Eco Bell Lab

For one of the last biology blog entries of the year, we were told to take pictures of several types of species or anything else, falling into different categories. Here are pictures of the 12 things, all taken at Bellarmine as well as scientific classification.

First is a producer. Grass. It gets all of its energy from sunlight and nothing from other creatures. I believe that the specific species of grass is Fowl Mannagrass, also known as Glyceria striata. This species lives on California's coast and the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Second is a primary consumer. Chicken, or Gallus gallus domesticus. These birds get all of their energy from plants and seeds, which are producers. These birds are native to east Asia, specifically Vietnam, India, and China, but live all over the world now.

Third is a secondary consumer. The grizzly bear or Ursus arctos fits this description. Even though it also eats plants, a big part of the grizzly bear's diet is eating herbivores. While you may think that because this bear is big and seem threatening, it must eat carnivores, but much of its diet comes from herbivores like bison, sheep, and fish. This species lives in western Canada and Alaska. This picture here is from the California state flag on the flag pole. Hopefully it counts.

Fourth is a tertiary consumer, or an animal that can eat carnivores. A crow. I believe that the one I found is an American crow, or Corvus brachyrhynchos. This species can be found in the USA and southern Canada. These crows eat other carnivores, meaning they are tertiary consumers.

Fifth is a decomposer, an organism that breaks down and eats dead stuff. A housefly or Musca domestica is a great example of this. This species lives all over the world and can eat dead things and break them up.

Sixth is a herbivore, a creature that eats only plants. It's like a primary consumer, but has a different name. A blue-and-yellow macaw or Ara ararauna is a great example of this. These animals feed off of seeds and roots, and not any meat. Macaws live in the Amazon rainforest, mostly in Brazil. This one was on the Miller and Levine Biology book. Hopefully it counts.

Seventh is a carnivore, a creature that eats meat. A dog fits this description. This is Mr. Wong's dog, that looks like a labrador retriever, or Canis familiaris. These dogs originated in Newfoundland in Canada, but live everywhere now. Raw meat is the best food for these dogs as they only ate meat before domesticated.

Eighth is an omnivore, a creature that eats plants and meat. A human or Homo sapiens is a great example of this, as our diet is very big and includes both plants (ex. apple) and meat (ex. burgers). Humans are native to east Africa, but now live almost everywhere on earth. This is Mr. Wong.

Ninth is a threatened species. Even though this is also the next one for being endangered, the western honey bee, or Apis mellifera is also threatened. Since endangered is a subcategory in threatened, any endangered species is threatened, including bees. These bees live almost everywhere but the Saharan desert, over water, and the poles.

Tenth is an endangered species. A western honey bee, or Apis mellifera is a great example of this. These bees were added to the endangered species list within the last year and live almost everywhere but the Saharan desert, over water, and the poles.

Eleventh is a non-native species. A jalapeno or Capsicum annuum represents this well. Native to Mexico, the jalapeno is grown in the Bellarmine garden. These peppers are known for being spicy and are grown in Central and South America.

Last is a pollution source. In class, you said that this was okay even though it isn't a plant, so here is a car. It seems to be a Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid. Made in Japan, these cars exist almost everywhere where people who need to move.

Goldfish Respiration Lab

While in science, I did a goldfish respiration lab, measuring the effect that temperature has on a goldfish's breathing rates. To do this, my group put a goldfish in a small cup, measured the water temperature with a thermometer, and counted how many times the fish opened and closed its operculum (gill covers) over a five minute period. We did this several times, changing the temperature of the water each trial. Due to thermometer problems, we started late and couldn't finish the lab, so we only have three of the desired five readings. We also have no pictures, because of time restraints Here is a chart of our readings, with the works of other groups and our average.

As you can see from this data, goldfish breathe more when in hotter water. Due to their cold-bloodedness, goldfish must get all heat from the outside. This leads to fish functioning better in hotter temperatures. I assume that goldfish have a maximum temperature for breathing, but it is above any temperature on this chart. 

