Day 12: You want me to do what!?!

Today, I was given an almost impossible quest. I have to research a theoretical fossil and create a theoretical fossil of the human ancestor.

But before I found that out, we took a quiz, which I passed so yay!

Then, we talked about evolution and how species adapt to their environment by adding extra protection. And what better way to learn about that than to rewrite Miley Cyrus' song "Wrecking Ball" to talk about fava beans.

See, fava beans release free radicals and screw up your red blood cells when someone has a deficiency of the G6PD enzyme, giving the person eating fava beans anemia. Now, fava beans are found in areas that are also high in malaria epidemics. But anemic blood isn't ideal of the malaria parasite. So fava beans can reduce the chances of someone catching malaria!

And if you wanted that in musical form, here are my lyrics to "Fava Beans"

Your myths, your shape, your genes, your name
Were all signs that said no
You gave us gas, some people died
But that was before, we knew

That you can save us all
You can fight it off
You can stop this disease
Your favism affect might just stop
The malaria from killing me

You came in like a fava bean
You threw away my G6PD
The radicals released chemicals
But the malaria was gone
And you saved me

Yep...this is why you shouldn't let me write songs. I can sing 'em. Can't write 'em.

So after that, we were told of the impossible quest, and of course Michelle and I said "Let's pick the most interesting but possibly the hardest species to research and then make a legit looking fake website about a fake fossil that we found and how we did it."

So yeah, we chose the theoretical fossil of pan prior, which is the hypothesized fossil of the common ancestor of humans.

Odds are we won't find much, but I've got a couple books in mind for researching and Michelle's good with websites so we should get something good, hopefully. But that's it for now.

Until next time.

P.S. sorry for the lack of cool/pretty pictures

Quiz: Evidence for Evolution

Go put your best thinking cap on because it's quiz time! Remember, no cheating (yes, Google is a form of cheating.)

1. Explain the following picture in terms evidence for evolution. (It's a picture of a species evolving into other species)

This evolution is of a land mammal slowly evolving into a water mammal, probably an early form of a whale. The land mammal, the mesonychid, slowly adapts to the water environment by growing webbed  feet. The arms are shorter and not dog-like anymore and the fur of the mesonychid is receding. This is the transitional species ambulocetus. This mammal continues to evolve, its hind legs disappearing, its front legs changing into fins until it begins to look more like a whale than a dog.

2. Which of the following continents did marsupials begin from?

1. Europe
2. Africa
3. Australia
4. South America
5. North America

Answer: b, Africa

3. Comparing a dragonfly, bird, bats - explain the type of evolution that these organisms show.

Dragonflies, birds, and bats all have the ability of flight. However, they are not related. These species all obtained their ability to fly through different circumstances. Their structures are therefore analogous structures because the structure of their wings are similar, but unrelated.

4. Explain how the Common Descent Lab shows DNA evidence and ancestry as evidence for evolution. Include examples of Primates.

The Common Descent Lab (the one with the beads) shows that DNA can track how closely related two species are to each other. For example, our human DNA was much more similar to our chimpanzee DNA than it was to the gorilla DNA. That data proves that humans are more closely related to chimpanzees than they are gorillas. 

5. Explain homology using some examples from your reading.

So we're reading Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin. Homology as similar physical structures between related species. So these species with the same structures have evolved from a common ancestor. In the book, Shubin uses the Tiktaalik as an example for the earliest wrist, which is similar to human wrists. Other examples include the one bone, two bone, blob structure of the limbs that we went over in class. 

So, these are my answers. Anyone learn something new? I hope so. If not then you're just a smarty pants. 

New blog post coming on Saturday. You might get to hear me sing. 

Until next time. 

Day 11: Beads!!

To be quite honest, I don't remember much of what happened in class today. All I remember thinking is, "We're making DNA friendship bracelets in class!"

Well, I was right about half of it. There were beads. There were pipe cleaners. But there were no friendship bracelets. 

Instead, there were DNA beads! (I know, not as exciting.)

