Unit Five Reflection

This unit we asked the question: What does our genetic code look like, and how does it work? All of us are made up of DNA, and the very DNA we have our great, great, great, great, grandparents had first. DNA carries the genetic code that determines how we look. How does DNA do that? First the DNA copies itself in a process called transcription. Then, it goes from two strands to one, and becomes RNA by recopying the part it lost with RNA codes. Then the finished RNA goes to the ribosome that reads the RNA and translates it into amino acid codes, or Codons. That amino acid makes up our protein, and that protein makes up our features. If a mutation, or change in the code occurs, the entire pattern can be messed up and in turn affect the end protein product.  In this unit I had trouble understanding gene regulation and even now I still have to look over my notes to check on the difference between an operator and promoter.

This unit teaches us about how our body is able to function and why we look how we look. It is important to know this because if you decided to have a child, you would want to know how it would grow and take the genes from you and turn into a individual. Or, a more serious reason, if you or your child has a mutation in your DNA code, it may have severe to no consequences. It would be really cool if you could provide a sample and scientists could track and map your exact DNA and RNA codons, and the exact order of your bases.

This is a copy right free photo of DNA replication

Protein Synthesis Lab

In this lab we asked the question "how does the body produce protein".  First we copied the DNA over, then transcripted it into RNA form with means that it loses the thymine base and gains the uracil base in return. After that the RNA was translated into the final protein. the mRNA bonds with the ribosome which reads and translates the amino acid combination. The codon, or code is what the ribosome translates, and that is what finally becomes the protein. 

http://science-explained.com/theory/dna-rna-and-protein/

Something that affect the making of protein is called mutations. Mutation alter the original DNA structure which messes up the RNA structure which messes up the ribosomes reading of the amino acids. Deletion deletes an actual part of the base, where substitution replaces a base. Insertion simply adds another base into the structure. The more the mutation alters the protein, the more fatal it is in the organism. based on my observations, frame-shift mutations are the most deadly, for they completely mess up the order of the bases. If a mutation occurs in the start of a function, it has a far worse affect than if it occurs at the end of a sequence, because it messes up the whole order of the sequence. 

http://study.com/academy/lesson/insertion-mutation-diseases-examples-quiz.html

I chose the frame-shift mutation of deletion for my own mutation because I thought it would cause the most damage. By deleting a base at the start of the sequence, other than the start codon, the amino acids were all different to the control no mutation sequence. If that was in a person, it would have a fatal mutation because the protein was totally messed up. 

http://www.yourgenome.org/facts/what-types-of-mutation-are-there

This relates to our lives because what if we have a mutation? What if our child has a fatal mutation, and needs surgery or something worse? Mutations are everywhere, and the more altering the mutation, the more noticeable it is. An example of an mutation is skin color, or in the example below, frog color. The mutation causes it to have green skin or white skin. The one with white has a higher chance of ddying because its color has no camoflauge. 

                           http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/Arch01/1084721406.jpg                                                                                   http://www.alanbauer.com/images/Critters/tree%20frog.jpg

Human DNA Extraction Lab

In this lab we asked the question, "How can DNA be separated from cheek cells to order to study?". First, We used Gatorade as a polar liquid and swirled it in our mouth and mixed it with salt and dish soap. We also added pineapple juice to the solution before mixing it with alcohol for its catabolic protease effects to break down the proteins that the DNA molecules wraps itself around.We then added cold alcohol, a nonpolar substance so the DNA would fall out of the solution and precipitate, or to cause a substance to be deposited in solid form from a substance. If the steps were followed properly, then the DNA should have floated up to the top of the solution and hovered in the nonpolar alcohol solution. There are three steps for DNA extraction homogenization, lysis and precipitation.  IF the whole lab worked out and we had our DNA sample, we were given a option to use a transfer pipette to move the DNA to a small container to carry around.

Some possible errors that could have occurred while doing this lab were mixing the right amount of liquid into the solution, mishandling the solutions, and maybe even not being a human being, cause then you would not have any DNA. I know for a fact that I ruined my sample for I added the alcohol too fast and it mixed in with my DNA Gatorade juice. That totally ruined my DNA because instead of floating to the top, it was stuck in the middle bobbing up and down and totally confused. Another mistake that could have happened was there were no set amounts of Gatorade or anything to say how much we could add, it was all up to the group and person, and if we had a set control measurement, then the results of the lab may have been more similar.

