Dead Men Response 1

http://mjharo02.blogspot.com/2012/10/lit-circle-work-dead-men-do-tell-tales.html
I find it interesting how Maples can view death through the perspective of forensic anthropology.

Cancer Blog

Breast Cancer: Tiffany Chiu

From Tiffany's breast cancer brochure I learned what breast cancer really is, the symptoms, preventions, treatments, and the stages of breast cancer. Statistically about one in 8 United States women will have breast cancer. Breast cancer starts at the tissues of the breast. It is a mutation of the genes that regulate cell growth. There are two types of breast cancer: carcinoma and lobular carcinoma. Ductal carcinoma starts in the tubes that move milk from the breast to the nipple. A majority of breast cancers are this type. Lobular carcinoma starts in the parts of the breast that produce milk. Some causes or risks of getting breast cancer include: age and gender, family history, genes, and menstrual cycle. Early breast cancer usually does not cause symptoms. This is why regular breast exams are important. However, as the cancer grows, there may be signs of a breast lump in the armpit that is hard, a change in size and shape of the breast or nipple, and there may also be fluid coming from the nipple. Breast cancer does not just involved women, men can get breast cancer as well

Cell Poem

CELL

MICROSCOPIC, LIVING

TISSUE, ORGAN, SYSTEM

CARBON, HYDROGEN, OXYGEN, NITROGEN

NUCLEUS, CYTOPLASM, PLASMA MEMBRANE

DIVIDING, MAKING

VITAL

Chapter 1-2 Henrietta Lacks

Literature Circles Chap 1-2: Quote Master

1. “’I got a knot on my womb,’ she told the receptionist.” (13)

-         This is important because it shows her worry that something is wrong and that she actually feels symptoms for something that she has been ignoring for quite some time. This was the first time she took initiative and went to see a doctor about.

2. “This was the era of Jim Crow- when black people showed up at white-only hospitals” (15)

-         This quote shows the era that Henrietta came from and the time period, it gives a glimpse of how the story will be during that time because we are able to infer based on that era of how African Americans were treated.

3. “It was no surprise that she hadn’t come back all those times for follow-up.” (16)

-         This shows Henrietta’s way of showing how she does not worry about her health. There are plenty of things that she needed a checkup on but she declined, but it also shows how she could possibly be hesitant towards medical things because she is not that educated and does not know what they are talking about.

4. “No one knows how she became Henrietta.” (18)

-         This could signify the identity of Henrietta because nobody knows how she adopted the name Henrietta when her real name is Loretta.

5. “At the age of 21, Henrietta stared through the train window…for the first time, heading toward a new life.” (26)

-         Judging from her age, Henrietta probably sought away from her family at a very early age and because of this it shows a different aspect of her life. One that later relates to how she is now, especially what is happening to her regarding cancer.

Henrietta Lacks Chapter 3-6 Posting

Discussion Master: Chapter 3-6

1. Describe the two types of cervical carcinomas.

2. Why didn’t the doctor inform Henrietta that they were going to take a tissue sample of her tumor?

3. Why didn't the doctors tell Henrietta that she would be infertile after the operation?

4. What made Henrietta's husband so reluctant to give out information on her cells?

5. Do you think it was fair for the doctors to use Henrietta as a tester without fully disclosing all information to her?

6. Why do you think Henrietta didn't have any side affects like most patients did in the beginning of the treatment process?

7. What kind of treatment was she to get?

8. How safe is the way they performed their radiation treatment?

9. What made Henrietta's skin look charred and burned?

10. What qualities did radium possess?

11. What was happening to Henrietta’s cells?

12. Why do you think Henrietta kept her cancer a secret?

13. What was so special about Deborah’s stories?

What I Know

Ever since I have been in this class, my view on the body has been very different. When people move, I think of ways on how we classify the movements. I really enjoyed the movement lab because through that, I was able to my knowledge of movements and apply them. At first, I was really slow with all the planes and the directional movements, but I can now name most of the movements with confidence because of the lab. Some of the things that we are covering in the class is a review from my previous classes. We are now covering landmarks of the bones, I remember the bone names, but I am having difficulty remembering the landmarks of the bones because there is so many to remember! That is the only problem that I have so far.

Last Blog of the Year

What was your favorite topic this semester? Why? - My favorite topic of this semester was the invertebrates and vertebrates chapters. I really like learning about the different animals. The fun part was the dissections, I feel that they really do help with realizing where each body part is. From there we begin to learn it's function and how the part works. What was your least favorite? -My least favorite topic of the semester was probably genetics with finding if genes were sex-linked or autosomal. I'm not great with looking at pedigrees and determining how genes were inherited. For the most part, I feel that if I did more practice problems on these I would understand the concept. As of right now, it is still my least favorite as well as the Mendelian numbers. What would you change about this class if you could? -I would change the amount of in-class tests/quizzes that you give us. I feel like it really is not enough. It's the in class tests/quizzes that prove to you whether or not we've been reviewing over the material and I feel that those should be more frequent for your next year students. What do you feel is your biggest accomplishment in biology this year? - I feel that my biggest accomplishment this year was reading and covering all the chapters that we went through. This was the first time in any science class that I covered so much content. I learned a lot from this class and I hope to carry on this knowledge later on in life~

