Thoughts for a Countdown; Article 3

The article "Thoughts for a Countdown" talks about how earth first came about and how it was a glorified celebration. I agree with the author with his assertion that we "fall to [our] knees and kiss the carrier deck". The thing that caught my attention was when the author brought in the subject of "a visitor from another planet, or another century". He satirically uses this example to show the insanity and lunatic behavior of our world. We being fearing life on other planets because we are so used to life on earth and no where else. If there is life on earth, why can't there be life on mars? There have been evidence and associations of living things, but we are so afraid of it. All the science shows that there could be life, that microbes are just waiting to live and grow and create life. Why don't we expand life to another planet? or another world?

The Microbe Zoo

What is a microbe?
A microbe is a microorganism that causes diseases/bacteria and can not be seen with the naked eye.
List the FOUR MAJOR groups of microbes.
Viruses, Prions, Eukaryotes, and Prokaryotes.
What is microbial ecology?
aka microbiology;biology of microscopic organisms.
Now begin browsing the sites (go back to the main page). As you go, keep a log of what kinds of microbes you find and where you found them.

Record the Zoo Location and What kinds of microbes are there? Include a short description or interesting information.
Include some pictures
1. Dirtland
Ag Acres
- There are plant diseases that are caused by pathogenic fungi:
- Fungal Diseases: rust fungi and rhizoctonia.
- Rust Fungi creates rust-colored patches on leaves.
- Rhizoctonia causes root rot in plants.
- Viral Diseases: Tobacco Mosaic Virus which is a rod-shaped virus that contains RNA for invading tobacco cells.
- Bacterial Diseases: Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Burkholderia cepacia
- Agrobacterium tumefaciens causes tumors called galls on stems
- Burkholderia cepacia rots onion roots.
- Microbial Fertilizers: rhizobium, azotobacter, mycorrhizal fungi, all add nitrogen or nutrients to plants and supply them with phosphorus.
- Bacillus thuringiensis and baculovirus are insect killers.
- mycorrhizal live inside root cells and form structures called arbuscules.
- glomus intaradix is a fungus that forms vesicles inside the root.
- spore of mycorrhizae form in sporghum roots.
- glomus intraradix spores are little sacs that become spores when the root dies.
- vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi vessicles
- endomycorrhizae are the most common mycorrhizae grown inside the cells of roots.
- rhizobia are bacteria that form a symbiosis with the roots of certain plants called legumes.
2. House of Horrors
- vampirococcus is a sphere shaped bacteria that is very small.
- bdellovibrio attacks other bacterias like e.coli
- Nematodes is a fungi that strangle worms and capture it for food.
3. Snack Bar
- Yeast is a fungus that can be grown with air which is when it produces alcohol.
- yeast can also make bread.
- Lactobacillus produces an acid that helps eat away seed pot of chocolate beans.
- bacillus spore is a resting stage of bacterium like that used to make Natto
- lactobacillus can digest lactose and produces an acid (yogurt)

LACTOBACCILlUS

E.COLI






Sources: book google images and http://4hgarden.msu.edu/kidstour/zoo/zbmain.html

Cell Metabolism Wordle

In these chapters we learned about photosynthesis and cellular respiration, the cellular metabolism. We learned that photosynthesis is the conversion process that plants use to capture light or energy from the sun. heterotrophs obtain their material by living off other compounds produced by other organisms while autotrophs makes their own food. We also learned about the different parts or sites of photosynthesis. There is the chlorophyll which is where the color of the leaf comes from (green pigment), we learned about the mesophyll, which is the tissue in the inside of the leaf and we learned about the pores called the stomata which basically means the "mouth". the stomata is able to close or open depending on the circumstances. We also learned abotu the Calvin cycle which can be called the light cycle. We learned that light reactions convert the energy into ATP and NADPH which is a chemical energy. In cell communication, the process is able to be dissected into three stages: reception, transduction, and response. Signal molecules bind to receptor proteins wihch cause the protein to change shape. The signal molecule behaves like a ligand, which is a term for a small molecule that binds to a larger one in specific terms.