We did this lab to help us understand how DNA works and how knowing how DNA unravels we can learn how it is made. We also did this lab as an alternative to learning out of a book how DNA is made. Somethings I learned from this lab that I didn't know before was what homogenization meant, and that DNA had proteins called histones. I relate this to the vodcast we did about how DNA copies itself. Since we did this lab we can maybe go further into the DNA we produce and look at maybe comparing the DNA samples of different species. Here are some pictures from our lab:

Here is a funny pun:



I guess you could say this write-up was KOALA- TEA.

Unit 4 Reflection

To recap the coin sex lab we just did, we tried making different genetic combinations with coins. The coins repersented the alleles the parents have, and when we flipped them and recorded the combonatitons, it was as if the coins had sex. In most of our labs the hypothesis fit very closely with the resuts from the lab, like when we hyothesised that fifty percent of our hypothetical children would be girls and the other half boys, and the coin results reflected that. However when we tried the dihybrid combonation, we hypothesised that two of our  children out of sixteen would be blond and blue eyes, however none of the kids had it when we tested it with the coins. This reflects to our life becuase when we decide to have kids our alleles are passed down and its cool to be able to guess ahead of time the childs phenotypes or physical appearance.

This unit we asked the question, why is sex so great? Sex has a negative connotation in our society, but it is the fundamentals of life itself. We also covered the importance of genetics. Being able to understand genetics is crucial. When Gregor Mendel discovered the law of segregation and law of independent assortment, it changed how scientists thought about genetics as a whole. Being able to understand genetics can help prevent diseases that run genetically, and predict what your child may look like. All traits the child has originally belonged to the parents and through meiosis, the baby receives part of the genetic code. I had a little trouble understanding the method behind dihybrid crosses and drawing a punnet square example of a dihybrid cross, but after the do now and the CFU, I was able to make one without too much hassle.

This chapter made me think about my genetics, and what traits I may have gotten from my parents. I wonder if I will ever get taller. I wish I was just a little bit taller,  and genetically I should have an inch or two left, I just want to grow really bad. I also wish genetically I was stronger, but I'm not so I have to just work harder to get on the same level as others. It's very interesting learning about genetics. I wonder if scientifically you could predict a diagram of your kid by plugging in all your genetic traits.

https://www.easel.ly/infographic/kj82u3 here is a link to my infographic on genetics.

here is a copy right free picture of a punnet square:

Why is Sex Important?

Why isn't sex important? Sex is the way that we reproduce our own genetic code. Sex is the way our race, whether human or beast, or bacteria grows and flourishes. When a male and female perform sexual intercourse, their genetic code gets transported and shared. Without sex, your race will cease to exist. Asexual reproduction is a way to escape sex, but in most cases, giving up sex leads to the extinction of that race. Since reproducing asexually leads to mutations infecting the embryo, races can be wiped out completely. To tell whether a organism is truly asexually is by looking at the offspring. IF they have to same exact patterns, then they are asexual because the only thing that can cause differences is mutations. Fungi reproduces asexually, and so does E.coli, as known to its friends. DO NOT CONFUSE WITH Br. Coli
IT IS NOT THE SAME!!!

Unit 3 Reflection

In this unit, we studied the parts and functions of a cell. Since everything living contains cells, it is important to know what occurs in a cell and how a cell is set up. Processes like osmosis and photosynthesis and cellular respiration are essential to life, and we performed different labs to work on how they worked. Cells are made up of organelles like a nucleus, and some cells have other parts as well. There are many types of cells Plant and Animal cells, There are two main types prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and they both have different characteristics and defining features. It was easy to grasp the parts of the cell since we learned that last year, but when we drew the diagram of photosynthesis, I was completely lost. I had to go back and watch the vodcast to even understand the diagram. 

I learned about the process of osmosis and how diffusion works with it. I also am now able to talk about the differences and similarities of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. I feel like I came from very little background on cellular respiration and osmosis, but after doing the egg lab and studying more about it, I was able to understand Osmosis. I am still working on understanding cellular respiration, but I know a lot more than from where I started from. Below is the Egg diffusion lab we did in class.

This is the diagram of photosynthesis I had trouble understanding.