Entry #10: Chromsome 19: Prevention

In this chapter, we discuss about a family of genes called the apolipoprotein genes, or APO genes. They come in four basic varieties, called A,B,C and E. There is various different versions of each oh different chromosomes. The one that we discuss about is APOE which lies on chromosome 19. To understand APOE's job requires a digression into the habits of cholesterol and triglyceride fats. The job of APOE's protein is to effect an introduction between VLDL and a receptor on a cell that needs some triglycerides, APOB's job is to do the same for the cholesterol drop-off. If these two are not working, the cholesterol and fat stay in the bloodstream and can build up on the walls of arteries as atherosclerosis. We did not just want to talk about heart disease, but we also can see how this genes comes to play in the Alzheimer's disease. It is said that if you carry two E4 genes your chances of eventually getting Alzheimer's disease are much greater than those of the population at large.

Entry # 9: Chromsome 17: Death

In this chapter, the author focuses on cancer and talks about cells and how they sometimes reproduce themselves when they are not supposed. As a result, we have cancer. A gene called TP53, which is located on the short arm of chromosome 17 is responsible for suppressing rogue cancer cells. this gene was first discovered by David lane, he recognized this as a tumor suppressor. Mutation in the TP53 gene is almost the defining feature of a lethal cancer; in fifty-five percent of all human cancers, TP53 is broken. People with one faulty version of TP53 out of two they inherit have a ninety-five percent chance of cancer at a usually an early age. the story of P53 and the oncogenes challenges the argument that genetic research is necessarily dangerous and should be curtailed. The author also explains that in various types of cancers, TP53 is mutated very early which explains why chemotherapy and radiation therapy is not always effective. Apoptosis can also be useful in preventing other kinds of mutiny than cancer, such as genetic distortion of the kind induced by transposons.

Entry #8: Chromosome 14: Immortality

In this chapter, Matt Ridley talks about how people have been wondering about immortality for quite some time and whether or not it exists. The question is answered on chromosome 14, in the shape of a gene called TEP1. The product of TEP1 is a protein which forms part of the most unusual little biochemical machine called telomerase. Lack of telomerase causes senescence and addition of telomerase turns certain cells immortal. The story begins with the discovery James Watson discovered. He noticed that the biochemical machines that copy DNA called polymerases cannot start at the very tip of a DNA strand. rather the start several letters into the text. therefore the text gets a little shorter every time it is duplicated. everytime the chromosome is copied, a little bit of the telomere is left off. After a few hundred copies, the chromosome is getting so short at the end that meaningful genes are in danger of being left off. In your body, the telomeres are shortening and the result is aging. This is why that people realize now that telomerase could be the result of immorality.

Entry #7: Chromosomes X and Y: Conflict

In this chapter, the author discusses how the body is the victim, plaything, battleground and vehicle for the ambitions of genes. The X and Y chromosome are always in conflict with each other. The sex chromosomes X and Y determine the sex of the body. Each chromosome attracts genes that are beneficial to that sex. Men have no 'spare' chromosome and because of this they are much more likely to suffer from recessive problems like colorblindness and hemophilia. This outbreak of antagonism between genes is a dangerous situation. It is said from scientists that later on in the years, the X chromosome will dominate over the Y chromosome. Not that the male species will be extinct because if that was the case, then that would mean that there would be no human beings on Earth. What that basically means is that later on in the future, male species will be more feminine than they are in the past because of the dominance in the X chromosome. The conflict has almost been shown to be the attributor for a heritability of homosexuality

Genome Entry #6: Chromosome 11 Personality

In this chapter, we learn that the gene D4DR is located on the short arm of the chromosome. D4DR codes for dopamine is a neurotransmitter that motivates us to have action. It is the recipe for dopamine receptor protein and it is switched on in cells of certain parts of the brain but not in others. Dean Hamer shows in a study that D4DR correlates with “novelty-seeking” behavior, but only accounts for four percent of such behavior. It is shown that in the book it shows that too little and the person lacks initiative and motivation. Too much and the person is easily bored and frequently seeks new adventures. A long D4DR gene implies a low responsiveness to dopamine in certain parts of the brain, whereas a short D4DR gene implies a high responsiveness. People with long D4DR genes have low responsiveness to dopamine, so they need to take a more adventurous approach to life to get the same dopamine buzz that short-gened people get from simple things. 36 percent of this gene is heritable, and the rest is environmental. There could be over 500 heritable genes to control behavior. Other factors including diet, like cholesterol intake could also affect one's personality.

Blog 5: Intelligence

It is important to define and debate about the understanding of intelligence because like we discussed in class, there are many types of intelligence. It ranges from having a visual intelligence to one that is spiritual. Everybody has their own way of learning, the way we define intelligence cannot simply mean one thing, it has several different meanings because the word intelligence is different to everybody. For me, I am definitely strong in math so to know how I learn as a student makes it easier for me to find ways to adapt to other teaching strategies that I experience in class. It's good to know the intelligence's origins because like in the genome book we can compare it to nature vs. nurture and how we got to that intelligence. Knowing the type of intelligence you have is important because you as a student should know what is best fitted for you and how you learn the best. This relates to me because, as I have said before I am a math learning person. I have to do things step by step or else I'll get confused, knowing this I know how to approach the way I learn and how a teacher teaches. The AP test is coming up and I realize that I have to begin to use my intelligences to the max to save myself and pass the AP test.

