bacteria needs to know the location and sequence of a gene. The restriction enzyme is an enzyme that cut DNA when it reads a specific sequence and a plasmid is a circular DNA that is found in prokaryotes which contains replication genes that tells the plasmid to be copied. It contains genes that give antibiotic resistance. It is also small enough to go through pores in cell membranes. Ligase is an enzyme that reattaches base pairs. In recombinant DNA, there's is a process that transforms bacteria to produce lots of protein products. The first step is to isolate DNA, which find the gene of interest and organism to insert the gene into. The second step is to get a plasmid which knows what antibiotic it's naturally resistant to. The third step is to find a restriction enzyme that cuts the plasmid once which includes above and below the gene. The fourth step is to mix the digested DNA. The fifth step is to add ligase to attach sticky ends. The sixth step is to mix recombinant plasmid with bacteria. The seventh step is the plate the bacteria on agar with a mixed antibiotic (only if they have the plasmid). The eighth step is to grow the transformed bacteria and transfer it to a broth to make the bacteria express the gene. The ninth step is the extract and purify out the protein in the inserted gene produced.
In the technology of biotechnology, we learned that it includes Polymerase Chain Reaction, and Gel Electrophoresis. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is a procedure to amplify a specific DNA region. It yields millions of copies of DNA sequence and is the first step in preparing DNA for many experiments. The steps of PCR is denature is double stranded with heat, anneal, primers to single stranded DNA that is above/below region of interest, primer, small fragments of DNA that bind with a specific sequence, and extend primers with DNA polymerase which shows a new double stranded DNA. This cycle repeats a lot. PCR is uesd to detect diseases, and used for genetic engineering. Gel Electrophoresis is electricity used to separate DNA fragments based on size. We learned that small fragments travel faster than larger fragments. It's used in fields of forensics, molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry and more. We did a lab for Gel Electrophoresis where we used dyed candy to test colors and see which one traveled faster on the electopherogram. We swirled the dye with a special liquid that would help identify the bases. We then centrifuged it and put the dye in the wells. We waited for 10-15 minutes and checked on the gel.
We learned about pGLO. pGLO is a type of plasmid that it has a way to get bacteria to glow fluorescent glow under a light. We did a pGLO lab where we added Luria broth to one petri dish, Luria broth and ampicillin to one petri dish, luria broth and ampicillin to another and luria broth, ampicillin and arabinose sugar to another. The results we got was that the petri dish with luria broth, ampicillin and arabinose sugar got a lot of bacteria and the luria broth with ampilcillin got a little bit of bacteria.
In this Unit, my strengths are learning about pGLO and how it's made, Gel electrophoresis, and bioethics. I know the processes and terms of these by how we did the lab and the vodcast. My setbacks is Recombinant DNA and PCR. I do not have a clear understanding of these and I need to study these more.
Friday, January 22, 2016
pGLO Analysis Questions
1.
2. Two new traits that our transformed bacteria had was Ampicilin and arabinose sugar
3. For the -pGLO LB and -pGLO LB/amp , there are no colonies because they did not get the plasmid.
For the +pGLO LB/amp, there are about 5 colonies because it got the plasmid. For the +pGLO LB/amp/ara, there are about 30 colonies because it has arabinose sugar which leads to getting more colonies and plasmids
4. To allow pGLO to grow more colonies of bacteria
5. GFP is used for tagging genes for clearing expression or limiting profiles, studying protein to protein interactions and visualizing promoter activity
6. An example of genetic engineering is cloning.
6. An example of genetic engineering is cloning.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Candy Electrophoresis Lab
1. The dyes are dyes that match the reference ones. Our dye bands were the same size, the colors were the same than the reference bands. It had only one color band and the dyes moved in the right direction.
2. Fast Green FCF, because it has more negative charge and is also a lighter color.
3. Manufacturers put food coloring in dog food to attract people who have a dog buy it.
4. FD&C Dye Color Natural Alternative Source of Natural Dye
Red 40 Red Anthocyanins, Carmine, Cochineal Bugs, Candy
Yellow 5 Yellow Turmeric, Beta Carotine, Annatto Chips, jams, Candy
Blue 1 Blue Grape juice concentrate, Grape skin extract Indigo, Woad Plant
Red 40 Lake Red Grape juice concentrate, Grape skin extract Bugs, Aluminum Hydroxide, Candy
Blue 2 Lake Blue Coal Tar, used to color denim jeans Makeup Products, Pill Coatings
Yellow 6 Lake Yellow Paprika, Beta Carotine, Annatto Foods, Drugs, Cosmetics
5. The size of the Molecule and the electrical charge
6. Gel Electrophoresis
7. They are separated when the DNA is put into the wells of the Gel box. This happens when the power goes on. When it goes on, the molecules, which have a negative charge move towards the positive electrode because opposite charges attract.
8. The molecules with less Daltons separate quickly with 600 Daltons. It will move deep in the Gel With 1000 Daltons, molecules will spread quickly, but will spread slower than 600 Daltons. It will move deep in the gel, but not as deep as 600 Daltons. With 2000 Daltons, It will spread slower than 1000 Daltons, but it will not move as deep as 1000 Daltons. With 5000 Daltons, It will spread very slow and will not move very deep in the gel.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Recombinant DNA Blog Summary
In this lab, we made a model of recombinant DNA using our understanding of recombinant DNA technology. Restriction enzymes are enzymes produced by bacteria that cut DNA whenever it reads a specific sequence. They work to create different sequences. We used Hin III because it was close to the insulin sequence. If we used an enzyme that cuts the plasmids in two places, more fragments to the DNA would be made. We made a kanamycin restriction enzyme because we could use it in a petri dish to take bacteria from the plasmid. Kanamycin can treat infections that are caused by bacteria. We would not use ampicillin as a antibiotic because it treats infections that occur in the urine.
We made the plasmid ring and cell DNA strand and we used the enzymes to match it within the insulin of each strip. We then tested the enzymes using our rings and DNA strand. We cutted our plasmid in a staggered fashion to make the enzyme. This process is important to help inspect for bacteria in the plasmid for the DNA. This process can be used to make useful products that can avoid bacteria to come in the plasmid and cure cancers that can't be cured currently.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
New Year's goals
1. My goal for this semester is to get better grades in all of my classes. I will achieve this by studying for tests and quizzes ahead of time and not studying it on the day before the test is given. For math, I will do more practice problems and word problems so I know the material better. For English, I will read some books to help improve my writing skills. For biology, I will read the textbook more often, watch the vodcasts, and make flashcards for terms and key ideas more often when preparing for the test.
2. My goal for biology is to continue to do well on lab conclusions. I will make sure I will get all of the requirements for a good lab conclusion and I will try to type faster to get it done in a quicker manner and have more time to check it then last semester when I finished at a slow manner and did not have a lot of time to check it.
2. My goal for biology is to continue to do well on lab conclusions. I will make sure I will get all of the requirements for a good lab conclusion and I will try to type faster to get it done in a quicker manner and have more time to check it then last semester when I finished at a slow manner and did not have a lot of time to check it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)