Genome Summary #8 Chromosome 19 Prevention

Diseases that had no cure and now do, there is a responsibility for us to treat and prevent those diseases when we now have to knowledge to. With the example of coronary heart disease, Ridley explains that the disease develops and integrates the APO genes and APOE which helps control the metabolism of fats and cholesterol and the genetic testing could help doctors to suggest healthy eating and exercise habits depending on the person's APO genes. Alzheimer's disease has a large connection to APOE and the E4 allele, it contributes to the buildup in brain cells. Doctors will be able to use genetic tests for diagnoses and prescriptions but it can be harmful when releasing genetic information to insurance companies and the government.

Genome Summary #7 Chromosome 18 Cures

Ridley talks about genetic manipulations with the experiments involving recombinant DNA. Paul Berg made the first man-made recombinant DNA by using restriction enzymes and ligase. The experiments using recombinant DNA where a retrovirus would be stripped of its infectious genes and replaced with a desired gene, then injected into the body, directly or through cultured cell, trying to cure carious diseases through gene therapy. From the use of embryonic stem cells and recombinant DNA there are possibilities of human cloning with genetic improvements.

Genome Summary #6 Chromosome 6 Intelligence

The search for the intelligence gene was done by a study done on the genes of a group of high IQ children. There was a difference on the gene IGF2R on chromosome 6. Intelligence genes do not need environmental stimulation for them to work. In the chapter, Ridley discusses that there were studies done on separated twins which shows that there is heritability to intelligence and personality, and no correlation between IQ scores of adopted children living in the same family. Intelligence genes are also more expressive later in life because people start choosing their own environments and comfort zones so they have more ways to express themselves.

Genome Summary #5 Chapter 5 Environment

Genetic inheritance can be based on the environment of the individual. Chromosome 5 includes the asthma gene  and it can't be simplified to a genetic level. Asthma can be related to allergies and the disorder has been increasing. Factors that are making asthma increase can be because of pollution from synthetic chemical and excessive hygiene. Many have been looking for the asthma gene and the closest genes to an asthma-causing gene are the two genes that produce immunoglobulin-E. the protein comes in different forms and is involved with the release of histamine in the body. The genes linked to asthma are a different gene for each ethnicity and the cause of the disorder is attributed most to the environment of the one carrying it.

Genome Summary #4 Chapter 4 Fate

In Chapter 4 Ridley compares identifying genes by the diseases that they can cause to identifying organs by the disorders they can suffer in order to show the differences of a gene and a mutation. For example, the Wolf- Hirschhorn is when individuals with the gene are healthy and those without the gene have Wolf- Hirschhorn syndrome and those with the mutated gene have Huntington's chorea. In 1993 the gene that was responsible for the mutation for Huntington's disease was found and it carried a repetition of the codon CAG. The number of repetitions tells what age the carrier gets the symptoms. When excess CAG repeats, five other neurological disorders and twelve known human diseases can occur. In sperm production the number of repetitions can increase over time.

Pick 3 invertebrates Compare them in terms of physical features and systems. Identify at least 3 similarities and 3 differences.

Abalone
The abalone has a flattened spiral shell that protects the muscular foot. Abalones are permanently attached to their shell by the muscle attachment. It also has holes on the edge of the shell that release eggs or sperm, discharge metabolic wastes and allow water to flow out after passing through the animal's gill chamber. The abalone feeds by clinging onto rocks, waiting for a piece of kelp to drift by. It then clamps down on the kelp with its foot and chews on it with its radula- a rough tongue with many small teeth.


Starfish
The starfish has arms attached to the body. Under the bottom of the starfish are tube feet that help with movement and feeding. The starfish has a water vascular system.

Genome Summary #3 Chapter 3 - History

     Dr. Archibald Garrod is introduced in the book. He published an accurate hypothesis in 1902 called the "inborn errors of metabolism." He thought that each gene produced one chemical catalyst, and the inborn mistakes were caused by genetic mutations, and proteins manage practically every function of the body. Garrod's theory did not resurface until thirty five years later though. Mendel and Darwin's theory of "the atomic theory of biology" and natural selection, respectively, were combined in 1918. Discoveries about mutations showed that genes were recipes for proteins and mutations were "altered proteins made by altered genes". Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA. Crick also discovered the twenty- three words that the genome uses.

