Biology Zone

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Dylan

            Living in Florida, Hurricanes are a part of the lifestyle that is associated with the area. Every year, hurricanes cause countless damages to Eastern coastlines, destroying or damaging property and buildings as well as putting Americans in physical danger at time. One aspect of the damage a Hurricane causes that is at times overlooked is the environment itself. Studies have been done researching how Hurricanes affect the landscape of populated areas such beach erosion research, but what about the damage they cause in natural environment? According to an article in Science Daily, for the first time, a long-term study had been conducted showing that Hurricane damage can significantly reduce a forest’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

            We know that trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. When trees are destroyed in massive quantities, there will be less trees to absorb carbon dioxide, and the dead trees may release carbon dioxide as they decay. This may not be shocking news to may, but these findings become quite significant with many scientists predicting an increase in the number of hurricanes and an increase  in size due to global warming. Hurricanes, it seems, may be a cause of global warming, and an effect. According to Tulane Ecologist Jeff Chambers, if land falling hurricanes become more intense and frequent, their damage to forests could exceed 50 million tons of tree biomass, which would result in a net loss of carbon dioxide from US forests.

            After reading this, it left me with a few questions. Do you think that hurricanes are caused by or effect global warming? If they do both, does this mean that global warming will increase exponentially? If so,what could we do to stop this? Is global warming caused by environmental factors, human factors, or both?

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Marielle S

Invisiblity cloak is not just in the Harry Potter movies any more. It’s the real deal! Disappearing for those missions is easy. Harry Potter better beware.  In science daily researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California are studying an invisibility cloak of their own that also hides objects from view.

Researchers have created a “carpet cloak” from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection. While the carpet itself can still be seen, the bulge of the object underneath it disappears from view. Shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface, meaning the object itself has essentially been rendered invisible. Which once seemed like a task only wizards and witches could do is know possible.

While metallic metamaterials have been successfully used to achieve invisibility cloaking at microwave frequencies, until now cloaking at optical frequencies, a key step towards achieving actual invisibility, has not been successful because the metal elements absorb too much light.

The new cloak created made exclusively from dielectric materials, which are often transparent at optical frequencies. The cloak was demonstrated in a rectangular slab of silicon (250 nanometers thick) that serves as an optical waveguide in which light is confined in the vertical dimension but free to propagate in the other two dimensions. A carefully designed pattern of holes – each 110 nanometers in diameter – perforates the silicon, transforming the slab into a metamaterial that forces light to bend like water flowing around a rock. In the experiments reported in Nature Materials, the cloak was used to cover an area that measured about 3.8 microns by 400 nanometers. It demonstrated invisibility at variable angles of light incident.

What does this mean for the future? Is there a possibility to go completely invisible? Is this good or bad? What is the purpose of creating an invisibility cloak? Imagine all the possiblities if something was to go totally invisible!!

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Ashley M

     Sub-zero tundra, one of the coldest places on Earth. Does this sound like home to one of the world’s most biologically diverse ecosystems? It didn’t sound that way to me until I read about Lake Baikal in Science Daily. This lake is located in Siberia in Russia which is considered to be one of the harshest environments in the world. Contrary to my original belief, this lake is home to many unique and diverse plants and animals. In fact, Lake Baikal was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of this. However, these plants and animals may be at great risk because the changing climate and increasing temperatures are threatening the very foundation of this lakes’ food web. Endemic diatoms are very vulnerable to changes in temperature, which is not good news because they are the basis of the food web and scientists have predicted reductions in the length of time the lake is frozen each winter. Changes in the food web have already been documented. If the diatoms die off, then a chain reaction will start that will affect the lakes’ crustaceans, fish, and freshwater seals, just to name a few.

     What are your initial reactions to this news? What can be done to stop the changes going on in the lake? Should the creatures be helped or should nature be allowed to take its course?

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Christine P

Ever wonder why the nastiest and most poisonous of animals (i.e. frogs) are usually coated in beautiful color patterns?  Well you are not the only one, ”researchers in the York Center for Complex Systems Analysis (YCCSA) sought to explain why most animals that have an anti-predatory defense, such as a sting or poison, tend to be brightly colored.”

