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Additionally, the angle and positioning of the camera when taking the photographs must be acknowledged.

Methods

I entered Morrill 4 south and went up the stairs to the second level. I walked into the hallway and turned to the right, where I saw doors that led to the bridge that connects Morrill 4 to Morrill 2. If you look out at the bridge, on the left there should be a blue sign that has “Morrill 4 South” written on it. Underneath this sign is a blue radiator, which is where I found the spider web. If you stand facing the Morrill 4 sign and the blue radiator, the spider web is located on the bottom left side of the radiator attached to the pipe and black part of the wall. I placed a ticonderoga pencil on the ground, angled at roughly 15 degrees from the wall. I then held my iPhone, with the bottom of it resting on the ground, about 6 inches from the wall and faced it towards the spider web. I then took a photo of the spider web and the pencil with my flash on. To get a photo of the environment, I stood about 5 feet away from the blue radiator, closer to the stairwell than the doors to the Morrill bridge. I then angled my phone so I captured the blue radiator, most of the rug on the floor, the blue Morrill sign, and the left door that goes out to the Morrill bridge.

    Once I had the photos of the spider web I found and its environment, I used the UMass campus map, which can easily be found online.

I entered Morrill 4 south and went up the flights of stairs to the second level. I walked into the hallway and turned to the right, where I saw doors that led to the bridge that connects Morrill 4 to Morrill 2. If you look out at the bridge, on the left there should be a blue sign that has “Morrill 4 South” written on it. Underneath this sign is a blue radiator, where I found the spider web. If you stand facing the Morrill 4 sign and the blue radiator, the spider web is located on the bottom left side of the radiator attached to the pipe and black part of the wall. I placed a ticonderoga pencil on the ground, angled at roughly 15 degrees from the wall. I then held my iPhone, with the bottom of it resting on the ground, about 6 inches from the wall and faced it towards the spider web. I then took a photo of the spider web and the pencil with my flash on. To get a photo of the environment, I stood about 5 feet away from the blue radiator, closer to the stairwell than the doors to the Morrill bridge. I then angled my phone so I captured the blue radiator, most of the rug on the floor, the blue Morrill sign, and the left door that goes out to the Morrill bridge.

Students of Dr. Brewer’s Writing in Biology class were assigned to locate and photograph a spider web and its environment on the UMass Amherst campus. Students then created a multi panel figure including a photograph of the spider web with an object for scale, the environment the web was in, and a map showing the location of the web on campus. Once the multi-panel figure was completed, each student wrote a detailed methods that described the steps taken for capturing their photographs and creating the multi-panel figure. Finally, the methods written were given to another student and that student attempted to make the same multi-panel of the original student. The purpose of this experiment was to see how close the multi-panel figures were and observe the differences between the two.

There are several objectives for this activity. The main goal of this activity was to practice scientific writing, specifically the methods section. Especially in the world of science, it is important for students to have clear, detailed methods. This allows other people to replicate activities and experiments correctly. Additionally, this activity taught students how to make organized multi-panel figures. The overall aim of this exercise was to have students practice writing a clear and understanding scientific paper.

When choosing a spider web to photograph, there were many factors to consider for replicability. Things such as weather, time of day, and lightning had to be considered.

Sonic hunting is the way shrimp use sound to hunt prey. The water is squeezed between the shrimp's claw and it shoots out with a little void behind it. The water expands outward and it becomes a little gas bubble pocket. The gas expands until the surrounding water puts pressure on it and the temperature increases and the bubble pops and kills surrounding organisms. They also use snapping to communicate with other shrimp. During WWII, the navy would hide their submarines in the beds of these shrimp so submarines of enemy ships could not find them. They also used the sounds to distract enemy ships and make them confused. Researchers are now trying to find a way to use bubbles to save lives. They used bubbles to get through the blood-brain barrier, a wall to protect unwanted cells/molecules from entering the brain. The bubbles help doctors fight cancerous tumors. Bubble power can possibly help us fight diseases.

RNMTL1 is a protein that methylates ribosomal RNA. When there is a RNMTL1 deficiency in the body, it leads to the failure of modifying nucleotides of the 16S rRNA loop. More specificially, the A-loop cannot form properly. This causes peptide bonds to not form correctly and ultimately affect protein synthesis as well. Additionally, mitochondrial translation cannot be carried out as normal because the large subunit of the mitochondrial ribosome does not form properly when the 16S rRNA loop is not modified. RNMTL1 is also known as MRM3 and works with MRM1 and MRM2 for methylating mitochondria rRNA. Low MRM2 levels directly correlates with low U1369 modification while low RNMTL1 levels correlates with decreased G1370 modification. The modification of these nucleotides is what helps the subunits needed for mitochondrial translation to form properly. In embryos with a deficiency of RNMTL1, I would expect to see poor development in sources that need lots of energy, such as the heart and skeletal muscle. I expect this because the mitochondria is known for providing the body with ATP and energy. If part of the mitochondria is not translating properly, then places that need high energy will be greatly affected. I would also expect to see slower growth in embryos without RNMTL1 than cells with RNMTL1. 