Kidney Function Mindmap

Blog 4: Nephron

Nephrons and blood vessels that are associated in the process are the functional units of mammal kidney. A nephron consists of a single long tubule and a ball of capillaries called the glomerulus. Each human kidney has about a million nephrons. Excretory tubules that contains nephrons and collecting ducts and associated blood vessels are packed inside the kidney. Fluid from several nephrons flows into a collecting duct and from there a ureter conveys urine from the renal pelvis to the urinary bladder. The nephrons control the composition of the blood by filtration, secretion, and re-absorption. The counter current system present in the loop of henle is able to dilute or concentrate urine depending on what the body needs. In the descending limb, ions such as salts has very little permeability, only water is permeable here. The water moves by osmosis into the hyper osmotic interstitial fluid and salt diffuses out of the concentrated filtrate as t moves through the salt-permeable ascending limb of the loop of Henle.

SOURCES: Campbell book
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/human-biology/kidney.htm

Blog 3: Starfish

Starfishes are found in the phylum enchinoderms. In this phylum we can also find feather stars, starfish, sea urchins, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, sand dollars and sea lilies. Starfish have radial symmetry, sometimes bilateral.They are sessile or slow-moving animals. The internal and external parts of the animal radiate from the center, which are often five spokes. A thin skin covers an endoskeleton of hard calcareous plates. Their body has more than two cell layers which has the tissues and the organs. Their body cavity is a true coelom. Most of them possess a through gut with an anus. Although we can see a starfishes' five arms we have no way of telling which one is the head. Their nervous system includes a circum-oesophageal ring. What is unique is their water vascular system. This is a network of hydraulic canals branching into extensions called the tube feet that function in locomotiom, feeding, and gas exchange. They have an open circulatory system but it is poorly defined. Sexual reproduction for these creatures usually involves separate male and female individuals that release their gametes into the seawater. This is known to be external fertilzation. The radial adults develop by metamorphosis from bilateral larvae. These creates do not have excretory organs, rather they rely on counter current exchange. Starfish are often a pest of commercial clam and oyster beds, a single Starfish my eat over a dozen oysters or young clams every day.

Crinoidea:

Ophiocistioidea:

Astroidea:

Echinoiudea:

Holothuoidea:

SOURCES: http://www.earthlife.net/inverts/echinodermata.html
Campbell textbook.

GENOME Entry #5: Chromosome 13 - Pre- history

Matt Ridley first begins with saying how there is a similarity of embryological genes in worms, flies, chicks, etc and this shows that there is a common descent among this species because of DNA. He makes a comparison of this to human languages, and how by comparing the vocabularies of human languages we can find out their common ancestry, just like how we are look at embryonic history right now. In the 1980s Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza wondered if linguistic similarities coincide with genetic ones. By gathering data on the common, known variations in simple genes and doing clever statistical tricks called principal components analysis with the resulting data, Cavalli-Sforza uncovered five different contour maps of gene frequencies within Europe. In a study with chromosome 1 that has the gene lactase, the evidence suggests that such people took up a pastoral way of life first and developed milk-digesting ability later in response to it. This provides an example of a cultural change leading to an evolutionary.

GENOME Entry #4: Chromosome 9 - Disease

Chromosome 9 has the gene that determines a person's ABO blood group. A blood transfusion can go horribly wrong if one does not get the same type of blood. The red cells will all stick together. O blood type is the universal donor, people with blood type AB can only receive blood from A or B or both. A and B are co-dominant versions of the same gene while O is considered to be recessive. It was not until 1990 that this gene was discovered. From diseases like malaria was able to create a link between disease and mutations. It has been shown that people with blood type O seem to be more resistant to malaria than people of other blood types. Different diseases seem to be more resistant to some blood types and others not so much. From an ABO blood group we are able to tell which diseases apply to their genes. The ABO blood group is different for everybody and thus it's function is different for everybody else as well.

GENOME Entry #3: Chromosome 5 - Environment

Chromosome 5 is the home of several of the leading candidates for the title of the asthma gene. Asthma has proved to be impossible to pin down in genes because everybody in the world at some point has gotten asthma or has had some kind of allergy in their life. The author ends up comparing asthma to real life. He says that Asthma, eczeme, allergies are all caused by the same 'mast' cells in the body which are alerted and triggered by the same immunoglobulin-E molecules. The author is making the claim that it is because of pollution that there is an increase in asthma for people. The theory goes that dirt contains bacteria, especially mycobacteria, which stimulate one part of the immune system, whereas routine vaccination stimulates a different parts of the immune system. This goes to show that environment does impact how a person lives. Based on where they live, when people rarely travel and travel to a place where there is new viruses and bacteria, they are most likely to catch it because their immune system has never blocked anything like that and therefore they do not have the protection that they need unlike the natives that live there.