I was once again joined by my fabulous lab parter Michelle as we built DNA strands of humans, chimpanzees, gorilla, and a mysterious common ancestor. As seen in the picture below, the strands are human, chimpanzee, gorilla, and common ancestor.  

We found that the gorilla was more closely related to the common ancestor than it did to the chimpanzee or the human, while the chimpanzee and the human were more closely related to each other than they were to the gorilla or the common ancestor. 

Michelle and I came to the conclusion that the order of evolution was such: common ancestor, gorilla, chimpanzee, human. 

Thus, by using hemoglobin structures (which is what DNA is), you can figure out the ancestry of species. 

Except we didn't use hemoglobin. We used beads....but it still worked!

Tomorrow I'll be posting a quiz because I was told to do that. And no you're not doing the quiz, I am. So don't freak out that you didn't study. That's my job.

So until next time.

Day 10: One Bone, Two Bones, Blob

Today's class was like the beginning of the post-apocolyptic era. It's when the movie starts and you first see the wreckage of whatever thing that almost wiped humanity completely off the planet and the characters have to figure out how to live.

 Our class was pretty much like that today. We got our tests back.

I don't even want to talk about my grade. Let's just leave it at "I screwed up and will spend more time preparing for it next time around."

Well, it wasn't too bad. But it was bad.

At least we went over everything during class (thank you Mr. Quick!!)

We then proceeded to dive into our next unit: evolution. For homework, we were to read chapters from a book called Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin, which was about Shubin's discovery of a transition species between fish and amphibians. The book also went in depth to talk about the evolution of land animals and how some of the earliest land animals had homogenous (similar) bone structure to us humans.

We took a short field trip about a good 500 or so feet to the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology to see a model of a Tiktaalic.

Pictures!!

This species was the first animal to "walk" on land. Notice the quotes around walk, because although the Titaalik had limbs like ours, it sort of dragged itself around. This animal was capable of living both on land and in the water. It has both characteristics of fish and amphibians.

Fish

• gills
• webbed fins
• tail
• scales
• conical head
• eyes on side of head

Amphibians

• limbs
• lungs
• flat head
• eyes on top of head
• neck
• wrist

Tiktaalik

• gills
• webbed fins
• limbs
• wrist
• neck
• flat head
• tail
•  eyes on top of head
• scales

The Tiktaalik was proof that animals evolved from water to land and bridged the gap between fish and amphibians. It also brought to light the evolution of limbs. 

Now, I'm quoting my biology teacher when I describe limbs so it's the most accurate scientific description of an arm. "One bone, two bones, blob."

That'll need some explaining though. As animals our limb structure consists of one bone (the humerus) two bones, (radius and ulna) and the blob (your wrist aka carpals and your fingers aka digits). To get to the one bone two bone blob thing, the species had to evolve from water creatures to land creatures like this. And the Tiktaalik was the bridge between the two.

This shows the evolution from water to land and the evolution from fin to wrist. 

And that was basically our class today. Still recovering from that test, but onto evolution, which makes slightly more sense than chemistry!

Until next time.

Now, onto deep philosophical thoughts of transcendentalism with Ralph Waldo Emerson (save me). 

Day 9: The End (sort of, but not really)

SPOILER ALERT: This blog post contains information about the test that may lull you into a sense of procrastination and a lack of effort to study. If you have not taken the test yet, DO NOT READ THIS POST.

So this test actually wasn't too difficult. There were some things that I could have brushed up on a bit more. And it would have been helpful if I could remember the specifics about a few labs. And it would have also been nice if I realized that zero of something doesn't always mean nothing is happening (gosh Rena, you could have figured that out before you finished the test).

Overall, it was okay. I feel like I overstudied on some parts and understudied on others. Next time, I'll probably start reviewing earlier than two days before the test.

So yeah, lesson for today: If you're freaking out about a test, you should start studying the material the moment you get it.

But if we're being realistic, that probably won't happen because I am a procrastinating teenage girl. But maybe a week in advance would be a good idea.

That's it for today. Short blog post. Until next time

P.S. If you're using highlighter on a test to graph a line, make sure you use either the erasable highlighters (yes that's a thing. Go get it!) or have white out with you.