Egg Diffusion Lab

In this lab we looked at osmosis and diffusion by putting two different eggs in solutions of deonized water and corn syrup. We were testing the difference between hypertonic and hypotonic solutions by seeing hoe keeping the egg in the solution would affect it. The definition of Diffusion is when the solvents go from a low concentration to a high concentration of water to the equilibrium, or even point. This is called passive diffusion when it doesn't require the cell to use energy The water inside the eggs left to the outside, in the sugar water beaker, making the egg shrink and colapse on itself in places. In comparison, when left in the deonzied water, the egg grew as the solvents in the water infiltrated the eggs membrane and filled the egg making its percent of  change 7.78. This as well as the fact that the mass' percent of  change was .44 grams shows diffusion and proves the difference between hypertonic and hypotonic solutions. 

Grocers in a market sprinkle their produce with water to prevent them from shrinking and losing its inner moisture in the sun, as well as simply dehydrating. Roads are sprayed with salt when it is wet or covered in snow because the salt melts and dries the road out, making it safer to travel on. When it is mixed with plants, the salt dries the plants out killing them as plants require water void of salt to hydrate it. That is also why humans cannot drink salt water, because salt dehydrates us. 

Since this lab proved that putting a egg in a hypertonic solution makes it shrink, does putting it back in hypotonic solution make it grow again? Theoretically it should, since the converse of the definition of hypertonic states that it would grow, but in real life would it be possible? Does putting a dehydrated grape in a solution of water revive it? I would really like to test that, even though based on life experiences, I can hypothesize the answer would be no.

Here are some side by side pictures comparing the eggs we tested.

 In both the pictures, there is clear difference between the eggs as one is shrinked and the other filling the beaker completely.

Here is the data table our class shared with the average percent of change :

Egg Cell Macromolecules lab

In this lab we asked the question: Can macromolecules can be identifies in an egg cell? Using different chemicals and solutions, and mixing it with the egg parts, the macromolecules are exposed. For example, monosachharides are found in the surface of the cell, and using benedicts soulution, we tested if it is in the egg. If there were monosachharides it would have turened from blue to green, to orange. In that way we tested all four major macromolecules. First we separated the egg into three parts, the egg yolk, the membrane, and the white, then we tested each part to see which macromolecules were found in it. Since protein is udually fund in the center of the cell, in the structure, I assumed that it would be in the yolk of the egg since that holds the structure for the baby chicks. If there was evidence of protein in the egg yolk, then when mixed with CuSo4, it should turn from blue to purple. In the negative control, which was water, it showed on a scale to one to ten as sa zero, but when exposed to the egg yolk it was a two. It had turned from yellow, to a blueish purple color indicating that there was indeed protein in the cell. Since the egg white is the cytoplasm of the egg, and has many amino acids, I reasoned that it would contain protein. When we tested the egg white, with the CuSo4 to see whether it had any protein, it showed up as a light purple, almost lilac. On the scale we ranked it as a seven on brightness, which indicated that it did have protein. The egg whites are eaten by body builders as well as normal people as a protein source, so there had to be some evidence of protein in it. When mixed with a substance containing lipids, the chemical Sudan III turns from a red to an orange, and when we mixed it with a test tube of cell membrane, it turned into a bright orange color. We ranked it as a 10 in color, while the negative control, water, was a 0. It made sense there was lipids in the egg membrane because cell membranes are made up of lipids.

Some possible errors that could have occurred while performing the lab was cross contamination of the the substances. While we were splitting the egg, some of the yolk might have mixed with the membrane or the white since it exploded everywhere when we tried to cut it open. That could have affected how the chemicals responded with the substances because we were testing to compare between the parts and if the parts of the egg were mixed, it wouldn't have been a fair or accurate comparison. Another mistake could have been made was the timing of how long we left the chemical solutions to rest before judging what color it was, as well as how much of the substance that we mixed with the egg. Another huge thing that could have affected our final results was our definition of what a color is. Due to these errors, i say we should have timed how long the substance was left to rest, as well as a set amount of how much to mix in instead of 8 drops, an actual vial to mix in.

We did this lab to see and reinforce what we learned in the vodcasts, where do macromolecules exist in a cell. Since the egg itself is  a cell, we were able to relate and compare it to an actual cell. We learned that cells are everywhere in our lives and eating certain parts of a food can benefit us in different ways, like body builder eating the egg whites, and the chick growing in the yolk of the egg.