I placed the map underneath the two other photos with the coordinates x: 0.00 and y: 39.031. The width of the map is 190.613 and the height is 128.058. You can see/enter coordinates underneath the Extensions and Zoom commands. To complete the multi-panel figure, I made boxes to label each figure. To make a box, I clicked the “create rectangles and squares” button located on the left side underneath the ruler icon. I adjusted the height and width of the box to 18.517 x 18.517. I clicked on the Fill and Stroke icon located to the left of the Text icon. I selected the white fill and the solid, black line for the dashees and the width for the line is 2.642 mm. I then created two copies of it by selecting copy once and selecting paste twice. I put one of the boxes at coordinates x: 76.37 and y: 278.50 and put a bold, size 36 Times New Roman “A.” in that box. I put the second box at x: 171.08 and y: 278.55 and put a “B.” in the box. I repeated that with a “C.” and I put the box at x: 172.141 and y: 149.074. the A., B., and C. all are bold and 36 Times New Roman font. I then clicked the star and polygon button and put a small, black star at x: 90.58 and y: 131.85 with a height and width of 6.4 mm. The star should be in the corner of Morrill IV. I saved the multi-panel figure and exported it as a png image.

Protein structure and folding plays a large role in protein function. There are four levels of protein structure: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quarternary. All proteins have primary structure, which is the sequence of amino acids. The amino acids of a protein are kept together with covalent, peptide bonds. After primary structure comes the secondary structure, which are structures amino acid sequences organize into. Secondary structure involves alpha helices and beta sheets. The alpha helix is similar to the structure of DNA while beta sheets that look like flat sheets. The bonds that are prominent in secondary structure are hydrogen bonds between the backbone atoms of the protein. The overall folding of a single polypeptide chain is call its tertiary structure. If there are more than one polypeptide chains coming together to function, it is referred to as quarternary structure. Not all proteins have quarternary structure, but all proteins have up to tertiary structure. Hydrogen bondng, Van der waals interactions, disulfide bonding, and ionic bonding occurs tertiarty and quarternary bonding. Understanding the levels of protein folding allows us to understand how these proteins function and interact with one another. 

To make the multi-panel figure using the three photos/figures described above, I used the application Inkscape. The picture of the spider web is labeled Figure A, the environment is Figure B, and the map is Figure C. Import the upclose photo taken of the spider web and put it in the top left corner of the page. The exact dimensions of Figure A are x: 0.000 and y: 166.031. The width of the photo is 94.728. I then imported the environment/setting photo for Figure B. I placed the Figure B right next to Figure A. The exact coordinates of Figure B are x: 93.968 and y: 166.032. The width of the figure is 95.885. I then imported the screenshot of the map I took. I placed the map underneath the two other photos. The coordinates of the map are x: 0.00 and y: 39.031. The width of the map is 190.613 and the height is 128.058. You can see/enter coordinates underneath the Extensions and Zoom commands. To complete the multi-panel figure, I made boxes to label each figure. To make a box, I clicked the “create rectangles and squares” button located on the left side underneath the ruler icon. I adjusted the height and width of the box to 18.517 x 18.517. I clicked on the Fill and Stroke icon located to the left of the Text icon. I selected the white fill and the solid, black line for the dashees and the width for the line is 2.642 mm. I then created two copies of it by selecting copy once and selecting paste twice. I put one of the boxes at coordinates x: 76.37 and y: 278.50 and put a bold, size 36 Times New Roman “A.” in that box. I put the second box at x: 171.08 and y: 278.55 and put a “B.” in the box the same style as the “A.” described above. I repeated that with a “C.” and I put the box at x: 172.141 and y: 149.074. I saved the multi-panel figure and exported it as a png image.

I entered Morrill 4 south and went up the flights of stairs to the second level. I walked out into the hallway and turned to the right, where I saw doors that led to the bridge that connects Morrill 4 to Morrill 2. If you look out at the bridge, on the left there should be a blue sign that has “Morrill 4 South” written on it. Underneath this sign is a blue radiator, where I found the spider graph shown in Figure A. If you stand facing the Morrill 4 sign and the blue radiator, the spider  web is located on the bottom left side of the radiator attached to the pipe and black part of the wall. To take the photo used in Figure A, I placed a ticonderoga pencil on the ground, angled at roughly 15 degrees from the wall. I then held my iPhone, with the bottom of it resting on the ground, about 6 inches from the wall and faced it towards the spider web. I then took a photo of the spider web and the pencil with my flash on. To get a photo of the environment (Figure B), I stood about 5 feet away from the blue radiator, closer to the stairwell than the doors to the Morrill bridge. I then angled my phone so I captured the blue radiator, most of the rug on the floor, the blue Morrill sign, and the left door that goes out to the Morrill bridge.

    Once I had the photos of the spider web I found and its environment, I used the UMass campus map, which can easily be found online, to make the map. I opened the campus map pdf and took a screenshot of the a smaller portion of the map to show the location of the web. For the width of the screenshot, I included the Student Union to the edge of Brett. For the height of the screenshot, I included Fernald up to the Integrative Learning Center.

Figure 1. The appearance of a tarantula. The imagine shows a tarantula sitting next to a ruler for scale. The tarantula is a dark brown and it has eight long, thick legs. The legs have several hairs on its legs. The two body segments of the spider are similar in size and very wide. At the end of the second segment, there are two spinnerets for making webs.

“male goliath birdeater 111508 011” flickr photo  by John https://www.flickr.com/photos/8373783@N07/3199695137/in/photolist-fEwYeq-6qNzKR-dfSNZe-dfSTgu-5uEAPc-5uEBmn-5uEzQ8-5uEBuD-oJPgDx-5uEzEp-ankkk-5SKgTx-5SPBE3-5SKhrr-5SKhmM-he4A6i-5AyLnn-egucWg-21AXmRY-5Em774-am2e86-5EqquQ-5uECiV-5FjiPr-5FoAcs-5Fjhm2-5FoAsw-6qSRTd/ Shared under Creative Commons (BY) license.