    It is often seen that animals with no anti-predatory protection use the most common defense, mimicry, which gives these animals the ability to disguise themselves as a dangerous species which prevents them from being eaten.  Predators are fooled to believe that the actual defenseless species of animal is harmful due to its unflattering shades of color and in turn looks to the nastier species as a much more appetizing selection.  By now it seems the more colorful and attractive the animals seems the more danger it puts itself in.  Right?  Not exactly,   these species of animals can “afford” these brightly colored coats because of their actual defense mechanisms such as stinging and poisoning.  It’s actually a really simple deal.  According to lead researcher Dr Dan Franks, of YCCSA, their “computer models show that this way of looking at the evolution of bright colors explains why in nature we generally find that the nastier the prey species (e.g. the more poisonous) the brighter the animal.” 

            It’s amazing to me how simple the answer to such an observation was.  Is this explanation enough to explain why animals such as certain species of frogs brightly colored or is there more to this color evolution? 

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Name: Heather A

          An interesting article I found in Science Daily explores how inheriting favorable or unfavorable habitats affects the overall rise and fall of animal populations. The article even stated that for some animal species, inheriting habitats may play as much of a role in survival as inheriting intelligence, fertility, camouflage or other genetically transferred characteristics.

          Eric M. Schauber, the associate professor of zoology and a member of the Cooperative Wildlife Research laboratory at the University is examining how these favorable or unfavorable habitats influences animal populations. To study this particular subject Schauber studied and observed the relationships among mice and chipmunks, gypsy moths and ticks in several areas around the northeastern United States. By examining the relationships between these different animals and how they interact with each other, Schauber was able to track how specific habitats promote or discourage survival and whether these traits can be passed down from generation to generation.

          By using the measurements of the mouse population density in different areas of the woods as well their attack rate on gypsy moths, Schauber was able to really get a good understanding on the moths and mouse’s populations and their interactions. By looking at computer models that represented these two populations it showed “hot Spots” which meant that where there were few mice, there were high chances of survival for moths, basically saying that the mice controlled the moth population unless the mouse population itself dropped. Inheriting the “hot spots” meant over time the majority of the moth population ended up in places where mice did not live, therefore increasing their survival. “It’s spatial inheritance, rather than genetic inheritance!”

          This article really emphasized to me how important an animal’s habitat is to them and how it can help future generations of species. Do you think this ongoing study could provide insight into managing endangered species populations? Would one agree that this article just further proves Darwin’s theory of natural selection among species?

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Jenna A

            I remember as a five year old kid, watching my grandparents dancing at a big family gathering; they looked so happy and full of life, which inspired me to write a post on this article that I found in Science Daily.  It associates dancing as a form of aging successfully and another interesting article that I also found in Science Daily talks about how some European dancing traditions began as a way to prevent or cure neurological disorders and how this dancing also caused the “dancing disease.”

            It’s pleasant to see how my grandparents age so gracefully with full of love and happiness.  According to the article, there’s a science behind “successful aging.”  Dancing “staves of illness, and even counteracts decline in ageing.”  What I was wondering when I was reading this article was, are there any hormones involved in this activity that causes anti-ageing?  Or can it possibly stimulate the immune system somehow?  The article addresses that “expansion of social dance provision for older people in order to aid successful ageing and help older people enjoy longer and healthier lives.”  However, the article doesn’t exactly provide the scientific ways behind how it affects ageing.  Overall, this article made me want to engage more with my grandparents.  Perhaps, it’s time for you to ask them to engage in social activities, too.

            Also, the other article also deals with dancing but in quite an opposite ways than the first article.  It mentions how the European dancing tradition to prevent neurological disease has created “outbreaks of a disorder known as hysteric chorea, which caused involuntary dance-like movements.”  This disease is caused most commonly by Huntington’s disease today.  Do you think that chorea is linked to genetic disorders since Huntington’s disease is considered as a genetic mutation?  Overall, how can dancing cause two extremely different outcomes such as decline in ageing and chorea? 

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Jenna P

In this interesting article that I found on Top News Health, it talks about a protein they’ve found that plays a key role in the daily rise and fall in blood pressure and heart rate,  which leads to changes in heart beat. This interesting discovery can be very important to those who know people or even have loved ones who’ve died because of a heart attack because it can give them a specific reason as to why something happened. I personally had a family member who had heart attacks, followed by several open heart surgeries , and later passed away. People probably just say okay heart attacks are caused by too much fatty foods and the clogging of the arties, but what about those “clogs” really causes the heart attacks?

Researchers found the protein, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-g (PPARg), to be responsible for the daily rhythms of the heart. Certain rises and drops of this specific protein can help doctors and researchers to better be able to explain such cardiac problems. Since PPARg is associated directly with the heart rhythms , it can also help explain the reason why commonly used diabetes drugs come with cardiovascular benefits.