Analysis answers:

1. The goldfish have an increased respiration rate with increased temperature. As previously stated, the higher the temperature (up to a maximum point), the higher the number of operculum openings. For every trial from every fish, a high temperature has a high respiration rate.

2. Differences in the fish might have affected breathing rate. For example, the fish may have been different species. You asked that we only bring in goldfish, but I heard other people talking about bringing other fish species in. A different species might react differently to different temperatures and would change the data. Also, respiration rate varies in fish of the same species. The fish that I tested breathed more in 10-14 degree C water than fish 4 did in 26-30 degree water. The fish that I tested was higher (on average) than the other fish. This just shows how fish in the same species can respire at different rates. 

3. My fish was above average. On all three trials, my fish breathed more than the average for the 4 fish in the test. The average reading is more accurate because it is a bigger sample space, and is less likely to have great errors.

4. Scientists usually look at the average because it is a bigger sample space. Since my fish was the fastest breather, it may have had some mutation to make it do that. If the test was done with just one fish, the mutation would have been in 100% of the sample space, even though only that fish has it. When looking at the average, the mutation would only account for 25% of the sample space, and the average fish would be at a much higher percentage. Averaging many fish out is much better because it shows a greater group of the population. I averaged in this experiment mostly because I was told to, but also because averaging is more precise.

5. Same experiment, but put the fish under different amounts of light and check its breathing.

6. It was correct. My prediction was only based off of hearing that fish would breathe more under hotter water, and that was true.

7. Fish are cold blooded. This means that they get more energy and can respond more when their surrounding environment is close to its desired temperature. When further away from the desired temperature, fish are less likely to be active because much of their energy is saved for a warmer time.

Fish Pond Genetics

In bio class today, we experimented with a fish pond and the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

We started out with a fish pond and then were allowed to change any factor we wanted, related to the fish and see the changes' effects on the color of the fish.
For example, I wanted to make all of the fish red, so I made the RR become the fittest allele, made a red color most likely for fish migrating into the pond, and changed the ratio of mutations from an r allele to an R allele very high.

The pond followed a Hardy- Weinburg equilibrium when all five of these situations were true about the pond:
1) The population size must be big.
2) Mutations must be low.
3) Migration should not occur in or out of the specified area.
4) Mating is random.
5) Genotypes cannot affect a species' fitness.

When I put all of these conditions in the pond, the population and percentage of R/r alleles stayed constant. When I changed one (or all) of these conditions, the graph varied, going up and down.
In the pictures below, the first picture shows a generally constant situation. Is fluctuates, but very slightly. The second picture shows what happens to the allele percentages when the Hardy-Weinburg equilibrium is messed with or when the genes are changed by a greater force (me in this case).

Alternate Geological TImeline

Here is the extra credit alternate geological timeline. I put all the events on a 12-hour clock and saw where they would match up on the clock. 12:00 noon represents today on the clock, and 11:59 PM represents the beginning of time, 4.6 billion years ago. Here are the different eras shown on the clock.

As seen from the picture, the Cenozoic Era (yellow) takes up 10 minutes, the Mesozoic Era (green) takes up 27 minutes, the Paleozoic Era (orange) takes up 45 minutes, and the Precambrian era (blue) takes up the remaining time. It is a huge majority of the Earth's history. I saw that on the original timeline as well, but I never realized how much of a majority it really was. 

For the original timeline, we had to write several events on a paper. Here are three pictures, one telling which events correspond to which letter, one showing the events of the last three eras, and one showing all of the events

.

The first picture lists the events and times. Those times are how long ago they would be on a clock. For example, Mr. Wong's birthday would be 0.000558 seconds ago on the clock. You can see in the second picture that most of the events (11/12) are in the three most recent eras. Only one event, single-celled organisms appearing, happened in the Precambrian era. This shows how slowly major evolution and change occurred, then how fast it ramped up.

