eehardy's blog

In order to obtain a picture of a spider, I had to find a spot where it would be likely for a spider to build a web. I went through a couple failures first. I left the Biology Computer Lab and exited Morrill, then headed to the right continuing down North Pleasant Street to the building Hasbrouck. I entered Hasbrouck through the entrance off of North Pleasant, and went straight down  the stairs when I got inside and down to the basement floor of Hasbrouck. Hasbrouck is an older building and I knew that they had a couple vending machines right up against the corners of the wall in the basement, which I thought would be a prime spot for spider webs. Unfortunately, I did not have any luck. I exited Hasbrouck through the basement exit and went straight outside to the Lincoln Campus center, and continued walking straight until I walked out of the building. I checked the vegetation outside of the campus center, but failed to find spider webs there. I continued walking straight and then took a left and headed to the front side with the entrance (side facing inward toward campus, not toward the ILC) of the Student Union, where I noticed there was a big black pot containing a plant in front of each of the four columns attached to the building by the entrance. I went to the one that was closest to me, at the end nearest the Lincoln Campus Center. I first checked the vegetation itself, but did not see a spider. I then crouched down and checked the small space between the back of the pot and the column itself, thinking that would be a good spot for a spider web to be nestled. I did not see one, but as I turned away I noticed a spider on the pot itself. The pot had vertical ridges around its circumference, and the web was nestled in between two of of them that were actually right above a small patch of other vegetation that was just growing on the ground. I crouched back down so that I was directly parallel to the spider. I extended my arm out so that iPhone Camera was about 4 inches away from the spider and zoomed in on my camera 1/4 of the maximum level of zooming in. I focused the camera by tapping my iPhone screen a few times until it was focused and took a picture. I then took a picture of the pot full of vegetation for reference, and another picture of the whole front of the Student Union Building.

Insulin plays a key role in facilitating the body's absorption of glucose. After eating a meal, glucose levels rise in the blood. These rising levels stimulate the pancreas to secrete insulin, which binds to the extracellular domain on liver, muscle, and fat cell receptors. The insulin bound to the extracellular domain triggers the intracellular domain to phosphorylate itself, which in turn triggers a whole phosphorylation cascade including several different proteins. This cascade prompts glucose transport proteins originally in the cytoplasm to fuse into the cell membrane. Now that the transport proteins are on the membrane, they are accessible to the glucose on the outside that is flowing through the blood. Thus, the glucose is able to pass through the transport proteins and into the cell, where it can be utilized to provide energy by making ATP. 

Processivity is a measure of how much an enzyme can catalyze reactions without freeing its substrate. Kinesin, a motor protein that moves along microtubules, has notable processivity. It can move over a large number of subunits on the microtubule before it detaches or diffuses away. This is a rare trait for cytoskeletal motor proteins. Myosin spends most of its ATPase either weakly bound to actin or dissociated from it. It is very beneficial for kinesin to have such a high processivity so that new tubulin subunits can be added to the filament before many dissociate, which allows the microtubule to grow rapidly. This is important because microtubules are required to be dynamic and must grow to transport organelles, separate chromosomes, and sometimes facilitate in cell movement.

After you eat a meal, the glucose levels in your blood rise. This stimulates your pancreas to secrete insulin, which binds to receptors on your liver, muscle, and fat cells. When insulin binds to the extracellular domain on these receptors, it causes the intracellular domain to phosphorylate itself, which triggers a whole phosphorylation cascade including different proteins. This cascade prompts glucose transport proteins to fuse into the cell membrane, allowing glucose in the blood to pass through them and into the cell, where it can be utilized to provide energy by making ATP. 

Figure 1)

This butterfly is perched on the leaf getting ready to lay its eggs. It lays its eggs on the leaf so that when the caterpillars (its offspring) hatch, they can eat the leaves as a source of sustenance. 

"butterfly" flickr photo by davidyuweb https://flickr.com/photos/davidyuweb/4890215847 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license

A hormone is a substance produced in the body that directs and regulates the events occuring inside of certain cells or organs. Hormones are classified by both how they travel in the body and their chemical structure. There are five classifications based on how they travel in the body; endocrine, paracrine, autocrine, intracrine, and juxtacrine. Endocrine hormones act at distance over the body, while paracrine hormones act within the tissue they are synthesized. Autocrine hormones act on the cell they are produced by; they are secreted and then attach to the receptors on the surface to trigger a reaction. Intracrine hormones also act on the cells they are produced by, but they act directly inside the cell rather than through the receptors on the outside of the cell. Juxtacrine hormones act on juxtaposed cells. They are chemically classified into four groups; amines, peptides/proteins, steroids, and eicosanoids... and are also classified as either water-soluble or lipid-soluble. Amines and peptide/protein hormones are water-soluble and target cells by acting on receptors on their membranes. Steroids and eicosanoids are lipid-soluble and thus can penetrate the cell membrane and act within the cell.

A radioimmunoassay is a technique used to detect levels of different substances, usually antigens or hormones in the blood, by using antibodies and forming an antibody-antigen/hormone complex. For example. a radioimmunoassay could measure insulin levels of a particular patient. An antibody-insulin complex would be created (they will bind to each other), but the insulin used will be radioactive labeled insulin. A bunch of these antibody-insulin complexes would be created on a slide, and then the sample of the patients serum will be added in with the slide. If insulin is present in the serum, it will replace some of the radioactively labeled insulin in the previously formed antibody-insulin complexes on the slide. If it is high, it will replace more of them, so there will be more antibodies attached to non-radioactive insulin, and more free radioactive insulin that has been displaced. The antigen-insulin complexes will be precipitated out by the use of a second antibody that attaches to the complex. Then, the radioactivity of the supernatant, which contains all of the free insulin, will be measured. The level of radioactivity quantifies the amount of radioactive insulin that was displaced, which quantifies the level of insulin in the patient.

Northern Blotting Analysis is a procedure used to detect a specific RNA molecule/specific group of RNA molecules within a larger group of RNA molecules. It is commonly used in research to study gene expression. It is similar to the Southern blotting Analysis, but detects RNA rather than DNA. First, RNA molecules are extracted, usually from cells. The RNA molecules are then separated by gel electrophoresis, which separates them based on their size. RNA molecules have a negative charge, so they travel towards the positive side. The smaller molecules will travel faster and thus, the molecules will end up in an order than ranges from big to small, from negative to positive. The gel that is used is a formaldehyde gel which denatures the RNA so that it is single-stranded rather than double stranded, so that it can be effectively probed later on. Next, a blotting procedure is used to transfer the RNA from the gel to a membrane, in which the RNA can be probed. The last major step is the probing/hybridization, where a DNA molecule (usually cDNA) with a sequence that is complementary to the desired RNA strand, is used to probe the RNA. Then the excess probes are washed off so that the results can be visualized in an autoradiograph.

This website does not appear to be from a University, but is from a scientific journal called "Cell Press." It has advertisements for the website and you can get a subscription and link it to your social media. It has many different articles and 31 different volumes and appears to have a pretty significant following, indicating that it is a valid site trusted by many people and that the articles have a lot of work and fine tuning put into them. It has a section labeled "Popular Articles." They also have a tab with job offers like "editor in chief" and "lead editor" that you can apply for yourself, which also indicates that they are probably legitimate.