Wrapping up the semester

     Looking back at the semester and what I have done throughout it I believe I have done fairly well.  I feel that I have grasped all of the concepts to an average if not above average standard.  Some of the standards I got better than others.  For example I think I got the cell structure section very well but had trouble grasping the respiration part.  My favorite part of the semester was playing with the microscopes, I liked the microscope camera.  I do feel that I was lazy with my blogs sometimes, I got them in but some were later than I wanted to get them done.  With that said next semester I plan to get my blogs done as soon as I possibly can.  Therefore I learn the topics in pace and not have to cram to learn them.  Now looking ahead I plan on having another good semester.

Green Human

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

     PKU is a very rare disorder, it only happens to 1 in 10,000 caucasians.  The percentage is a lot less with other races.  Most children are screened for PKU at birth.  If they aren't tested and they have the disorder the child will have a small head, epilepsy and mental retardation.  To screen the babies they test for high levels of phenylalanine in their blood.  If it is they have to make sure its not from another protein defect by BH4.  PKU occurs when a genetic mutation disrupts the function of a crucial metabolic enzyme PAH.  This makes high phenylalanine levels in the brain.  This poisons the neurons and causes mental retardations.  If a person has this disorder they should stay to a low protein diet until at least 12 years old and to be safe most people stay on it their whole lives.  It is a very rare disorder but if you have it, its not fun.

Enzyme lab results

     In this lab we got a beaker and filled it with water and H2O2.  Then we would add drops of yeast to the experiment.  The reactions of the yeast with the mixture makes pressure.  We then measured the pressure over a 3 minute time period and graphed it.  To set up for the lab we had to connect a pressure sensor onto the beaker.  Then run the data through a computer program to graph the data.

In this part of the experiment we tested with different amounts of drops.  We found that we got the most reactions and pressure at 25 drops.

In this experiment we tested how the yeast reacted in different temperatures.  It reacted the most at 38 degrees Celsius.

In this experiment we tested the pressure with different amounts of PH.  We noticed that there was a lot less reactions happening at the PH of 7.

Photosyntheses "Dry Lab"

1)  

Materials: 5 beakers, water, bromothymol blue, 3 snails, 3 Elodea (aquarium plant), a lighted area, a dark area

Do these tests on a lab bench at room temperature.  Use 100 ml. of water and 50 drops of bromothymol blue per beaker.

1. Put water and bromothymol blue together in the same beaker.  Observe what color it is.

2. Get a beaker of water and add bromothymol blue to it.  Then add an aquarium snail to it and observe what color it is after 3 hours.

3. Get a beaker of water and add bromothymol blue to it.  Then add Elodea, once you have done this place it under light and observe what color it is after 3 hours.

4. Get 2 beakers with water and add bromothymol blue to each of them.  Then place an aquarium snail and Elodea in each of them.  Once you are done with this place one in the light and one in the dark.  Leave them there for 3 hours then observe the colors.

2)

1. Water plus bromothymol blue is blue-green because the oxygen in the water turns the bromothymol blue a blue-green color.

2. Water plus bromothymol blue plus an aquarium snail turns yellow because animals respire in the form of carbon dioxide, which in water makes carbonic acid.  This turns the solution yellow.

3. Water plus bromothymol blue plus elodea is blue-green in light because green plants photsynthesize in the light and respire all the time.

4. a) Water plus bromothymol blue plus a snail plus elodea is blue-green in light because because the plant does photosynthesis.
    b) Water plus bromothymol blue plus a snail plus elodea is yellow in the dark because the plant has no light for photosynthesis.

3)
1. It doesn't give adequate information on where the acid comes from to make the solution yellow.

2. They did not try all of the experiments in the dark.  If it was in the dark there would be more accurate data.

3. What type of snail do you use that will stay in the water.

Golden Poison Dart Frog

     The Golden Poison Dart Frog is the most poisonous animal in the world.  Its poison is also one of the strongest poisons known to man.  The poison is located on their back and there is enough there to kil 10 to 20 grown men.  This is impressive since the animal is only 1 to 2 inches long.  In perspective this poison can kill 15,000 people per gram.  The poison can even kill on just contact with the skin.  This poison does not readily deteriorate, that means if you eat something that the frog touched you can die.  The kind of poison that the frog uses is a alkaloid poison.  The type is batrachotoxins these prevent the nerves from transmitting impulses, this then makes the muscles inactive in a state of contraction.n  These batrachotoxins attack at sodium channels in the cells.  When they do this they permanently block the nerve pathways and stop the nerves from working, eventually killing the target.  The venom is very strong and as of today there is no cure that is why the poison from the Golden Poison Dart Frog is one of the deadliest poisons known to man.

Sources:

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/golden-poison-dart-frog/

http://www.wou.edu/~hgrimes/ch350/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Poison_Frog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batrachotoxin

Microscope fun

Blood Cells

Leaf

Red Onion Cells

Flowing Blood Cells

Moving Micro Organisms

Cell Structure and Function

Cell Structure and Function on Prezi

Proteins

http://s016.chrisludwig.edu.glogster.com/glog-6933/

Cell membrane

This is a picture we drew of a cell membrane.  It is made from phospolipids connecting together because they a hydrophobic.  They then serve as a good barrier for the insides of the cells.  There are also different proteins in the wall, these proteins serve many functions.  The transport protein allows needed molecules to come inside the cell. Receptor proteins bind to other cells and lets them communicate.  The recognition proteins let the other cells know what kind of cell it is and what animal its from.  Those are some of the basic functions of the cell wall.