Geological Timeline

From this activity, I learned about the timing of many prehistorical events. I always considered events like the dinosaur extinction to be an incredibly long time ago. While it still is a long time, according to my standards, the distance between today and their extinction would only be 6.5 centimeters out of the total 450 centimeters. All in all, it's not that long ago when you compare it to the total history of the earth. The last 650 million-ish years on the timeline was filled with events and important details leading to today (like Mr. Wong's birthday). Before that, the timeline would have long spots of barely anything, as change was much slower and much less intricate back then. All of this timeline (which I believe is correct) relies on Darwin's predictions of evolution. Charles Darwin talked about how species gradually changed to become what they are now, and will continue to change indefinitely. The timeline shows examples of Darwin's teachings, as it shows the appearances of creatures like mammals, modern humans, and cells. Darwin talked about creatures appearing and changing, and that is exactly what the timeline shows. The timeline relies on and supports Darwin's theory.

Here are some pictures. The first is me with a part of the timeline, and the second is a picture of the most recent 650 million-ish years. The major eras beginning there are in bold. The third picture is the beginning of the Precambrian era, which started with the earth 4.6 billion years ago.

Jelly Beans

Extra credit jelly beans!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jelly bean necklace

In science class, we made a necklace of jelly beans that said a certain message when each color was assigned an amino acid. You can see the necklace I made on the bottom of the post. In class on Thursday, I translated this DNA strand to RNA, then translated it into amino acids. I took the first latter of the amino acids and found the secret message encoded into the DNA strand.

This translated into "Pigs sit still till mama has ham".

After turning it into RNA, I turned it into amino acids using this wheel.

Then I took the first letter of each amino acid and used it to decipher the code. When making the necklace, one jelly bean was one amino acid. Orange was phenylalanine, green was isoleucine, white was glutamine, brown was serine, purple was tryptophan, black was leucine, red was methionine, yellow was alanine, the big orange jelly beans were histidine, and the pink ones (used as a space) was a stop codon.

I had a lot of fun turning letters into a jelly bean necklace. Even though it was incredibly hard and annoying to string many jellybeans onto a tiny thread, the whole thing was fun! I see how hard of a job RNA has, because keeping track of every letter and different colored jelly beans was very hard, and I only got the message right by going back over and triple checking my work. RNA, though, can only do it once so I am amazed about its accuracy given that any mistake does cause a mutation and could cause cancer.

Oh yeah. Here's the pics of my necklace and me with the extra credit jelly beans.

Lunar New Year Celebration Extra Credit

Cultural celebrations have been a key part to advancing mankind. Throughout history, they have been ways to express similarities between each other about cultural and ethnic backgrounds. For example, China and Japan may not have the same opinions on every thing (since they aren't the friendliest countries to each other), but they both celebrate Lunar New Years and have previously bonded over the festival. This is just one of the countless examples of cultural celebrations brining together different groups of different ethnic background. Researchers estimate that about 50,000 different cultures exist worldwide and these celebrations are crucial to their existence and differentiation. Without cultural celebrations, there would be no major ways to tell these people apart. They differentiate us. Some early cultural celebrations trace back to early Alaska where the Makah people celebrated in prayer for a good hunt while whaling. This celebration helped them get food to survive. Form all this, you can see why cultural celebrations have been so important and why people have done them for so long.

DNA extraction

In Mr. Wong's bio class, I extracted DNA from a strawberry.

After getting a strawberry, my group threw it into a special mixture and crushed the strawberry. Then that was funneled onto a tube which had rubbing alcohol added to it. After shaking the tube the DNA rose to the top.

The tiny white particles on top are strawberry DNA.

After observing, I answered these questions:

- What does the crushing/ smashing do?

It mushes up the strawberry so anyone could easily access the DNA. Crushing the berry moves the DNA to a better place for us.

- What does the extraction buffer do?

The buffer isolates the DNA from the rest of the strawberry so it is separate. Just like the crushing, this is just to collect the DNA easier

- What does the gauze do?