GENOME Entry #2: Chromosome 4 - Fate

In the beginning of this chapter, we are told that genes are there to cause diseases and that we cannot escape from our fate. The author gives us the example of Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome where the disases depends on the number of "CAG" that repeats in the DNA. The age at which the madness will appear depends on the number of repetitions of the word CAG in one place in one gene. It was not until the discovery of Huntington's diasese that the first completely dominant genetic disease came to the light. In the 1970's a woman went Venezuela where much of the people were thought to have Huntington's disease. The doctor and her began to conduct research on the topic and it was not until 1993 that they found out the gene was found on chromosome 4. We learned that some families seem to be more prone to the Huntington's mutation than others, but that is because it depends on the simple matter of letters in their gene and how it is matched. The way it is close together determines how CAGs can add up and repeat. The chapter has a good way of explaining that we can't escape from our fate, that we are given what we are given because hereditary diseases like these are inescapable, it's in our genes.

Blog 2: Double Fertilization

Flowering plants have the ability to reproduce asexually and sexually. When they do produce sexually, they undergo a process called double fertilization. A flowering plant has a female part and male part if they are a perfect flower. The female part consists of the stigma, style, ovary, and ovule, while the male parts consist of the stamen, that has the anther and the filament. We first begin with what happens in the female part of the flower, the ovule has a reproductive cell called the megaspore (the cell is a diploid and undergoes meiosis and produces 4 haploid spores). In most cases, 3 of the haploid spores degenerate and only leave one. The remaining haploid spore goes through 3 rounds of mitotic division and produces 8 haploid nuclei. Then, cell walls form between the nuclei and 3 nuclei move up while 3 move towards the ovule the remaining two stay in the middle and are called polar nuclei. Now begins the processes in the male parts of the flower, pollen grain lands on the stigma and begins to germinate and sends a long pollen tube through the style and ovary. The cell that traveled through the tube undergoes mitosis and produces 2 haploid sperm cells. One of the sperm cells fertilizes with the egg producing a zygote and the other sperm combines with the polar nuclei making a triploid which later becomes the endosperm. The endosperm provids food for the embryo.

Sources: http://bcs.whfreeman.com/thelifewire/content/chp39/3902001.html

GENOME Entry #1: Chromosome 1 - Life

The chapter of life begins with the author saying that in the beginning was the word, and that this word "proselytised the sea with it's message, copying itself unceasingly and forever". We see the life is something that is not easily defined, but it does have two very different skills. Life has the ability to replicate and the ability to create order. How do we human beings create order you ask? Well that can be answered by the example Matt Ridley used in the book. Living things have the ability to produce approximate copies of themselves and we eat and from there we transform it into flesh. After this we are somehow able to build bodies of order and complexity from the random chaos in the world. Why is this important? It's important because it leads to the the most important thing that contains our information--DNA. DNA contains a record of the word that transmits through all aeons to the present. With all this genetic information, we ask ourselves the question which came first? the RNA or the DNA? just like how we ask ourselves which came first? the chicken or the egg. Studies have shown that there is more proof to back up that RNA came first. Without RNA we would not be able to do the most primitive and basic functions in a cell and this is how life began.

Extra Credit Blog: Reflection on First Semester

What topics really confused you?
The topic of reproduction confuses me quite a bit. I don't remember much about meiosis and mitosis when reproduction cycles come in.

What topics do you feel very clear on?
I know chemistry and the cell chapters pretty well.

What lab/ activity was your favorite? Why?
I enjoyed the photosynthesis one because I was able to see which types of colors are absorbed better and I got a better understanding as to why those are absorbed the best. I also like the enzyme lab because after doing all the tests for which enzyme works better or fails in each environment I was able to reflect what I remembered and saw in the essay for the final.

What lab/activity was your least favorite? Why?
My least favorite lab was probably the bacteria lab because I was not able to see any traces of how the bacteria shape was supposed to look under the microscope. I got really frustrated from this lab.

If you could change something about the class to make it better, for instance the type of homework (not the amount) what would it be and why?
What I would change about the class is probably lessen the amount of computer work. I feel that when I write more of the stuff down, like notes from the textbook. I absorb the material better. When things are done online I usually just skim it and don't get the full reading like I do when I do the reading from the book.

Extremophiles

Extremophiles> Psychrophile> Grylloblattidae
Psychrophile-
Psychrophiles or cryophiles are considered to be an extremophile organism. They are capable of growing and reproducing in cold temperatures that range from −15°C to +10°C. When temperatures are as low as −15°C they could be found in pockets of very salty water surrounded by sea ice. They are present in alpine and arctic soils, high-latitude and deep ocean waters, polar ice, glaciers, and snowfields.

Grylloblattidae is a family of the extremophiles. They are wingless insects that live in the cold on top of mountains. They are usually called grylloblattids. They were discovered by T E.M. Walker and T.B. Kurata and concluded that most are nocturnal and appear to feed on detritus. They have long antennae (23–45 segments) and long cerci (5–8 segments), but they contain no wings.

SOURCES: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile
Images from google.

Time, Love, Memory: Entry #2 Important Key Points

Three Key Points:
The first key point in the book is DNA the genes of the organisms that they studied over. For the most part their study was on fruit flies and about them crossing over and seeing the dominant and recessive traits that were given by the parent flies, also known as sex linked traits. This is what we basically did on the online lab with drosophila flies the other day, Benzer and his colleagues basically did the same thing as us in finding out the genes and traits that came from each offspring. DNA played an important role during this time because in the book, while Benzer was conducting his experiment on the way animal behavior of flies, Watson and Crick made their big discovery on DNA. This later helped Benzer when him and the other scientists began to work together in search of the genes of the fruit fly. It also helped with them finding out about eugenics and how it affected the Germans.