Genome Summary #2 Chapter 2 - Species

     In the past it was thought that there were 24 chromosomes in the human gene but there are actually 23. Apes have 24 because the second human chromosome is a fusion of two ape chromosomes. Because of this relationship between the ape species and human species many religious figures believe the human soul is near the centromere of chromosome 2. The human species is thought the be a success because we have dominated over other species over time. We were able to colonize land and domesticate animals. Humans and chimpanzees are genetically 98% the same, although the split between the two is unclear, it is clear that the chimpanzee population also split.  One developed a genetic mutation with the fusion of two chromosomes that prevented the two populations from breeding to form a new species that eventually became the human species. Matt Ridley believes that the differences between species are in the genes, they don't control behavior but they do play a part.

Describe how a nephron works. How is this similar to counter currents or hydrostatic skeletons?

     The nephron is the basic unit of the kidney. It is a long thin tube that is closed at one end, and has two twisted regions inter spaced with a long hairpin loop, and ends in a long straight portion that is surrounded by capillaries. The parts of a nephron are the bowman's capsule, proximal convoluted tubule or proximal tubule, loop of henle, distal convoluted tubule, and collecting duct. The bowman's capsule is the closed end at the beginning of the nephron. The proximal tubule is the twisted region located right after the Bowman's capsule. The loop of the Henle is a long hairpin loop after the proximal tubule and extends from the cortex down to the medulla and goes back. The distal tubule is the other twisted portion of the nephron after the loop of henle. The collecting duct is a long straight portion after the distal tubule that is open and extends from the cortex to the medulla. Every part of the nephron has different cells with different properties. In the nephron, about 20 percent of the blood gets filtered under pressure through the walla of the glomerular capillaries and Bowman's capsule. The filtrate has water, ions,glucose and small proteins. Inside the nephron is the lumen where small molecules such as ions, glucose and amino acids get absorbed from the filtrate. The transporters grab only one or two small molecules from the filtrate.

     In hydrostatic skeletons, pressure of fluid and the action of the surrounding circular and muscles are used to change an organisms shape and produce movement. This is very similar to kidney filtration. Inside the nephron about 20 percent of blood is filtered under pressure through the walls of the glomerular capillaries and Bowman's capsule. The higher the concentrations of the substance in blood, the greater the amount filtered or the greater the filtration rate, the more substances gets filtered.

Blog 3 Starfish

     The starfish is in the phylum Echinodermata, it has 5-rayed symmetry, mostly, radial, and sometimes bilateral. The first echinoderms did not have any radial symmetry showing hat this characteristic was acquired later in the group's evolution. a number of echinoderms are distinguished from other phyla because they have radial or occasionally bilateral symmetry. There are five planes of symmetry. The body of an echinoderm has three layers. The epidermis is the outer layer, and it is a single layer of cells which covers the entire animal. The middle layer is thick and is called the dermis. It is composed of connective tissue and the exoskeleton. The exoskeleton has three different forms; a set of closely joined plates with individual movement, a set of separately free moving small pieces  called ossicles, and a collection of widely separated microscopic ossicles lying in the dermis. The third layer is a single layer of cells that are ciliated. This layer encloses the animal's coelom separating the animals guts from its skin. The starfish has a poor defined open circulatory system. They reproduce normally sexual and gonochoristic. A starfish may eat over a dozen oysters or young clams a day. Echinoderms are filter feeders, substrate eaters, or carnivores. In the Crinoidea the gut in U-shaped and the mouth and anus on the same surface. In others it is straight- through gut with the mouth and anus on opposite sides of the body. The nerves that are running all over the body are in connection with those of the sub-epidermal nerve net. They also use tube feet as organs of respiration.

