Second Week Back

In the second week back from break we continued our research while learning about cancer and our bodies defenses for it.  To see what I did for my paper see previous blog.  This review paper was fairly easy and interesting because it is a lot like what I do in Museum Research, but it is a completely new and to a point, an uncharted topic.  During these classes though, we learned about the tumor suppressor that humans naturally make called p53 that stops cancer cells.  It stops them by either repairing the mutated DNA or deciding that the DNA is irreparable and makes the cell go through apoptosis (cell seppuku).  Unfortunately as we grow older this p53 gene can mutate and or stop producing nearly as much, so the tumors can become rampant.  This is where Chris and I's idea for "solving" cancer came in.  In presentation form we had to explain our original idea (at least feasible) that could cure a victim of cancer.  So our idea was to inject through the bloodstream more coding for p53 so that our bodies can better suppress tumors even at an older age.

First Week Back

In this amazingly fantastic first week of bio, we got assigned a huge project where we must write  an eight page research paper about a specific type of cancer of our choosing.  Due to the fact that I have many smokers in my family, I wanted to do a type of lung cancer, and eventually decided upon small cell lung cancer (Oat Cell Carcinoma).  This paper was more specifically, a review paper, so I decided to review and compare the two treatments of chemotherapy and surgery.  I worked on this paper when I had free time this week and got a good portion of it done by the end of the week.  During the classes of this week we learned about how cancer starts, how tumors form, and the properties of cancer cells.

Doggy Extra Credit

For this extra credit problem we are asked to determine the genotype of the father of these pups based off of the mother and pup's phenotypes.  So first we look at the mom and see that she is yellow and therefore recessive for color (bb) and dominant for melanin production (Mm) or (MM).  Knowing this we must look at the pups and see that some of them come out dominant for color; aka some are black and some are brown (Bb) and (BB).  This means that the father must have had to be homozygous dominant (BB).  This means for the lighter ones there had to be recessive melanin.  In other words there had to be at least one recessive melanin gene from the mom and dad.  Therefore the dad of these pups must be BBMm and the mom is bbMm.

Review Day

All we did in this class, as clear form the title was review.  We linked all the unit key ideas and learned the connections between everything we've learned.  I am currently reviewing all of these topics like a mad man, because it is almost 11 and I have my midterm tomorrow.  So I will keep this blog post short as well.  Not like there was a lot to talk about there anyways....

Your Inner Fish Chapter Six Summary

In this chapter of Your Inner Fish it talked all about embryology and how animals develop differently after their parental genes are combined.  That was basically the whole thing, and I am trying to study for the test...so this is my chapter 6 summary for Your Inner Fish, enjoy Mr. Quick.

Starting A New Unit: Mitosis and Meiosis (And A HUGE Project)

At the start of this class we had an opportunity to start working on our huge product that is due on Friday, the day of the test.  For this project we look at the inside of and animal, plant and bacteria cell to figure out how each organelle functions.  In theory, doing this project will not only let us understand how cells work in different forms, but why and how cells undergo mitosis.  After we had the short time to start the project, we got an introduction into using the microscopes, digital and optical.  We looked at a flea and some plant cells through both and figured out how to use the different parts of the microscope.  Next class
we will be using the microscopes again, so this was a good first attempt at using them.

Test Day: Genetics

In this class we took a test on our knowledge of genetics and everything else in this past unit.  I felt confident on every answer except for the Hardy Weinberg questions.  The formula is a concept that I am still struggling with but getting better at.  The prezi I turned in before the test helped me review a lot of the genetics and pedigrees.  If any questions from this test show up on the next one (excluding the Hardy Weinberg), I would be confident in answering.  I feel that I had a strong understanding of the concepts within this unit.