The second key point in the book is animal behavior. From our ecology chapters we learned about taxis and kinesis from our worm lab and how some behaviors are learned and innate. We have kinesis which is a movement that is random and does not result with respect to the stimulus and we also have taxis which is a direct response to the stimulus. Every since chapter 1, we've seen the effects of animal behavior in the different environments that the flies were placed in. We've seen them being place in tubes that resemble panpipes and to see how they react in the light and dark regions, and we've also seen the flies move towards the edge in an experiment only to find out later by Benzer that it was because some of the flies contained traits that inhibited them from having good vision.

The third key point in the book is structure of the fly as well as other structures in the body's of other organisms. Throughout the entire book we've look at structure and organization, which is one of the main themes of biology. We've looked at parts of the flies in terms of eyes, wings, body shape, etc. As for other species, we've looked at the brains of other organisms as well as optic nerves and the nervous system itself. A main part of the book was about structure and organization because Benzer and them were trying to find the genes that were influenced by the offsprings parents. By looking at different parts of the body structures they were able to tell which traits were passed on. They also looked at different body shapes and structures because it would help them determine which animal was in better use for the experiments they were doing.

Time, Love, Memory: Entry #1

In Time, Love, Memory, what surprised me the most is how a small fly is able to make a difference in the studies that Benzer, Morgan, and the other scientists conducted. They were able to discover genetic material such as DNA and the recessive and dominant genes that Mendel was able to see form his pea experiment, as well as animal behavior from just this tiny fly. I would have thought that a larger animal would have made a larger impact, but in this case this fly was able to make a bigger discovery than most animals used. Returning back to animal behavior, the author made it important that the audience saw what he was trying to do in his experiments. He was trying to see the behavior of the fly most of the time and why the flies did that. I found it interesting on how the flies moved (taxis and kinesis) depending on what variables that Benzer and his colleagues did in their experiments. What also surprised me was the amount of scientists that were involved in the experiments that Benzer conducted, there were so many who took an interest in this matter and soon it evolved and many of them making important discoveries.

SOURCES: Images from google.
Time, Love, Memory book.

A Fear of Pheromones

In the article "A Fear of Pheromones", it begins off asking questions of why we as humans would even want anything to do with pheromones in the advanced society that we live in. We soon find out that the human being is actually in possession of pheromones and have been for quite some time. Like animals and insects, we are able to use these simple molecules the same way insects use them for communications and other uses. It has been concluded that women who have been living close to each other in the same dorms have their menstrual cycles at about the same time, this is because of a pass of pheromones between the women. Another example would be that fish "make use of chemical signals for the identification of individual members of a species" and because of this fish can tell whether or not they belong in their group of not. I agree with the author about how pheromones might actually do some good to human beings rather than the fear that we live in that we do not need them in our lives like animals and insects.

On Societies as Organisms

In the article "On Societies as Organisms", the author talks about how we as humans think of ourselves to be an individual character and that we are lonely and try to do things independently. As we explore, however, we come to see that we are not just one being but rather a group of people who will make a great difference as a group rather than one individual. We depend on each other and communicate. I agree with the author on this because from his example in the article, he puts that "Herring and other fish in schools are so closely integrated that they seem to be functionally a great multi-fish organism", one single fish in the sea may not seem to do a whole lot, but a whole school of fish in the sea would make a change in whatever they would be trying to do. We as human beings cannot be seen comparing ourselves to species like insects and fish, but after while, we do see the similarities among each other and come to accept the fact that we are not so much different from each other.

Thoughts for a Countdown.

In the article "Thoughts for a Countdown", the author starts off by saying how humans are afraid of things like diseases and foreign objects. We come to the conclusion that if something is foreign then it must be hostile and cannot be touched. The author further says that we soon have to find a way to kill it. He makes this connection by comparing this to foreign life on the moon, by stating that" if there should be life on the moon, we must begin by fearing it". I don't think that this is true and the author would agree with me too. I think, along with the author that although there are some species that are considered to be parasitic, not everything is bad. Instead of everything being a pathogen and harming everything, the connections between an organism along with another one can be considered to be symbiotic. They rely on each other to live. He even says that "every creature is, in some sense, connected to and dependent on the rest", like the previous statement he made in his first article. We are not independent creatures, we always rely on other things. This could range from the beneficial bacteria that grows in our stomach to help with metabolism to the bacteria that live in the tissues of insects, and without them they would not be able to survive. It is best to think that it is necessary for each other to live by depending on each other.

The Lives of a Cell

In the article "The Lives of a Cell", we are told from the author that the Modern Man has been finding himself to try to detach himself from nature. He goes to say that the Earth is delicate and frail. I think that it is wrong to think that Modern Man is detached from nature because nature is where we first started off with. So when the author goes on and talks about how we are not just an individual being but rather a group of "individuals" that provide the essential need for everything in our lives, I agree with him. The Earth is best understood as a single cell because although we consider ourselves independent and detached from nature, rather we are shared, rented, and occupied just like the cell itself. The author states that in the inside of our cells, mitochondria "provides the oxidative energy that sends out for the improvement of each shining day", without them, we would not move a muscle, drum a finger, or think a thought. So if we were comparing the Earth to a single cell, there is no way we are considered to be detached from nature because nature and all the things around us provides the essential needs for our everyday lives. "The Lives of a Cell" makes a perfect connection between the Earth and the cell and how we are made up as a whole rather than a single being.

