Pig Dissection Lab Conclusion

I think that an essential question for this lab could have been “What are the body parts of a pig?”, but I think that the purpose of the lab would be “To obtain a greater knowledge of the vascular, circulatory, digestive, and respiratory systems”. My favorite part of the dissection was when I got to (respectfully) cut open the pig and look at all its different systems. I enjoyed cutting open the pig because it was the first time I had dissected a full animal. I think that this was a very productive two days, because I learned a lot about the different systems in mammals.

"Your Inner Fish" Video Series Conclusion

Write a Summary of this video series, and relate to things you’ve learned in this unit and past units. Choose two questions from these notes to elaborate more on. Elaborate by summarizing further, asking questions, and/or drawing connections. This should be at least 10 sentences, and include at least one picture.

In the video, Your Inner Fish, we learned about how (obviously) we came from fish. It all started millions of years ago, where fish were starting to come out of the water. There isn’t a specific name given to the animal that started that, because it is both a land and water “fish”. Those “fish”, had a bone system very similar to the one we have today. Also, some people still have very small gills, proving that we came from fish. We have everything that are early fish ancestors had: Eyes, spines, bones, a jaw, a neck, and many body parts and systems that helped our early ancestors survive. A very important body part our early ancestors had was a neck. With long necks, the “fish” were able to go underwater and turn their head to look for prey or predators. This gave them an advantage over every other animal, because other animals didn’t have the ability to look anywhere but what was in front of them. Without these “fish” having necks, who knows what we would’ve ended up like?

When in looking at the evolution of man, the fish part of us gave us a general structure of the human being today, with a bone system, along with vital organs. But as they millions of years passed, the fish started turning into “reptiles”. These reptiles began to shape who we are as humans. Although the fish did play an important role with giving us a general body structure, the reptile detailed our body structure and allowed us to be who we are today. An example of this “detailing” is teeth. You can find anything you want about an animal by looking at its teeth.Our early reptile ancestors began growing large teeth in the front, which allowed them to kill and eat animals easily. But most carnivores had to eat the whole body, while our reptile ancestors evolved and gained more teeth that would separate bone from meat. Without the evolution of our teeth, we would not have turned out the same as we are today.

Thanks to our fellow reptiles and fish, we know have a great understanding of how the evolution of humans took place. It first started with fish giving us a bone system and several necessary body parts, and then the reptiles came and gave us amazing teeth, brains, and allowed us to be the dominant species on Earth.

The Oligochaeta

Polychaetes, Echiurans, Citelatas, Leeches. These are a small handful of the 14,000 different species of animals classified as Annelids. Annelids have been around for millions of years, and mainly consist of different types of worms. But today I will specifically shine a light on Oligochaeta. Oligochaeta is a multitude of worms, containing 10,000 species in itself. It is a class of animals in the phylum annelida, which is made up of many types of aquatic and terrestrial. With around 10,000 known species, the Oligochaeta makes up about half of the phylum Annelida. All species in the Oligochaeta category are well-segmented worms

Bird Beak Lab Conclusion

Hypothesises:
1) If Darwin's theories are true, then spoon beaks might be eliminated throughout evolution.
2) If there are winners and losers, then the bird with the spoon beak certainly won't be one of the winners.

Evidence: Total chicks born
Spoon -> 8
Paperclip -> 10
Tweezers -> 38
Scissors -> 23

I was correct with my hypothesis for this specific test and the part 2 experiment. I believe that the spoon isn't efficient at picking things up. It is actually really difficult so scoop up certain pieces of food unless they are in a big pile. Usually birds don't find a large pile of food.

CER Statements:
The paperclip beaks will defiantly be eliminated from the population because they are loosing by a lot. The scissors population is clearly taking the lead, so they will begin to look like the winners.

Part 2: CER Paragraph
Question: What will happen if all the macaroni a bird eats means -10 food?

Hypothesis: If macaroni is toxic, then the birds with smaller beaks will be way more successful.

CER: The spoon beak bird died because it couldn't pick out the food that wasn't toxic. This clearly shows how the birds with smaller beaks could selectively pick the non-contaminated food.