So, what other benefits do you think that knowing about PPARg will bring to the scientific community and the people? Do you think that there’s a potential cure to specifically regulate heart rhythms and help those who’ve suffered heart attacks? Will the knowledge of PPARg be able to prevent those who may have a heart attack or other cardiac problems?

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Laura K

When someone says “500-million-year-old Monster Predator” what do you think of?

The Loch ness monster?

Dragons?

Something you would find in Harry Potter?

How about an arthropod?

According to science daily, Hurdia Victoria , the official name for this beast (around 1.5 feet…but still big in arthropod world),  has “a segmented body with a head bearing a pair of spinous claws and a circular jaw structure with many teeth”. It was first believed to be a crustacean-like animal but is now clearly classified as an arthropod.  Ph.D. student Allison Daley has been studying the fossil for 3 years and says “This structure is unlike anything seen in other fossil or living arthropods,”  The discover of the Hurdia Victoria reveals many details concerning the origins of important features that define the modern arthropods such as head structures and limbs. It is clear the animal was a water arthropod, for its entire body is covered with gills! One feature it has is a unique, large, three-part shell that projects out from the front of the animal’s head. The fossils were found in the Canadian Rockies. The first fragments of the monster fossil were described nearly 100 years ago, and at the time, they were thought to be part of a crustacean-

What links does this provide in supporting and answering certain evolutionary questions?

Do you think there are arthropods this large living in the depths of the sea now?

What does the site of the fossil tell us about our earth before we got here?

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Heather A

Let me first just say how glad I am that we are now getting into the animal unit! Learning about animals and ecology was a big factor in why I signed up to take A.P. Biology.  An article that I found in Science Daily that correlates with our previous unit and the one we are entering in is on a study published in the Journal Nature by an international team of scientists that found a pregnant fossil fish at the Natural History Museum in London that could shed some light on the possible origin of sex.

            The fossil found at the museum is an adult placoderm from the species Incisoscutum ritchiei, an extinct group of armoured fish. The fish was found in the Gogo formation of Western Africa and estimated to date back 350 million years ago, also known as the upper Devonian period. This specimen is one of the earliest examples of a pregnant vertebrate, which shows that “internal fertilization” or sex could have started for sooner than previously thought. This new information is very important because “evidence of reproductive biology is extremely rare in the fossil record” says Dr. Zerina Johanson, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum.

            The article then goes on to explain different types of fertilization. External fertilization was said to be the earliest form of reproduction in which the sperm and eggs combine in the water and the embryos develop outside the fish. Internal fertilization and the process of giving birth to live young is what separates some fish and mammals from other animals such as reptiles and amphibians. The scientists studying the placoderm believe that this was the animal’s main reproductive method. I didn’t know that fish could have an offspring developing in the womb. I always thought that they just gave birth to their young’s through larvae. Can you discuss any other animals that give birth to their young in an unusual way? The scientists studying the placoderm believed that the young fish in the womb was actually its last meal but they actually discovered that it was in fact an offspring. Do you think it was really an offspring or just meal of a smaller animal? What animals reproduce the fastest? What animals produce the largest offspring? How long is the longest mammal’s gestation period?

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Marielle S

The origin of life. LET THERE BE LIFE… and there was life creatures flourished through all waters and land. Was this really how it happened? Well, Earth was created 4 billion years ago and the first organic compound evolved 3.8 billion years ago. Did  Adam and Eve come up with all the other amazing creatures of the world. Well know it wasn’t until about 500,000 years ago humans turned up after the dinosaurs ancient sea creatures and small cells. So what really what is the origin of life? I came across in the science daily were it discussed how synthetic biology yields clues to the evolution and origin of life. 

According to the article Life began when one or a few protocells happened to have a mix of components that could capture energy and nutrients from the environment and use them to grow and reproduce. Efforts to replicate this process in the laboratory are still in their infancy, but Deamer, of the University of California, said he is optimistic that scientists will eventually be able to assemble a living cell from a parts list and thereby achieve a better understanding of how life began.

The first forms of life did not evolve in the usual sense. Evolution began when large populations of cells had variations that led to different metabolic efficiencies. If the populations were in a confined environment, at some point they would begin to compete for limited resources.

The first evolutionary selection processes would have favored those organisms that were most efficient in capturing energy and nutrients from the local environment. Thus then creating life over time.

 Does trying to stimulate the origin of life benefit us?  With this knowledge what would come? What was the first animal to live on earth in which we all evolved from? Did it happen all at once where one cell mutated in so many different ways that each species came for it? Does this make us give up hope for an afterlife knowing that there is some other truth?