Cell Wordle

These words are all important when it comes the cell because these are main characteristics of a cell. We learned that the cell is a fundamental part of biology and is the basic structure of life. Humans and all types of organisms are composed of cells. Every organism is composed of one of the two types of cells: prokaryotic or eukaryotic cell.s. bacteria and archaea have prokaryotic cells and protists,plants, fungi, and animals have eukaryotics cells. these two types of cell differ in their complex strucutres. Every cell has a plasma membrane, cell wall, ribosomes, golgi appartus, nucleus...etc, the basics, but the difference is that in animal cells, there are no chloroplasts, cell wall, plasmodesmata, or central vacuole. In plant cells there are no lysosomes, centrioles or flagella.

Beak of the Finch Key Points

There are many key points in the lit circle book, "Beak of the Finch". There is the main idea of evolution, Social Darwinism, and Galapogas Island. The idea of evolution is talked about much throughout the book because of the finches on the island. When Darwin first arrived at the island, he thought that the finches were all different species. But after close examination, just as the family observing the finches in the book did, Darwin soon realized that the finches all evolved from the same parent species, and after a period of time and after going through different adaptations and environmental changes, new finches evolved. (different beaks and eating habits). Another main idea would be the idea of Social Darwinism. Darwinism is basically the idea of survival of the fittest. Whoever or whatever species is able to adapt to the environmental changes and make due with it, will survive and conquer the rest of the organisms. The last idea would be the Galapogas Islands. The whole book centers around the islands and everything happens at the islands. The finches are dominant in those islands. this relates to the curriculum because we learned about evolution of plants and how plants have evolved from a period of time.

Fear of Phermones;Article 2

The author of this article argues that humans make phermones. Phermones are a chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. I agree with the author because he supports his claim with concrete data. The author claims that humans "have folds of skin here and there designed for the controlled nurture of bacteria", which basically means that we have the ability to produce phermones and house them to our own advantage. Another support stated that women that lived in closed quarters had "spontaneous synchronization of their menstrual cycles" which contributes to the author's claim that humans have spontaneous abilities, including the ability to make phermones. The author asserts that although the possibility is quite low and unattractive, it is going to become true in the future.

Lives of a Cell

I got from this article that the author was trying to say that the modern man is trying to detach itself from nature, like man is better than nature and has no relations to nature. The author also says that "we are delicate part, transient and vulnerable as cilia". I agree that are very delicate people and that we are "embedded in nature". I also agree that bacteria is inside each and every one of us and we become the inhabitors. Cells drive us. I also agree with the author that plants cannot be plants without their chloroplasts or their distinct features. Just like us, plants and every other organism are made up of features that characterize them. I also agree that viruses are the cause of disease and death and are "mobile genes". Evolution is like a game that keeps the winners at the table. Earth isn't an organism, but more like a cell.

Transduction and Transformation

Bacterial transformation is a technique that introduces a foreign plasmid into a bacteria and to use that bacteria to amplify the plasmid in order to make larger quantities of it. This process is based on the main function of a plasmid, which is basically to transfer genetic information that is important to help bacteria survive. Transduction is a process which DNA is transferred from one bacterium to another one with the use of a virus. DNA is introduced into another cell through a viral vector. Transduction does not need cell-to-cell contact. Boyer and Cohen wanted to combine plasmids that were ligated into e.coli by using bacteria and DNA and mix them by fixing the temperature. They wanted the results to be consistent with the bacteria that was being transformed and to have it be recombined. A fair amount of bacteria is also then transformed from the original.

PHYLA OF PROTOZOA

PHYLUM SPOROZOA

PHYLUM CILIOPHORA

PHYLUM RHIZOPODA

PHYLUM ZOOMASTIGOPHORA

MAJOR PLANT DIVISIONS

BYROPHYTES
Byrophytes are the first major plant divisions. There are three phyla of byrophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Mosses are the most familiar byrophytes. All three byrophyte phyla, are the most conspicuous and dominant phase of life. Byrophyte gametophytes are about a few cells thick and are generated from meristems. Gene sequence data have proved that liverworts, hornworts, and mosses came about independently early in plant evolution. The gametophyte is the dominant generation in the life cycles of byrophytes.

