BOUNDLESS BIOLOGY.

Fetal Pig Dissection

6:16 PM |

This is our little friend, dissected open.

This is his brain.

(note how pro the removal of the brain is, with the brain stem intact and all)

And these are all the good stuff ...

the stomach, the kidneys, the eyeball (with the biconvex lense), and the heart.

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A visit to the ROM with a knowledgable tour guide left me bombarded with loads of stories of the lifestyles and population journeys of several creatures. One that really stood out to me was the special relationship between the clownfish and sea anenomes.

Symbiosis describes the relationship between the clownfish and sea anemones. They are the only fish that do not get stung by the tentacles of the sea anemone. Clownfish have a slimy mucus covering that protects them from the sea anemone. The clownfish and the sea anemone help each other survive in the ocean. The clownfish, while being provided with food, cleans away fish and algae leftovers from the anemone. Also, the sea anemones are given better water circulation because the clownfish fan their fins while swimming.

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The Cove

10:51 PM |

"If you're not an activist, you are an inactivist."

- The Cove

FIVE QUESTIONS ...

Where is the dolphin slaughter taking place?

Taiji, Japan

Dolphins are in which mammalian order?

Cetacean

What toxic substance is found in dolphin meat?

Mercury

The main character goes to the IWC and does what at the end?

After capturing some incredibly disturbing footage of the brutal slaughter of dolphins, he storms into the IWC meeting with the shocking videos playing on a TV strapped to his chest. To me, that was probably the best scene in the entire documentary. The setting was perfect to expose the treacherous acts and spark some controversy. It's inspiring to see people band together and do something beyond shaking their heads or writing checks.

If you go to Marineland are you contributing to the dolphin slaughter?

That's tough. Marineland has made a statement concerning this and whether it's true or not, it's a bit comforting.

http://www.marineland.net/page.php?id=1323

".... almost 70 percent of the bottlenose dolphins in Alliance member zoos, aquariums and marine parks were born in these facilities. As for Marineland, we have not collected any dolphins from the wild since 1972, nearly 40 years ago."

According to this, their show dolphins are born and raised in captivity having nothing to do with the dolphin slaughter.

Places like Marineland conveniently allow people to see and enjoy what these beautiful and majestic creatures can offer. In no way do I support the dolphin slaughter (who would???) but as long as the dolphins are treated right and the money put into these doesn't go towards the dolphin slaughtering market, it seems ok.

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Sharkwater/Shark Fins

10:34 PM |

The film Sharkwater does an incredible job of showing sharks as they really are: intelligent and powerful creatures who, like everything else on earth, just want to survive.

Sharkwater shows that it is in our own best interest to protect sharks. For the first time in the 450 billion years that sharks have been on this planet, there are certain species of sharks that are facing serious threats of extinction. Once again, human beings plow through other life in pursuit of the almighty dollar without acknowledging the long term consequences. The planet consists of two-thirds water and this water contains a lot of plankton that produces most of the planet's oxygen. The ocean is filled with fish that survive on plankton and the shark is the ocean's leading predator of these plankton eaters. If we kill off all the sharks, then the other fish will eliminate the plankton, which means a decreasing production of oxygen for us to breathe. Why do we always assume that our actions have no consequence? And why do we always put money ahead of preservation?

It's absolutely ridiculous that there is so much ecological unrest just for soup. What I find absolutely evil is when sharks are caught, their fins are chopped off immediately and THE REST OF THEIR BODY IS DISCARDED, OFTEN WHILE STILL ALIVE. They are left to drown and bleed out to death. Clearly some humans are far more cruel and wasteful than these sensitive ocean dwellers.

It's wonderful news that toronto has banned the sale of shark fins. I don't really care about tradition as much as I care about the life of another breathing living being. I hope the rest of the country and every other country follows suit.

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Cellular Respiration Activity

11:24 AM |

Under normal conditions muscles utilize oxygen (aerobic respiration) to make ATP
from glucose. When muscles undergo rigorous exercise they require more oxygen to make ATP than the blood can supply. At this point the muscle is forced to produce ATP without oxygen (anaerobic respiration). The product of this reaction is lactic acid.

The big disadvantage to anaerobic respiration is that it produces lactic acid which gives muscles a temporary burning sensation. Muscle fatigue results when the demand for ATP is greater than the rate at which ATP can be produced. As a consequence, ATP levels are too
low for muscles to produce their maximum force contraction. Under condition of
extreme fatigue, muscles become incapable of contracting or relaxing.

This activity explored the relationship between cellular respiration and muscle fatigue by squeezing a clothespin continously for 20 seconds and repeating this action a couple of times for both hands.

After each successive trial, it was evident that both my dominant hand and non dominant hand became less forceful by the fact that less squeezes were made. The lower number of squeezes are because of muscle fatigue and the production of lactic acid.