PE Paragraph:
2 Errors: The tables were not level, so there might have been some advantages to the spoon beak if it were on the lower table because they could use the step as a wall. This would make scooping food a lot easier. The second error could be placement of the food. The food was placed more on one table than the other. This means that the people with the food closer to them could have had a slight advantage. Just try to be more precise when you set everything up, and then you will not have the previously stated errors.

PA Paragraph:
Purpose of lab: This lab allowed us to see how selective evolution can be. It really makes it easy to see how different species can strive or die so quickly. This really helps traits evolve rapidly.

How it relates to vodcasts: The vodcasts were talking about evolution, and the gene pool. This really shows how certain traits can do absolutely horrible in a given environment. It also shows how certain species can strive, and then reproduce more often.

Applied to a different scenario: This can help you understand how certain dogs can be good for certain tasks. They have evolved to the point that they have kept all the important traits needed for their tasks, but also dropped all of the non-important traits.

Unit 7 Reflection

Before I mention how the unit went, I want to mention the ecologists project. It was a lot of fun, it was hard, it was tiring, and it was all over the place when it came to how I felt about it. But overall I felt good about it. My group members were Alyssa, Johnny, Alma, and I, and we worked pretty well as a team. The hardest parts were putting together the slide and and actually recording it, because it took us about seven tries before we got it right. It was also very tiring since we all worked on it at home for about two hours a day. As a result of that, we finished with so much time left to spare. Some groups had only a few chances to record themselves, but due to our hard work, we were able to finish it in two days and record A LOT longer than any group. Although we had challenges, it was fun: I got to know Alma and Alyssa better (and I already knew Johnny pretty well). But overall, it was a great experience. Now back to what happened in unit 7. WOW! There was a lot. From Bioethics to niches, we learned about so much involving the environment we live in.  Along with that, we talked about what Ecology is, the purpose of the food web and the food chain in the ecosystem, how energy is divided in the ecosystem, how the population of living species can possibly grow in an ecosystem, Ecosystem recycling, and how we protect our Ecosystem. 

Ecology is the study of living things and their environment, and has the levels of organization: Organism to Population to Community to Ecosystem to Biome to Biosphere. To start with the organism, it is an individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form. Then there is a population, which is many of the same organisms in the same area. After that we get to the community, which is many populations joined together interacting with each other. Then there is an ecosystem, which is a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. An example of that would be a section in the rain forest, like the amazon. Also, there is a Biome, which is a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna (plant and animal life) occupying a major habitat. An example of that would be the rain forest, or the redwoods. And finally there is Biosphere, which is basically a continent. 

We also learned about the population of living species and how they grow exponentially and logistically, depending on the carrying capacity of the environment, and how much living organisms in the species live. By seeing successions after large natural disturbances we still have an ecosystem and we can recycle through using nutrient cycles. Finally, we can protect our Ecosystem by looking at each environment and determining the amount of habitat loss, overexploitation, introduced/exotic species, and climate change in it, and try to help it and solve the problems each ecosystem has. 

Genetics infographic

To see the infographic, copy and paste this link:
 file:///Users/teacher/Downloads/Genetics%20Infographic%20(1).pdf

pGLO lab

pGLO Lab Conclusion

Plate	Number of colonies	Color of colonies under room light	Color of colonies under room light
-pGlO LB	0 (lawn)	grey	grey
-pGLO LB/amp	0 (lawn)	grey	grey
+pGLO LB/amp	75	tan	tan
+pGLO LB/amp/ara	250	tan	green

2.	What two new traits do your transformed bacteria have?
	-Ability to be resistant to Amposilin -Ability to glow
3.	Estimate how many bacteria were in the 100 uL of bacteria that you spread on each plate. Explain your logic.
	-25 mL in our test plate=250 germ colonies
	-100 mL in our test plate= ? germ colonies
	THE ANSWER IS 1000 (250x4)
4.	What is the role of arabinose in the plates?
	It allowed the RNA to transfer into the germs, causing them to glow.
5	List and briefly explain three current uses for GFP (green fluorescent protein) in research or applied science.
	-Testing a protein in jellyfish that makes jellyfish. - Using green fluorescent proteins to tag the expression of genes -Making Cats glow
6.	Give an example of another application of genetic engineering. -Mass production of insulin, follistim, antibodies, and vaccines

Candy Electrophoresis Lab Conclusion

When you analyzed the results of your gel, did any of your experimental samples contain dyes that did not match the four reference dyes? For example, did any of your samples produce?