PTERIDOPHYTES: SEEDLESS VASCULAR PLANTS
The two phyla of seedless vascular plants: phylum Lycophyta and phylum Pterophyta. They have separate origins from different families. "Pterophyta" is a formal name for on seedless plant phylum, the ferns. Pteridophytes provide clues to the evolution of roots and leaves. most pteridophytes have true roots with lignified vascular tissues. The tissue system in this root is similar to that of the stems of early vascular plants. Lycophytes, which are the modern vascular plants, have small leaves with a single branched vein. the leaves most likely evolved from tissue flaps on the surface of stems into which a strand of vascular tissue grew. These leaves are known as microphylls which basically means "small leaves". The leaves of other modern vascular plants are known as megaphylls, which means "large leaves". Pteriodphytes lack seeds, but they provide stepping stones to the evolution of life cycle adaptations which will eventually enhance the reproductive success of vascular plants on land.

GYMNOSPERMS
the most common gymnosperms are conifers. gymnosperms lack enclosed ovaries in which angiosperm ovules and seeds develop Instead, gymnosperm ovules and seeds develop on the scales of cones. The four phyla of gymnosperms are ginkgo, cycads, gnetophytes, and conifers. There are about 550 species of conifers, a few of those species dominate vast forested regions of the northern Hemisphere.

ANGIOSPERMS
Angiosperms are known as flowering plants and are vascular seed plants that produce the reproductive structures called flowers and fruits. All angiosperms are placed in a single phylum, the phylum Anthophyta. Up until the 1990s, angiosperms were divided into two main classes, the monocots and the dicots, which are different in several anatomical and morphological details. MOst monocots have leaves with veins running straight across, while dicots have netlike in their leaves similar to that of an oak leaf. The flower is an angiosperm structure specialized for reproduction. Fruits help disperse the seeds of angiosperms.

Sources:
google images
book

bacteria vs. virus vs. prion vs. protist

Bacteria

Virus

Prion

Protist

google images
biology book

Cell Poem - Free Verse

I am a cell
the basic structure of life
I am a cell
the building block of life
I am a cell
unicellular, multicellular, still a cell.
I am a prokaryote cell
simpler, therefore smaller
I don't have a nucleus
Two kinds of prokaryotes are bacteria and archaea
I have a nucleoid, a flagella, pili, a cell envelope, a cell wall, a chromosome, a capsule
I am a eukaryotic cell
plants, animals, fungi, algae are all eukaryotic
I am much bigger than a prokaryotic cell
I have a nucleus
I am organized in linear molecules, called chromosomes.
Mitochondria is an example of me.
I am ciliated with primary cilia
I move using flagella.
I am more complex.
But don't discriminate!
We are all cells.

Beak of Finch

The thing that surprised me the most while reading the book was the diversity of finches. There are about a dozen different species of finches, each with their own distinct traits and characteristics from the size of their beaks to their feathers. They are in a secluded area so their mating and reproductive processes are limited, but within their small area they are able to create new species. But their environment doesn't stop them from mating all the time. The island is filled with different foods and new species, so it creates this exotic area/environment. the finches really do exercise Darwinism, survival of the fittest, because they are able to adapt so easily, thus they are able to compete. Their distinct characteristics not only allow us to tell them apart, but also help them do what they do best! Like the hummingbirds's beak allows it to sing and tear apart wood whereas a pelican's beak helps it filter water.

Extreme Organism - Thermophile

An extremophile is an organism that thrives both physically or geochemically in extreme conditions that are dangerous to most life on Earth. They are the opposite of mesophiles or neutrophiles, which are organisms that live in moderate conditions or environments. Most extremophiles are microbes and are present in many diverse genetic lineages of bacteria and archaeans. The extreme organism that I chose was thermophile. A thermophile thrives in high temperatures, between 45 and 122 degrees Celsius, respectively. They are mostly archaea and are said to be one of the earliest bacteria. They are found in heated regions of the Earth like the Yellowstone National Park and deep seas. Thermophiles contain enzymes that function at high temperatures, thus helping them. They are used as washing agents and are used in molecular biology.