Day 8: The Day Before the End (A Huge Study Blog Post)

Hey! My lab report is up on my website!! Go check it out if you'd like!

https://sites.google.com/site/bewarethebiology/home

In other news, school is driving me crazy! And today's class was what I'd like to call "The Day Before the End". "The End" is the day of a test. So these days will happen periodically throughout the year. You're just going to have to deal with my stress and anxiety!

So we reviewed and reviewed. We took a quiz on Basic Chemistry (which I didn't do too bad on).

And we went over monosaccharides (basically a simple sugar; one chain; mono=one, yeah). Disaccharides are when two monosaccharides bond together (hence di=2) A disaccharide is also a simple sugar. And polysaccharides are when more than two monosaccharides bond together. These are all types of carbohydrates which is a type of macromolecule!

And then you have lipids which is basically the fat and oil part of the cell. The lipid consists of fatty acids that are either saturated or unsaturated.

Saturated fatty acids are bound to as many hydrogens as possible. They form straight chains, are solid at room temperature, and can be packed together tightly.

Unsaturated fatty acids are bound by one or more additional groups but are not bonded to as many hydrogen atoms as possible. These bonds cause the chains to bend. Unsaturated fatty acids are liquids at room temperature and are mostly found in plants. These can be artificially manufactured to have straight chains and are called trans fatty acids.

There are three types of lipids: triglycerides, phospholipids, and steroids.

Triglycerides are the main form of energy stored in animals (also called fat! yes people, fat is important and you cannot live without it so keep eating!!!)

Phospholipids are a major component of membranes surrounding cells.

And steroids (sterol cholesterol) is an important part of the cell membrane. Other forms of steroids are male and female hormones like estrogen and testosterone.

Then there are proteins, which consist of two kinds: peptides and polypeptides.
Peptides are short chains formed from bonding amino acids and polypeptides are long chains of amino acids. These proteins determine the overall structure and chemical properties of a protein. They help maintain the shape of the cell. They have enzymes that speed up the process of of chemical reactions. They are also antibodies and they target foreign substances for destruction (they're like the police officers of a cell).

Nucleic acids consist of two chains of nucleotides (smaller units of nucleic acids that are made up of CHONP) held together by chemical bonds and are found in living cells ad viruses. There are two types of nucleic acids: deoxyribonucleic (DNA) and ribonucleic (RNA)

 There are three parts to the nucleic acid: the base (contains nitrogen), sugar (ribose in RNA, deoxyribose in DNA), and phosphate groups (contains phosphate, really I had no idea).

The sugar of the nucleotide binds to the phosphate group of the next nucleotide.

RNA is a single chain of nucleotides while DNA has two. A DNA molecule makes a double helix shape.

RNA uses it's information to assemble amino acids and make protein which creates the structure of a cell.

DNA contains genetic instructions for the correct amino acids in proteins. So DNA tells you what to do while a=RNA does it.

The four different types of bases in RNA and DNA are
1. Cytosine
2. Adenine
3. Guanine
4. Thymine (DNA) or Uracil (RNA)

Here's a picture, just because.

So there's a section of crash course awesomeness. I might post something else depending on my mood and whether or not I want to type up my notes, again. But, I will be studying like crazy!!

Until next time.

Day 7: The Case of the Missing iPod

Today's class was when I got to do something I'd always wanted to do: act like I was Sherlock Holmes.  We were given two lab options. Both were about macromolecules. One was the boring straightforward way, and the other was the mysterious and exciting way.

I think we both know which one I picked.

Michelle and I took on the roles of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson (the H stands for Hamish) and attempted to solve the case of Jerell's missing iPod.

Long story short, Jerell left his iPod with his stuff during lunch at work when his girlfriend came to visit him for lunch. When he came back, it mysteriously disappeared, In its place were a few crumbs of food.

Suspects: The four other workers taking a lunch break at that time: Jose, who was eating a bean and cheese burrito, Ashley, who had some fat-free yogurt, Bruce was eating toast with butter and jelly, and Kiara munched on some pretzels. Each one had a different lunch and only one would match the results of the crumbs left at the scene of the crime.