It lets small parts get into the tube so only wanted components get collected. It keeps out the chunks.

- What did you observe? What is the DNA?

Pink fluid separated into clear/ white particles on the top and pink liquid on the bottom. The small white stuff on the top is the DNA.

- What does the alcohol do?

The alcohol separates the DNA. It changes the relative weight of the DNA to the rest of the fluid so the DNA rises. It just enhances the separation between DNA and strawberry juice

Genetic Traits

When learning about genes and alleles in science today, we looked at nine specific traits we had and assumed our genotypes based off of our phenotypes. For example, I have attached earlobes, a recessive trait. This means that my genotype is aa. My mom has detached earlobes (picture below) and my dad has attached earlobes. Based on deduction and logical reasoning, I know that my mom's genotype is Aa, while my dad's is aa. Here is a genetic family pedigree showing that.

Here are some questions asked and my answers to them:

Q1: Is it true that dominant phenotypes are always the most common in a population? Explain your answer,

No. In populations with only recessive alleles, dominant phenotypes are not common. In most populations when alleles are spread, dominant traits are more likely to show.

Q2: What determines how often a phenotype occurs in a population?

How often a parent has a phenotype/ genotype and passes it on to the next generation. It is all up to the parent because they are the ones who pass their genes to the next generations.

Q3: Is it possible to determine the genotype of a person showing a dominant phenotype? A recessive phenotype? Why?

Yes for both. For the first question, you can look at the parent generation or the generation after and use that information with deduction to find a person's genotype if dominant. Sadly, this doesn't always work as there are inconsistencies (such as you can't tell the difference between homozygous dominant and heterozygous just by looking at someone).  If Homozygous recessive, you can tell the genotype just by looking at someone because recessive traits must have two recessive genes and nothing else.

Virtual Punnett Square Lab

While doing a virtual Punnett Square lab in biology, I learned many things. For example, the correct way to show the results of a creature's probable alleles is to write it like this: #Homozygous Dominant: # Heterozygous Dominant: # Homozygous Recessive. Writing in this standard way helps people understand the actual probability and outcome of a genotype.

The lab is a really helpful way to learn. While trying to find the possible genotypes and phenotypes of generations of animals based off of only their parental generation's genetics, I learned a lot about alleles and genes in an animal. It can teach anyone, from beginners to scientists. The results of the lab are displayed below.

Mitosis: The Movie

After making a stop- motion animation about mitosis which can be accessed here, I answered questions about mitosis. Here they are.

• If a cell contains a set of duplicated chromosomes, does it contain any more genetic information than the cell before the chromosomes were duplicated?

It will have more DNA (greater quantity), but nothing new (same quality). While its DNA is double in amount, it has the exact same genetic code as itself and the other identical DNA strand. Therefore, it has the exact same information and contains nothing new.

• What is the significance of the fact that chromosomes condense before they are moved?

This stage allows the cell to split properly, with 50% of everything going into one half, and 50% in the other half. If they didn't condense, the chromosomes could not have been pulled apart correctly, meaning the cells could be uneven, which is bad. This would create many genetic mutations.

• How are the chromosome copies, called sister chromatids, separated from each other?

They are literally pulled apart. After lining up in the middle with all the other chromosomes, spindle fibers separate the set of chromosomes.

• What would happen if the sister chromatids failed to separate?

If the chromatids failed to separate, then both cells would be rendered useless due to too much or too little DNA. In other words, nothing can go right.

• What events could promote genetic variation during mitosis?

If something happened wrong during the S stage, genetic variation is very possible. During the S stage, DNA is multiplied so it can go into two cells. If anything goes wrong here, the cells will have redundant DNA. Another possible flaw occurs in the splitting of cells. If the spindle fibers pull on the chromosomes wrong, then both daughter cells will be useless.

• What problems could occur with a loss of cell cycle control?

Genetic mutations seem very probable. Sadly, one of the possible side effects is cancer, which is very likely if something goes wrong.