Crinoidea

 

 

 

 

Ophiocistioidea

Astroidea

Echinoiudea

Holothuoidea

Source: http://www.earthlife.net/inverts/echinodermata.html

Genome Chapter 1 Summary- Life

In this chapter the author refers the word as RNA, not DNA. DNA is an analogous to written languages and its own alphabet. Then the history of life is talked about starting with RNA because it became before DNA. RNA is is unstable so it was possible for it to come up with DNA through a trial and error process because RNA was faster, more accurate, and more reliable. Then LUCA is introduced as a bacterium living in a hot marine environment, but is now more of a protozoan because bacteria would have had to drop the extra RNA in order to reproduce more quickly. The history of life is basically written in the genome.

Source: http://tchefty.edublogs.org/files/2011/06/DNA-versus-RNA-1zyhmjx.gif

Describe double fertilization.

     Double fertilization is a process when a diploid zygote and a triploid endosperm form in flowering plants. Fertilization takes place between sperm cells and two cells within the ovule. The megaspore in the ovule is diploid and undergoes meiosis to produce four haploid megaspores. The surviving megaspore undergoes three rounds of mitosis to produce eight haploid nuclei. the eight nuclei share the same cytoplasm before cytoplasmic divisions start, this is called the embryo sac.

      In the embryo sac, cell walls form between the nuclei. Three cells form opposite the micropyle opening of the ovule and another three from near the micropyle. Two are called synergids and the other an egg. The polar nuclei (two nuclei) remain together in one large central cell. The egg, single cell, and two polar nuclei be in the process of double fertilization. But first the sperm travels to the cells by a pollen grain landing on the stigma, beginning to germinate, and sending a long pollen tube through the style and ovary. A haploid cell travels down the pollen tube, behind the tube nucleus, and divides by mitosis to produce two haploid sperm cells.

     The pollen tube reaches the micropyle of the ovule and gets into one of the synergids by digesting itself, releasing the sperm cells. The synergid degenerates and a sperm cell fertilizes the egg cell producing a diploid zygote. The other sperm cell fuses with polar nuclei fertilizing them to produce a triploid cell. The zygote will develop into an embryo, and the triploid cell into an endosperm. This will serve as the embryo's food supply.

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

EXTRA CREDIT BLOG

What topics really confused you?
The chemistry parts were confusing because I wasn't very good in chemistry in the first place. Because I was already confused about the topic I didn't understand much about this lesson.

What topics do you feel very clear on?
Photosynthesis and cellular respiration because those are the ones that I've learned the most about in other classes too. So some of the material we learned was familiar to me and I didn't feel totally lost.

What lab/ activity was your favorite? Why?
My favorite lab of the semester was the transpiration lab mostly because it was my groups lab and we all knew what to do. I felt really prepared for this lab and I understood the steps of the lab. I also felt like it was pretty easy to understand the steps everything was clear on what to do.

What lab/activity was your least favorite? Why?
My least favorite was the Kool- Aid lab. When doing the lab I was always confused if I was doing the process right because there were many chemicals to deal with. The syringe was difficult to deal with because they were broken or we were not used to using them at all.

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?
I would change the simulations that we do online because they were confusing at times and I didn't feel like I got anything out of them. The labs are actually helpful because I remember things that I have put in my blogs, but the simulations don't help me retain any material we learn in class.

Blog 16 Time Love Memory Write about your lit circle in a separate entry. What has surprise you the most so far?

     "Time, Love, Memory" by Jonathan Weiner is about Seymour Benzer, a professor at the Cal Tech, and a major contributor to the growing feild of genetics and molecular biology. I was really suprised and pleased that he was so close to where we live because I haven't heard of many influential people around Alhambra. The book deals with time, love, and memory of their experiment on fruit flies to see how genes affect behavior. Time is evolution, love is mating, and memory is genetics.
     The book goes through how Benzer got interested in fruit flies. He got the fruit flies from another professor at Cal Tech when he was walking the halls. He put one fruit fly in two connecting tubes and shined a light at one end of the tube. I thought that Benzer was really innovative to think of this experiment, he could have used another kind of animal but the fruit fly was really the best choice because they reproduce so quickly.
     One part of the book that was stuck with me was the part about the eyes of a frog. The experiment was to cut open the head and reattach the optical nerve to the other so the left was on the right and vise versa. It was fascinating to read that there was practically no change at all except that the frog didn't recognize a fly and didn't attempt to eat it at all. I was disgusted yet intrigued about the experiments on the animals brains.
In the second half of the book Benzer loses interest in studying the genetic origin of behavior which makes sense becuase if someone spends to much time doing one thing all their life, they would eventually drift away.     
     Overall, Jonathan Weiner wrote an excellent book that kept my attention on the field of genetics with its unexpected descrpition of experiments on disecting animals and reattaching parts together. I'm really glad that I got to read this book.