First, Michelle and I tested the macromolecule composition of vegetable oil, glucose, starch, egg whites, and water for signs of glucose, starch, protein, and lipids. We'd found that vegetable oil contains lipids, glucose contains glucose (well duh), starch contains starch (again, I had no idea) and egg whites contain protein.

Using that, we could infer which foods had which macromolecule.

Our dry and liquid evidence found contained only glucose.

We used bits of the food from the suspects to determine who stole the iPod. And with that, we ran them through a series of tests.

Carbohydrates
In order to find glucose, we had to heat up the substance with some benedict solution. If the solution turned from blue to orange, there was glucose in there.

Glucose was present in the pretzels, jelly, and yogurt, but not in the butter or beans. So that means Jose is out of the running. Bruce is still in there because he also had jelly which came out positive for glucose.

Next was the iodine test for starch. I don't have a picture for it, but if the iodine goes from an orangish color to a dark blue/black color, then it's positive.

Starch was present in the pretzels, yogurt, and beans but not in the butter or jelly.

There was no starch found in the evidence so Kiara, Ashley, and Jose are not the their.

All signs are pointing to Bruce but we still needed to make sure.

We continued with a biuret test for protein. If the Biuret goes from blue to lavender, then it's positive.

Only the fat free yogurt came out as positive and that was already out of the running, so it's really looking like Bruce stole the iPod right now. 

But we had one more test to make sure: the lipids test. For this one, we dipped some cardboard paper into the substance and then waited a bit for the paper to dry. If light passed through the paper, then there were lipids present. Only pretzels had lipids.

So Bruce stole the iPod!!

And that concludes the mystery of the case of the missing iPod.

To see Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in action, you should visit the Beware the Biology website where I'll have the full story uploaded as my first ever lab report. 

Until next time. 

Day 6: The Strange Case of the 18 year-old cross country runner (and other things)

Sorry for the delayed update. Crazy things have been going on at school. So Day 6 and Day 7 will be uploaded on the same day!

So, Day 6 was pretty normal...well as normal as my biology class could possibly guess. We started with a quiz (which I didn't do too great of a job on. Hooray for retakes!!) and then we moved swiftly onto a House case.

Now, let me explain what a house case is. The entire class is given a virtual human specimen with some sort of affliction. Using the symptoms described to us by our patient, we then have to figure out what is wrong with the guy or else HE DIES!!!

The last part's not true, He can't die because he doesn't exist.  But if a real patient came to our class and asked us what was wrong with him, well he wouldn't be alive right now.

Our patient was an 18 year-old high school senior cross-country runner who began to vomit after practice. He had a severe headache and was extremely tired and confused. Going off of that, I turned to my trusted friend Google and searched for a cause for those symptoms. Most of the things I got were heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heat stress, basically things that happen when you're out in the heat for too long.

In class, we got to ask the patient more questions. And that's when the slightly strange part about that class came into play. Our teacher took on the role of an 18 year-old boy. And I have to say he did a pretty good job at it too, Oscar worthy performance.

From questioning him, we also found out what he ate before practice, how much water he had, medical history, prescriptions and drug facts, etc. And I was set on the conclusion that this boy suffered from over hydration and that the vomiting and other symptoms were caused by decreased salt levels in his bloodstream.

And I was wrong.

We were given his test results.

You can see my note on the bottom, "hyponatremia", 

When I got home, I did some more research and tried to make sense of what all the fancy test result notation could mean. 

I was right about the salt. His salt level had definitely decreased. His glucose levels were fine so it couldn't be anything sugar related. 

So a couple searches on the Internet and a short conversation with my mom (she's a doctor, is that cheating?) later, I decided that the 18 year-old suffered from hyponatremia. And I'm still awaiting either the confirmation or rejection of my claim.

Day 5: Another Lab Day!! Diffusion and Osmosis part 2 (special guest appearance by Benedict!)

Two lab days in a row!!! And this time we were dealing with fancy things like NaOH and base phenol and things like that.