Major Plant Division

Bryophytes:
The three phyla of bryophytes are mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. In the life cycles of bryophytes, the gametophyte is the dominant generation. Their gametophytes are generally only one or a few cells thick and because of this, it places all cells close to water and dissolved minerals. Most bryophytes lack conducting tissues that can distribute water and organic compounds within thick tissues. Some bryophytes have specialized tissues that function in water and solute condition. They have cell walls that lack the lignin coating on the outside and because of this their structure is not as great. The absence of lignin limits the height of bryophytes.

Pteridophytes:
They are seedless vascular plants. Lycophyta and Peterophyta are the two phyla of modern seedless vascular plants. Most pteridophytes have true roots with lignified vascular tissue. Plants that are in the pteridophytes category include horsetails and ferns. The sperm of ferns and all other seedless vascular plants are flagellated and must swim through a film of water to reach eggs. Because of this, seedless vascular plants are most common in damp areas.

Gymnosperms:
Gymnosperms lack the ovaries in which angiosperm ovules and seeds develop. Instead, Gymnosperm ovules and seeds develop on the scales of cones. The Mesozoic era was the age of gymnosperms. These four phylas are grouped as gymnosperms, gingko, cycads, gnetophytes, and conifers. The most familiar group of gymnosperms is the conifers because of the cones that they have.

Angiosperms:
They are better known as flowering plants. They are also vascular seed plants that produce the reproductive structures called flowers and fruits. All angiosperms are placed in a single phylum, this phylum is called phylum Anthophyta. The flower is an angiosperm structure specialized for reproduction. Sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels are the structures that basically make up the flower. Insects and animals transfer pollen from one flower to a another flower's female sex organ. This life cycle of angiosperms proves to be a highly refined version of the alternations of generations which is shared between most plants.

SOURCES: CAMPBELL BIOLOGY BOOK AND IMAGES FROM GOOGLE.

Exemplars of Phyla of Protozoas

Phylum Rhizopoda (Amoebas)
Entamoeba histolytica-
Are unicellular and use pseudopodia to move and to feed. The pseudopodia may bulge anywhere on the cell's surface. When an amoeba moves, it extends a pseudopodia and anchors it's tip and then more cytoplasm will stream into the pseudopodium. Their cytoskeleton conssts of microtububles and microfilaments. Some amoebas live inside a protein shell that they secrete. Amoebas are found in freshwater and marine environments are are also found in soils. They spread by contaiminated drinking water, food, or utensils.

Mycetozoa:
Dictyostelids-
-Used as examples of cellular communication and differentiation. They also provide insights into how multicellular organisms develop. Mycetozoa basically translates to fungus animals. Slime molds have structures that maximize exposure to their food sources and they also have complex life cycles that contribute to survival in changing habitats. Plasmodial slime molds are brightly yellow or orange pigment. The plasmodium engulfs food particles by phagocytosis.

Euglenozoa:
Kinetoplastics-
They are symbiotic and are pathogenic to some of their hosts. For example one of their species Trypanosoma cause African sleeping sickness, through the bite of a tsetse fly. They are characterized by an anterior pocket where the flagella emerges. They sometimes have two flagella. The cytoskeleton of kinetoplastids is primarily made up of microtubules.

Aleolata:
Dinoflagellata-
They have small membrane-bound cavities under the cell's surface. They are the most abundant in the aquatic area where phytoplankton thrive. They provide the foundation of most marine and mant freshwater organism's food. They are heterotrophic. Most are unicellular. One dangerous dinoflagellate is called Pfiesteria pisciacida is carnivorous. When the dinoflagellate blooms it's toxin stuns finish and it feeds on the prey's body fluids.

Stramenopila:
Oomycota-
Include the water molds, white rusts, and downy milkdews. Most water molds are decomposers that grow as cottony masses on dead algae and animals, but mainly in fresh water. Some are parasitic and grow on the skin and gills of fish, but they only attack when the tissue is injured or some sort. Phytophthora infesans causes late potato blight, which is what happened during the potato famine. Watermolds and their relatives have cell walls made of cellulose. These are not really related to fungi. Some of these organisms are unicellular, and some have hyphae and are conecytic.

Chlorophyta:
Chlamydomonas-
They are the simplest of the chlorophytes and are biflagellated unicells. However, they resemble the gametes and zoospores of more complex chlorophytes. In addition to unicellular chlorophytes, there are colonial species as well as many multicellular filamentous forms that contribute to the stringy masses known to be called as pond scum. Most green algae have complex life historites with both sexual and asexual reproduction. Nearly all of them reproduce sexually by the way of biflagellated gametes.

Rhodophyta:
Also known as red algae. They lack flagella and they are usually red because they have an accessory pigment known as phycoerythrin. Red algae evolved from cyanobacteria by primary endosymbiosis. Not all of rhodophytes are red because in deep water they are almost black and at moderate depths they are bright red, in shallow water they appear to be greenish in color. They are the most abundant large algae in the warm tropical oceans. The phycobilins and other accessory pigments allow some organisms to absorb light wavelengths.