Blog 17 Plant Division Examples Put a description of each major plant division in your blog. Put a representative picture for each.

Bryophytes are mosses which are non- vascular plants that can't transport fluids through their bodies. They rely on surrounding moisture to do this for them. They are mostly found in forested areas as a foundation for plant growth. Mosses, liverworts,and hornworts reproduce by spores, never have flowers, and can be found growing on the ground, on rocks, and on other plants.

Pteridophytes are ferns that have a vascular system that can help transport water through the body unlike the moss. They reproduce from spores and have about 12,000 species form the main phylum ferm. The other phylas are horsetails, club mosses, and whisk ferns.

Gymnosperms reproduce from seeds that are not covered by an ovary. The seed is produced inside a pine cone. The trees and shurbs have no flowers but are needle-like and scale-like. There are about 600 species.

Angiosperms grow seeds inside an ovary which is in a flower. After it fertilizes the flower falls off and the ovary becomes grows to a fruit.

Blog 14 Cell Diversity Wordle

Viruses is a particle made of nucleic acid, protein, and lipids that cn replicate by infecting living cells. Viruses use host cells to reproduce but can only infect a limited range of host cells called their host range. Viruses use a lock-and-key method, it fits between proteins on the outside of the virus and specific receptor molecules on the surface of cells. A phage is a virus that secifically infects bacteria, which is also called a bacteriophage. There are two different transmissions: horizontal is when a pathogen is passed from one living organism to another through bodily fluids, vertical is the spread of a disease from mother to newborn. Bacteria are microorganisms that are neither plant or animal. Transduction is a DNA transfer process when phages carry bacterial genes from a host to another. Transformation is the conversion of a normal animal cell to a cancerous cell. A viroid is a plant pathogen composed of molecules of naked circular RNA several hundred nucleotides long.

Blog 11 Cell Poem

Cell Wall
As a protector of plant fungi algae
and archaea, I know what goes in and out
I protect, filter, and support the cell
In plants there are two of me
the second wall is thick and full of cellulose
to increase rigidity
I make sure cells don't explode of too much
water, too bad animal and protozoa cells don't have me. =/

source: http://biology.unm.edu/ccouncil/Biology_124/Images/cellwall.jpeg

Blog 10 Describe 3 beneficial bacteria include pictures.

Probiotics are live microorganisms that when given an adequate amount of, benefit the health of the host. Some of these beneficial bacterial are:

Lactobacillus which reduces diarrhea and helps people injest dairy products easily. It also fights disease-causing bacteria and regulates the immune system and help prevent colon cancer. There are three different kinds of lactobacillus: Rhamnosus, Casei, and Acidophilus. Casei helps promote growth of other bebficial bacterialand decreases tumor recurrence in adult bladder of cancer patients following resection. Acidophilus absorbs nurtients, reduces lactose intolerance, and decreases allergic responses.

Saccharomyces Boulardii is a strain of yeast that helps control diarrhea, and to treat a condition after an upset of balance of intestinal microorganisms.

Bifidobacterium Bifidum, a bacteria that resides in the colon to help control the growth of pathogen bacteria (a bacteria that causes bacterial infection). It stregthens the immune system and helps with digestion.