My cmap of carbohydrates

Research article

http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/jspui/handle/10413/604


     This articles is about the special carbohydrates that are found in avocados.  Heptose is very rare and only found in nature in avocodo's.These carbohydrates are a source of energy, storage and phloem-mobile transport sugars, and precursors for formation of antioxidants.  Heptose carbohydrates have increasing interest because it has multifunctional roles.  The complex name for these carbohydrates in Heptoses D-mannoheptulose.  This carbohydrate is found in the soft edible part of the avocado and is prestent in all growth stages of the avocado. 


     I choose to research this articles because it was enteresting.  I don't think that this knowledge will help us in the future but it does help us understand the way that fruits grow.  The reason this article intersested me so much was because heptose carbohydrates are only found naturaly in avocodos.  The heptose carbohydrate is the only carbohydrate that I had heard of that had more than one function.  I did research and it turned that I hadn't heard of a dual function carbohydrate for a reason.  The heptose carbohydrate is the only carbohydrate that is known about that serves more than one purpose.  This makes the avocado very rare and something that many scietists will research.  That in my opinion is really awesome and is the reason why I chose to do my research article on the heptose carbohydrates in avocados.

changing colors

This lab really fascinated me and it was hard for me to believe that the substances would change like they did.  I had to see it to believe it.  The thing I didn't believe was that just having a few more sugar molecules bonded together would affect how it changed.  The first thing we did was to mix the sugar in with the water in 3 beakers.  There was a monosaccharide, disaccharide, and a polysaccharide.

After that we split each beaker up into 2 different test tubes.  Then we added benedict's solution to one and iodine to the other.  We put the ones with benedict's solution in the boiling water and left the iodine solutions on the rack.

After a minute passed we pulled the test tubes out of the water and lined them up with iodine solutions on the rack.

In the end the monosaccharides had an orange benedict's solution and a clear brown iodine solution.  The disaccharides had a clear light blue benedict's solution and a clear brown iodine solution.  The polysaccharide had a clear benedict's solution and a dark brown iodine solution.

This lab helped me realize that even the smallest amount of change in a molecule can affect how they react.  It also showed me that the different types of sugar can affect the way your body works.  That is what the lab taught me.

Acids

http://s016.chrisludwig.edu.glogster.com/glog-598/

Tums and Such

Sweat

While I was working out yesterday I noticed that the sweat would gather itself into drops and fall off of my body once they got to heavy.  I had always wondered why it didn't just slide down my body without forming into drops.  I thought about it for a while using what I have learned and I think that I have found the answer to my question.  The way sweat works is really quite amazing to me.  The water it self is like an insulator that takes away heat and keeps me cool once I have gotten to hot.  It does this using its specific heat quality.  This wouldn't work if the water just slid off your body like gravity wanted it to.  The water molecules us cohesion to stick together and make a layer on your body and it uses adhesion to stick to the body.  Because of these qualities water is perfect for controlling body heat.  Staying cool lets your body work longer and for that we thank sweat and the properties of water.  I used to get mad that I would sweat so much but now that I know what it does I'm glad it does it.

water and the cool stuff it does

When I first learned that we were going to be learning about water I wondered why water it doesn't matter in biology?  Then the second question that came to my head was how does it stick together the way it does?  The lab we did just added to that interest.  I couldn't wait to figure out how it worked.  Then after I watched the video I understood how it worked.  The force that holds the water together is cohesion.  Then I thought, how does it stick to the string.  The answer to that was that was adhesion, that's when the water molecules are attracted to molecules in other things like the vein of a tree.  As I watched these videos I learned many different things that interested me.  The thing that stuck out to me the most was how the water stores energy from the sun that it catches in the day and makes the air cooler.  Then releases it into the air in the night to make the air warmer, making it a good temperature for us all day long.  Another thing that interested me was surface tension.  By definition it is the energy needed to increase the surface area of a liquid by a given amount.  This is the force on the top of water that lets things stay on top of it.  I wonder if this is how boats stay on top of the water?  On top of this stuff I also learned other things about water.  Most of these things I already knew from chemistry but it was a review of them.  I won't bore you with the definitions of them but the other items were hydrogen bond, hydrophilic, hydrophobic, polar covalent bond, and solvent.  These things deal a lot with the physical and chemical properties of water and makes water what it is.  For example the way that water bonds makes it have surface tension.  From this lesson I have learned that water is a very unique molecule and without it life would not exist and that is why it is important to biology.

story about double placebo

Once upon a time there was like 25 people in a room.  These people were brave and ready to face the upmost task a head of them.  It wasn't exactly deadly or anything it was a double-blind experiment.  Half of the pill bottles were filled with the actually pill and the others were filled with sugar pills which are called placebos.  Double-blind means that the patients and the doctor didn't know who got what pills.  So all of the people gathered nervously into the room not know what pill they would get.  They then got their bottles of pills and were told to come back a week later to see if the pill had done anything to them.  When they got back from the week of service there was drastic changes one 13 of the 25 people.  This was an easy double-blind experiment to test because no one knew what was going to happen.  It turned out that the pill was supposed to make all of your hair fall out and it worked perfectly 12 people came back bald and there was 12 sets of pills sent out the funny thing was the one guy decided to shave his head bald.  So that threw the doctor off for a while, he thought the sugar made everyone balled but the guy soon spoke up and the double-blind experiment was a success.

introw

hey this is braxton the main cheese of this blog i would like to welcome you to the awesomness and and come back to see cool things