Sporozoa:
The Sporozoa are parasitic protozoans that lack locomotor organs. They have no cilia, no flagella, and no pseudopods. They are usually intracellular parasites. The Sporozoa is a very large and diverse class with at least four subclasses and many thousands of species. Malaria is one of the most important sporozoan disease. Coccidiosis, which affects poultry and cattle is another. Some sporozoans live primarily in the blood cells, while others, like live in the epithelial cells lining the intestine. They have complicated life cycles involving two hosts, which includes a sexual and asexual stage.

Parabasalids-
They lack mirochondria. The best known species is Trichomonas vaginalis, they live in the vagina of human females. They infect the vaginal lining when acidity levels of the vagina are changed. Sometimes these infections can have to males too in the urethas. They have both flagellas and an undulating membrane which helps them move within the reproductive and urinary parts of human hosts.

Ciliophora-
Most live as solitary cells in fresh water. Cilia are relatively short and are associated with a submembrane system of microtubules that can coordinate the movement of the cilia. Some ciliates are completely covered by rows of cilia, while some others have fewer rows of them.They have a unique feature, they have a presense of two types of nuclei, a large macronucleus and usually several tiny micronuclei. Ciliates generally reproduce by binary fission rather than undergoing mitotic division. They also go through conjugaton.

SOURCES: campbell biology book, images from google images, wikipedia images.
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/trnov01b.htm
http://oceanlink.info/biodiversity/seaweeds/Rhodophyta.html

Cell Poem

Cell cell cell have you any walls.
If so if so you are a plant cell.
Don't be discouraged if you dont have walls.
It's alright because you're an animal cell.

Prokaryotes and eukaryotes,
all bounded by a plasma membrane.
Eukaryote eukaryote you have a true nucleus
Yes yes prokaryotes are different
Becausee cause they hold their DNA in the nucleiod.

All goes well when ribosomes build's a cell's protein.
They take care of the metabolism changes in the body.
The same goes for the endoplasmic reticulum
One side is smooth the other side is rough
Don't be afraid remembering them is tough.
The smooth ER provides synthesis of lipids
The rough ER provides synthesis of secretory proteins.

The golgic apparatus finishes and sorts.
Ends up shipping cell products to all parts.
Lysosomes are digestve compartments.
One process known as phagocytosis.
Cell cell cell
why are you so complex
the cell membrane has glycoproteins
and a bilayer.
The cell is fluid and moves all about
This is the end of our cell poem
Don't be discouraged there's more to learn.
The cell is a complex part of the body.

Prion Vs. Protist Vs. Bacteria Vs. Virus

Prion:
Viroids and prions are infectious agents even simpler than viruses. A prion is a protein, they appear to cause a number of degenerative brain diseases, including scrapie in sheep, the "made cow disease" and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans. A prion is a misfolded form of a protein normally present in brain cells. When the prion gets into a cell containing the normal form of the protein, the prion converts the normal protein to the prion version. Because of this we can see that prions always calls chain reactions that increase the prion number. The hypothesis of how a prion propagate is this: when a prion contacts a normal "twin" it may induce the normal protein to assume the abnormal shape. This may continue until prions go to dangerous levels such as causing cellular malfunction and soon degeneration of the brain.

Protist:
Protists are the most diverse of all eukaryotes. Most protists are unicellular. They are found whereever there is water, living as plankton, submerged bottom swellers, or inhabitants of moist soil or the body fluids of other organisms. Protists are the most nutritionally diverse, this includes photoautotrophs, heterotrophs, and mixotrophs. Some algae which is in the protist tree have life cycles with alternating multicellular haploid and diploid generations, this means that haploid gametophytes and diploid sporophytes take turns reproducing one another. . The main groups of Protistan diversity are Diplomonadida, Parabasala, Euglenozoa, Alveolata, Stramenopila, Rhodophyta, Chlorophyta, and Mycetozoa.

Bacteria:
Bacteria have a short generation span and because of this it helps them adjust to changing environments. Since bacteria has a short generation span, new mutations can affect a population's genetic variation quickly. The way a bacteria duplicates and makes new bacteria is by transformation, transduction, and conjugation. In transformation, the DNA enters the cell from the surroundings. In transduction, the bacterial DNA is carried from one cell to the other by phages. Lastly, in conjugation, it is the transfer of genetic material between bacterial cells by direct cell-to-cell contact or by a bridge-like connection between two cells.

Virus:
A virus is a small nucleic acid genome enclosed in a protein capsid and sometimes a membranous envelope. The genome that is enclosed in the capsid may be single- or double stranded DNA as well as RNA. The only way for a virus to reproduce is within a host. Viruses use enzymes, ribosomes, and small molecules of host cells to synthesize offspring viruses. For RNA viruses, there is such thing known as retroviruses, that they do is that they use the enzyme reverse transcriptase to synthesize DNA from their RNA template. The DNA can then integrate into the host genome as a proviruses. As for plant viruses, most of them are single stranded RNA viruses. Phages, a type of viruses can undergo the lytic or lysogenic cycle in order to reproduce.