Here are some pictures from the lab:

Unit 2 Reflection

Unit two's main theme is what chemistry ideas should biologists know. Since we study life, we need to know certain chemistry main points to help us extend our knowledge. Molecules are the basic building blocks of life. They can make up three main bonds such as Hydrogen bonds, Ionic bonds or covalent bonds. Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen and its extremely important to life. Water is great for making solutions, and can attract other molecules. Acids bases and pH are also important to biology because they have characteristics that are crucial for our labs such as the enzyme lab that we did. The next size of molecules we studies were the macro molecules including carbohydrates, lipids, protein, and Nucleic Acids. They are all crucial parts of our bodies. We also studies enzymes structures which we went into dept with our cheese lab where we tested the factors that affected enzymes.



Doing the labs helped me understand how the things we learned in vodcasts such as sugars are made and how the characteristics of it affects its taste, look, and structure. In the Sweetness Lab, we deducted that disachharides were the sweetest, and in our enzyme lab, we tested and made the conclusion that chymosin is hot and acidic temperatures were the ideal to make enzymes work fastest.

I would love to learn more about how to eat healthy from a proper source, and not advertisements and people who have an ulterior motive, because eating healthy and keeping my body in shape is an important part of my life. I would like to be able to tell which foods I'm eating are actually good for me, and not just labels trying to trick and sell their product.

Sweetness Lab

Since polysaccharide carbs are multi ringed they have little or no taste in comparison to mono or di- saccharide carbs which can vary from extreme sweetness to sour, ill tastes. The degree of sweetness for sucrose was provided as 100. Fructose a one ringed carb was ranked as 150 on degree of sweetness. However, Starch, a polysaccharide was ranked 0, for it had little taste at all. I believe that since it takes more time to break down polysaccharides, the flavor is not immediately released like a monosachharide is.

The more rings a carbohydrate has, the harder it is to break down and process, so carbs like starch and cellulose last longer and provide energy for a longer time. Sucrose is a one ringed  carbohydrate, and while it is necessary, it provide little energy in the long term and burns off quickly. Multi ringed carbs can be used for storing energy and for  fueling the body, while one ringed carbs can be used to simply provide energy for the time when it is digested or created.

Since I did not have enough time to share result with my whole group i had to base my results with my neighbor, Eman. While we had similar results they did vary, especially the ones that were harder to discern whether there was any flavor at all. The fact that she probably had more or less quantity of carbs, her tastes buds are more or less developed and that her palate was not properly cleansed are mine was not, all prove to be sufficient variables to explain why we may have gotten different results.

The tongue possesses taste buds which have tiny little taste cells on them. When the sweetness reacts with the taste cells, it sends a signal to the brain shouting HEY SUGAR! SWEET! Taste cells only live for about a week and they can become damaged, so that could have led to my group getting different results than mine. They could have also been introduced to different levels of sugar so that the amount that they processed made their brain note down a different degree of sweetness than mine.

v                           

Biology Collage

Jean Lab Conclusion

In this lab we asked the question if bleach breaks down pigments then will a higher amount bleach damage the fabric.  We found that certain levels of bleach can cause sufficient color change to the jeans. The jean squares that were put in the 100% bleach concentration got about 60% lighter, and the ones that were doused in plain water did not change at all. I thought that since bleach often left holes in clothing in my experience, at least some damage would occur to the fabric either in general look, or texture. This did not match the results we got because other than slight discoloration and some texture roughness, there was minimal damage to the actual jean.

Our data contradicts to the expected results because we constantly messed up the the lab. We accidently left the timer on for too long and our labels were slightly messy and unorganized. We accidently mixed up bleach and water solutions and washed the jeans out with bleach.

Those errors most definitely affected the final results as they were not as obvious as the other groups.  Due to those errors I would definitely try to improve communication and work harder to keep organized.

This lab was done to was done to help us understand the scientific method and for us to learn how to write a proper conclusion. This lab reinforced what I had learnt in middle school on how to write a hypothesis and follow lab protocol. This also helped me understand how to write a more in depth scientific conclusion than what we did in eighth grade. Based on my experience in this lab, I will continue to explore how to write a proper conclusion and how to follow the scientific method, as well as focus on being more neat and organized while doing the lab itself.