Our entire lab was basically about cell membranes. Half the class worked with NaOH and the other half worked with KI. My fabulous lab partner, Michelle and I claimed the small cubical shapes that was NaOH (KI was cut into cubical shapes too but NaOH is better!)

While our teacher was setting up the various cubical pieces of NaOH and KI, the class began working on the second part of our lab, which was the semi-permeableness (is that a word?) of a cell membrane. Michelle and I filled a dialysis tube with starch and put the tube in a cub of tap water. Before closing the tube, we put glucose indicators in the tube and the water to see where the glucose was before we dumped it in water.

 The dark tip indicated that there is starch in a substance, which was a good thing because that's the one we put in the glucose starch solution. The other one is the one we put in the water, and that one didn't change color, so no glucose!!

So we tied up the tube and dunked it in water and proceeded onto the next part of the lab.

After obtaining our pieces of NaOH, we measured the sides in order to get the surface area and volume of the three cubical shapes. Then we put each of the pieces into a beaker and poured base phenol onto it. The change was pretty epic.

 Before and after:

Now, base phenol is a clear substance. When it reacted with the NaOH, hot pink burst from within the magical properties and created PRETTY COLORS!!!! (or if you want to be a killjoy, you can say the chemical reaction between the base phenol and the NaOH was the reason things turned into a violent shade of pink.)

So as we leave the NaOH to soak up the pink, we turn our attention back to the glucose in the water. 

We put a couple drops of iodine in the water and then took a sample of that water and put it into a test tube.

Now the moment you've been waiting for. This is where dear Benedict comes into play. 

We added a couple drops of benedicts into the test tube along with the iodine water---wait, you what did you say?

You thought I mean this Benedict?

Hahahaha, oh if only....

Nah, I'm not talking about Benedict Cumberbatch. I'm talking about this: benedicts!

So anyways, we added a couple drops to the water and heated it up. Now, before we heated it up, the color was a bluish color. After, it looked something like this

Bright orange!!! And that proved that there was glucose in the water. Because the glucose molecules in the solution were able to pass through the membrane. 

We then took out the dialysis tube from the water and noticed that it turned into a really dark blue, which meant that the starch stayed in the tube because the starch molecules were too large to pass through the membrane into the water. Also, the iodine must have diffused through the membrane because the molecules were small enough. 

So part one of the lab: complete!

Onto the end of part two!

We took out our now a grotesque shade of pink NaOH cubes and cut them in half to see how far the solution had diffused through the cube. This one was our largest cube. Each cube had the solution 0.5 cm into the cube. 

And thus concluded our lab on Diffusion and Osmosis.

Until next time :)

Day 4: LAB DAY! Diffusion and Osmosis

Guess what you guys! There were more pretty colors in today's lab!

So last night's homework was to go through and read this long arduous online chapter about diffusion and osmosis and to be quite honest, it didn't really make much sense until I actually got to class and things were explained to me in a different way.

So diffusion is when any molecule "travels" from a place of high concentration to a place of low concentration.

Osmosis on the other hand, is basically the exact same thing, except it's only when water moves from a high concentration of water to a lower concentration of water.

When two solutions are equal in their solute concentrations, the solutions are isotonic. The purple hexagon is the solute in these two solutions. Since both molecules have the same concentration in both solutions, the solutions are isotonic.

When solutions are not isotonic, the solutions are either hypotonic or hypertonic. Hypotonic solutions are the solution with a lower molecular concentration while hypertonic solutions have a higher molecular concentration.

Here's is my bio teacher's explanation beautifully drawn on the board.

So once we reviewed our reading and the slow people like me understood what was going on, we dove straight into our lab where we got to see osmosis happen. And today, my lab partner was once again, the fabulous Michelle. 

For our first part of the lab, we had six different colored liquid substances in which we were to find the molarity. We filled dialysis tubes with 7mL of each substance, weighed the initial mass, and left it in a cup of 25mL of distilled water for half an hour. Here's what it looked like right when we put it in the water.

It looked exactly the same. 