SOURCES: campbell book, biologycorner.com,

Virtual Diffusion Lab

To have the highest rate of diffusion :
Surface area: 6008.89
Volume: 4.00
Surface area/volume ratio: 1500.84
Villi: 50%
Radius: 1X
Cell shape: 10:1
Number of dimples: 20
Dimple % of cell surface area: 1

SOURCES: http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/biolink/j_explorations/ch02expl.htm

Cellular Metabolism Wordle

The chemistry of life is organized into metabolic pathways. Metabolism is a collection of chemical reactions that occur in an organism. It is aided by enzymes particularly, this is how it follows catabolic pathways or anabolic ones. The difference between the two is that catabolic means to break up while anabolic means to build. Cellular respiration and fermentation are catabolic, energy-yielding pathways. The most important part to remember in these few chapters is that respiration involves glycolysis, the krebs cycle, and the electron transport. Glycolysis and the Krebs cycle supply electrons to the transport chain. The places in which these processes occur is that glycolysis occurs in the cytosol, the krebs cycle in the mitochondrial matrix and the electron transport chain is built into the inner mitochondrial membrane. When there is no oxygen for cellular respiration to occur, fermentation enables some sells to produce ATP without the help of oxygen. One extremely important thing to remember is that ATP is basically the cell's energy shuttle. ATP drives endergonic reactions by the transfer of the phosphate to specific reactants. It comes from ADP and turns into ATP after the phosphate is added in. As for photosynthesis, the organic compounds produced by photosynthesis provide the energy and building material for ecosystems.

SOURCES: Campbell book and wordle.net

Cell Wordle

The importance of these few chapters is that we know that prokaryotes were the first organisms on Earth. From there we are able to see that the Bacteria and archaea are the two main branches of prokaryote evolution. Nearly all prokaryotes have a cell well external to the plasma membrane. In order to tell if a bacteria is gram-postive and gram-negativem we can do a gram stain. Bacteria differ in the structure of their walls when we try to distinguish between the gram positive and negative.. Prokaryotes can be grouped into four categories according to how they obtain energy and carbon, this is how we have groups like the photoautotrophs, chemoautotrophs, photoheterotrophs, and the chemoheterotrophs. All fungi are heterotrophs and they acquire their energy and nutrients by absorption. The importance on fungi is that ecosystems depend on fungi as decomposers and symbionts. Without fungi and bacteria as decomposers, communities would not have the blessing of chemical recycling.

SOURCES: campbell book and wordle.net

Bacterial Transformation

The main objective of this experiment was that Boyer and Cohen wanted to isolate the recombinant plasmid, but in order to do so they had to first get their ligated plasmids into E.coli. They learned that Pneumococcus bacteria are "transformed" to virulence when they take up DNA from virulent strains. Their experiment continued by them performing a "heat shock" by rapidly raising and lowering the temperature. Because they did this the bacteria was able to take in the plasmic DNA. The bacteria is then placed in a petri dish and the bacteria with resistance to antibiotics )tetracyline and kanamycin) will be able to grow and continue to spread. This foreign DNA is otherwise known as transformation.


-The cell membrane is made up of lipid molecules that have negatively charged phosphates. The negatively charged phosphates on the DNA helix are repelled by the ones on the lipids. Heat shock creates a temperature imbalance on either side of the bacterial membrane. This is how the DNA is able to get through the adhesion zone.

SOURCES: http://www.dnalc.org/view/15916-DNA-transformation.html, bacteriakingdoms.com

Three Beneficial Bacteria:

Lactobacillus:
Lactobacillus species are used for the production of yogurt, cheese, sauerkraut, and other fermented foods. Lactobacillus is used for treating and preventing diarrhea. It is also used to prevent and treat diarrhea associated with using antibiotics. Some people use lactobacillus for general digestion problems, while others use it used for skin disorders such as fever blisters and canker sores. Many lactobacilli are unusual in that they operate using homofermentative metabolism this is why eating yogurt can sometimes improve your digestive system because lactobacillus is a bacteria that lives in our digestive, urinary, and genital systems without causing any diseases.

Rhizobia:
Rhizobia are soil bacteria that fix nitrogen after becoming established inside root nodules of legumes. Rhizobia require a plant host and they cannot fix nitrogen themselves. They are gram-negative, motile, non-sporulating rods. It is known that this bacteria is able to enrich the soil by contributing nitrogen through symbiotic nitrogen fixation by Rhizobium through centuries. Without this bacteria we would not be able to sustain the natural resources of the ecosystem.

Ruminococcu:
Ruminococcus are non-motile organisms with a coccoid shape. They are also non-motile bacteria. They obtain nutrients by breaking down cellulose that comes through the digestive system of the host organism. These organisms are also capable of fermenting glucose and xylose. Ruminococcus inhabits the rumen of cattle, sheep, and goats. These organisms allow their hosts to digest cellulose. Ruminococcus' cellulose degredation abilities are currently a major area of study. By understanding how these organisms degrade cellulose, farmers may be able to make advances in animal productivity. Ruminococcu is beneficial because without this animals like cows and sheep would not be able to digest most of the food that they eat like celluose.

SOURCES: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/beneficial-bacteria.html
http://www.indiaagronet.com/indiaagronet/manuers_fertilizers/contents/rhizobium.htm
http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Ruminococcus