Look at the structures of the dyes pictured here. Which of these dyes would migrate similarly to the dyes you examined in this lab? Why? 

All of them because they are all the same color that we tested. They won't move at the same speed, but they should be similar.

Many popular dry dog foods and dog treats have FD&C dyes among their ingredients. For example, Beneful dry food contains Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6, and Blue 2, and Snausages Breakfast Bites contain Red 40 lake, Yellow 6 lake, and Yellow 5 lake. (Lake dyes are the insoluble forms of the FD&C dyes.) 
Why do dog food manufacturers put artificial food colors in dog food?  

Dog food factories put a lot of animal byproducts into the food, so it won't exactly look like it is advertised. You can indirectly think that the dye is made for the humans because the companies want to humans to think the food is good based on appearance!

Are there any reasons why artificial food colors might be preferable to natural food colors? 
Some natural food colors are not appetizing. There are also some natural food colorings made out of bugs, and that is very unappetizing. 

What two factors control the distance the colored dye solutions migrate?
The length/size one the DNA, and how well the DNA was injected into the gel.

What force helps move the dyes through the gel?
Electricity

What component of the electrophoresis system causes the molecules to separate by size? Explain
The gel is the key to this working. The gel has little holes in it, and these holes are just large enough for DNA to move through them. The small DNA has no problem getting through the gel, but the large DNA has a lot more trouble. This is why the large DNA moves a lot slower than the small DNA.

Agarose electrophoresis is commonly used to separate molecules of DNA. Explain how you expect DNA molecules with molecular weights of 600, 1000, 2000, and 5000 daltons to separate. 
Well clearly the 5000 dalton DNA is going to move very slowly, while the 500 dalton DNA will rapidly move to the other end of the gel.

Recombinant DNA Lab Conclusion

In this lab we made Recombinant DNA out of strips of paper. We created the plasmid out of blue colored paper, and the strand of DNA and insulin gene out of a pink strip. Lastly we had a bunch of yellow squares of paper that were our restriction enzymes. One plasmid I made was resistant to kanamycin. I didn't use the ones that were resistant to ampicillin or tetracycline.After I figured out what my plasmid was going to be, I then made the long strand of DNA. I went through the list of restriction enzymes, I only found one that could perform the cut. After I figured out what worked, I cut everything out and attached it all together.
Which antibiotics could you use in your petri dishes to see if the bacteria have taken in your plasmid? Why? Which antibiotics would you not use? Why? 
You could use whatever you would want to; however, it really depends on your goal. You would only want to use the plasmid that your bacteria is resistant to. If you feed tetracycline to bacteria that is resistant to ampicillin, then the bacteria would basically die. 
What are restriction enzymes and how do they work? Which one did you use and why? 
A restriction enzyme basically cuts the DNA or splits it a certain way. It will always cut it the same way too. The way it works is it attaches itself to the actual DNA. I used AVA because it properly split my plasmid/DNA.
What would happen if you used an enzyme that cut the plasmid in two places? 
The plasmid would get a lot shorter. This would be pretty bad because you loose all that important information, and the recombinant DNA would be really small like HPA or ASP.
How do you think this process is important in our everyday life? 
I think that the most significant importance is helping us become immune to certain things. This is an essential process needed to survive, so we don't keep getting sick over the same thing over and over again.
How else could this process be used (be creative!) or search online to find current technologies using recombinant DNA?
I think the most interesting thing is glowing animals. Supposedly there are glowing sheep, bunnies, pigs, marmosets, beagle, cats, and fish. This is only when they are exposed to some form of UV light.

My Goals

Goal #1:

I will designate a time in the day for just science, if it means studying, doing my homework, or writing on my blogs. I will do this to ensure that I am getting my science homework done at the same time each day or night.

I will try harder to balance my academic and athletic life equally by spending more time studying over playing basketball, and in most cases I will try to put my academic life over my athletic life.