Source:http://www.livestrong.com/article/147870-good-types-of-bacteria/

Cellular Metabolism Wordle

Metabolism is the totality of an organism's chemical reactions consisting of catabolic and anabolic pathways. Metabolic pathways are a series of chemical reactions that are catabolic and anabolic.Catabolic pathways releases energy by breaking down complex molecules to simpler compunds. Anabolic pathways do the opposite, it makes complex molecules from simpler compounds. There are two laws to thermodynamics: 1) energy conservation, it cannot be created or destroyed, it can be transferred and transformed 2)there are restraints of the direction of heat transfer and efficiencies of heat. In metabolic reactions coenzymes are important as vitamins. Free energy can perform work when temperature and pressure are constant throughout the system.

Blog 9 Find exemplars of each phyla of protozoa. Get their picture and label them. Also describe their differences and unique structures.

Sporozoas are the only animal like protist can't move on their own at all, but they are moved by the current of the blood in their hosts. They reproduce sexually in one host then aswxually in the second. Sporozoas are parasites that have special organelles that invades host cells. To defend itself, they get inside a red blood cell that protects it from antibiotics of the host. They can also cause malaria.

Ciliates moves foward in a corkscrew motion and can reverse when it meets an undesirable condition, it moves rapidly by the wavelike beats of many cilia. Ciliates can reproduce sexually when two individual ciliates join at the oral grooves and exchange portions of micronuclei and each individual divides. The oral groove is where food is swept in by cilia. They eat othe protozoans, bacteria, and algae. There is a layer of tiny carrot shaped bodies called trichocysts, which discharges a long sticky thread as defense.

Flagellates are unicellular and get nutrients by eating other organisms or absorbing food molecules through cell membranes. They move by the use of flagella.

Blog 8 Compare a bacteria to a virus to a prion to a protist.

Bacteria are living things. they replicate their DNA in both directions from a single point of origin. It's main process of reproduction is asexual by binary fission. Binary fission results in a population with all identical genes. When reproducing asexually mutations may occur spontaneously but are rare. Bacteria reproduces by the millions.

source: http://www.ou.edu/class/pheidole/General%20Bacteria.jpg


Viruses are parasites that only live inside a host. In the host the virus translates and transcribes proteins it needs to make new viruses. It forms thousands of new viruses and the host cell is destroyed. The virus consists of DNA or RNA enclosed in a protein coat called a capsid. The host range of a virus is the range of organisms that a virus can attack.

source: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/virus.gif


Prions are infectious proteins which appear in the brain and causes disease in the brain. Prions are infectious and have been known to cause brains diseases such as: mad cow disease, and Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease. Prions are slow- acting agents meaning its symptoms don't appear until years. Prions are also basically indestructible, they are not destroyed or deactivated. There is no known cure for prion diseases so they are fatal.

source: http://www.nicerweb.com/bio1903/Locked/media/ch18/18_13PrionPropagation_L.jpg


Protists are a diverse group including organisms that vary in size to structure. All are eukaryotes and do not fit in the fungi or plant kingdoms. They consist of single and primitive multicelled organisms including heterotrophs and autotrophs. Some carry out conjunction, which is a primitive form of sexual reproduction. Some may carry diseases such as malaria.

source: http://www.biologycorner.com/resources/paramecium.gif

Blog 7 Describe what happens in bacterial transformation and transduction.

Bacterial transformation is the alteration of a bacterial cell's genotype and phenotype by the uptake of naked, foreign DNA from the surrounding environment. Small pieces of extracellular DNA are taken up by a living bacterium leading to a a stable change in the recipient cell. This process was thought to be rare. Now they've learned that many bacteria contains cell surface proteins that recognize and transport DNA from related species into the cell which then incorporates the foreign DNA into the genome.

source: http://schoolworkhelper.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/transformation.jpg


Transduction is when phages carry bacterial genes from one host cell to another as a result of aberrations in the phage reproductive cycle. General transduction moves random pieces of bacterial DNA as the phage lyses one cell and infects another during the lytic cycle. Some of the DNA can replace the homologous region of the recipient cell's chromosome only if a crossover takes place at both ends of the piece.

source: http://bytesizebio.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/generalized-transduction.jpg