My results with my non-dominant hand were significantly different probably because the use of the non dominant hand is less often so it would get tired faster.

After resting for 10 minutes, the squeeze rate would increase because during the rest, energy created would be enough for the muscles to perform to their ability.

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METABOLISM

8:33 PM |

1. ENERGY the ability to do work is needed for the survivial of living organisms.
Catabolic Reactions: reactions that result in the breakdown of complex substances.
Anabolic Reactions: cells build complex substances from simpler subunits (such as DNA from nucleotides.)
Metabolism: The sum of all anabolic and catabolic processes in a cell or organism.

2. LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS:
1. Energy cannot be created or destroyed but only converted forom one form into another. (The total amount of energy in the universe is constant.)
2. The entropy (measure of randomness or disorder in energy or in a collection of objects) of the universe increases with any change that occurs.
3. abosolute zero

3. All forms of energy can be classified as KINETIC ENERGY or POTENTIAL ENERGY

4. Potential energy diagram is a diagram showing the changes in potential energy that take placeduring a chemical reaction

5. Endothermic reaction: the reactants have more energy than the products
Exothermic reaction: the products have more energy than the reactants

6. Entropy increases when:

- solid reactants become liquids or gaseous products

- liquid reactants become gaseous products

- fewer moles of reactant molecule form a greater number of moles of product molecules

7. FREE ENERGY: energy that can do work

8. ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is the primary source of free energy in living cells.

9. PHOSPHORYLATION: the process of attaching a phosphate group to an organic molecule

10. OXIDIZATION: a chemical reaction in which an atom loses one or more electrons.

11. REDUCTION: a chemical reaction in which an atom gains one or more electrons.

12. REDOX REACTION: (oxidization-reduction) is a chemical reaction involving the transfer of one or more electrons from one atom to another.

13. ENZYME: a biological protein catalyst.

14. SUBSTRATE: the reactant that an enzyme acts on when it catalyzes a chemical reaction.

15. ACTIVE SITE: the location where the substrate binds to an enzyme

16. COMPETITIVE INHIBITORS: substances that compete with the subtrate for an enzymeès acitive site.

17. NONCOMPETITIVE INHIBITORS: substances that attach to a binding site on an enzyme other than the active site causing a change in the enzymes shape and a loss of affinity for its substrate

19. FEEDBACK INHIBITION: method used by cells to control metabolic pathways in which a product formedd later in the sequence of reaction steps allosterically inhibits an enzyme that catalyzes a reaction occuring earler in the process

20. Enzymes are used in many commercial and industrial process such as cleaning and brewing.

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Top Ten Points for BIOTECHNOLOGY

7:14 PM |

Examples of blunt and sticky end enzymes

1. STICKY ENDS: fragment end of DNA molecule with short single stranded overhangs. Both fragments have DNA nucleotides that are kacking complementary bases.
2. BLUNT ENDS: fragment ends of DNA molecule that are fully based pairs.

3. Sticky ends are more useful. They can be easily joined to other sticky ends that have been cut by the same restriction enzyme.

4. RECOGNITION SITE: a specific sequence within double stranded DNA that restriction enzymes recognizes and cuts

5. GEL ELECTROPHORESIS: seperation of DNA fragments on the basis of sides by sorting through a gel meshwork.

The process of using plasmids during vector cloning

- Shorter fragments move faster through the agarose gel because they can navigate through the pores of the gel easier

6. PLASMIDS: small circular pieces of DNA that can exit and enter bacterial cells. They are uses as vectors because the plasmids lack a protein coat and are independant of the chromosome of the bacterial cell. Basically, it can be easily taken in and put back into a cell without messing up any of the cell's biological functions.

7. A use of VECTOR CLONING is that it can take a gene for something useful such as insulin, and isolate it into a vector and it can be expressed (cloned) by bacterial cells. In other words, this insulin gene is inserted into bacterial cells that express the gene and build the protein insulin.

A simplified process of PCR

8. ddNTPS: are dNTP whose deoxyribose sugar is missing -OH group on its 3' carbon. These are the chain terminators.

9. PCR can be seperated into three main parts ... 1. HEAT used to seperate DNA strands 2. COOL to attack primers 3. HEAT to extend primers using Taq polymerase

10. RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) can be used to find any difference in DNA sequence, non coding and coding that can be detected between individuals. This is useful in forensics to where a piece of DNA at the scene of the crime can be processed through the RFLP technique to see if it match's any suspets DNA.

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BOUNDLESS BIOLOGY.

Archives

Fetal Pig Dissection

ROM Adventure

The Cove

Sharkwater/Shark Fins

Cellular Respiration Activity

METABOLISM

Top Ten Points for BIOTECHNOLOGY