It looked the same when the coloful tubes were in the cup, but when we took them out to weigh them again, the weight changed. 

A lot of the different colors gained mass, meaning that there was more water molecules in the distilled water than in the tube. The blue one however, lost a little bit of mass, meaning that there was more water in the tube than the distilled water. The rest of the class got similar data to ours. Through the compilation of all our groups, we found that the blue colored substance was actually distilled water and had a molarity of zero. The reason why some groups may have gotten something other than zero could have simply been because of when the substance was weighed. Molecules don't just stop moving once they become isotonic. There is a constant motion of molecules (molecular motion). Some other groups like us just happened to weigh it in mid-motion. 

The next part of our lab was to put in 25mL of the colored substance into a cup and soak either a potato or a dialysis bag filled with a sports energy drink. Michelle and I decided to take on the challenge of filling six dialysis tubes with orange flavored Vitamin Water. 

 We were then told to leave it in a spot in the room and come back during the evening lab hours, which was 7 hours and 20 minutes after class ended! And for a day student, that's a lot of time on campus. But I prevailed and I actually got some other homework done while waiting for labs to start. (And my tennis team won their match so yay!)

Okay fast forward to evening labs and our cups are exactly where we left them. The results were extremely different from the first part of the lab. For most of the Vitamin Water, the mass decreased, except for the one with the blue colored substance and the clear substance. Those had gained mass. 

But that was basically it. We got to witness osmosis and diffusion firsthand and figure out molarity all while using pretty colors, just to make life more interesting. So now I must proceed onto the other realms of study, which is fancy talk for "It's time to study for my French quiz tomorrow otherwise I'm going to fail."

Until next time, stay cool or stay warm whatever suits your needs and DFTBA (Don't Forget To Be Awesome)

Day 3: Water and it's Magical Properties

Today marks the first day of September, which if you're from the Internet like I am, is when all the Harry Potter references about the start of a new magical year pop up wherever you go. It's also the beginning of a month long joke of Green Day's song "Wake Me Up When September Ends".

So water, is indeed magical, and I think my fellow Potterheads will agree with me. I mean, if it wasn't for water, there wouldn't be anything living on the planet we call home. And if it wasn't for the distinctive characteristics that water has, nothing would be possible.

The water molecule, as you know has two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms and looks something like this.

Oxygen has a negative electrical charge and hydrogen has a positive electrical charge. Because of the difference in the charges, water is polar. These opposite electrical charges allow water to bond with other hydrogen atoms (hydrogen bonding). Hydrogen bonding is essential for life.

Water also has some unusual properties due to hydrogen bonding. It has a tendency for water molecules to stick together, also called cohesion. An example of cohesion is when water forms into a droplet. In class, we tested cohesion by adding drops of water onto the surface of a penny.



The cohesion of water allows many delicate insects and objects to "stand" on water because of surface tension. In class, we were able to witness water's surface tension by resting a toothpick on the water penny.



Another characteristic of water is adhesion, the ability to stick to other surfaces.

Cohesion and adhesion are incredibly important, especially in plants. The water is able to travel through the roots by sticking to the xylem (tubes that transport water in the plant), implementing adhesion and cohesion keeps the water together. The water then travels through the plant to the leaves where it releases oxygen into the air we breathe.

So adhesion and cohesion: very important.

Due to the hydrogen bonding, water also has an unusually high boiling point, allowing all three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gas to be present at the same time, which brings us to our next topic on water: density.

The density of an object is determined by whether or not an object is able to float in water. When water is in its solid form, also known as ice, the water expands, rather than contract, because of the hydrogen bonding.

Here's the difference in molecular structure between ice and water.

Since, ice takes up more space with the same amount of molecules, the density of ice is less than the density of water, allowing the ice to float on top. This is especially important during the winter and in colder climates where water freezes over on the top. Because the colder water stays closer to the surface, the deeper water is still warm enough to sustain life.

So I know y'all knew water was important to life, but if you didn't know the reasons why, well now you know! Yay, learning! Well, as time approaches the wee hours of the night, I bid you all adieu. Don't forget to drink water! Until next time.