kruzzoli's blog

We rewatched the videos and choose a 5 minute period and 10 behaviors that occurred in that time frame for a reliability analysis. One group member watched the 5 minutes worth of video and used Jwatcher to indicate the times at which each behavior took place. This member rewatched the same five minutes of video and used Jwatcher to indicate the times at which each behavior occurred a second time. The reliability was determined between the two data sets and we redid the indication of when each behavior occurred until the reliability was above 65%. A second group member watched the same 5 minutes of video and indicated when behaviors occurred using Jwatcher. This was redone until there was above a 65% reliability between the first and second group member.

Biome 2 doesn’t have a direct match to an earth biome however it does follow a similar seasonal pattern to a tropical rainforest. Rainforests have little seasonal variation and therefore have pretty consistent precipitation and temperature patterns throughout the year. Because the data on biome 2 shows little seasonal variation it can be expected that this biome is located near the equator. The closer to the equator you get, the less of an effect the axis has on climate, so there is little variation. I would predict this biome to be equatorial because of the lack of seasonal variation. I would not consider it to be a tropical rainforest however because it has much less average precipitation and a much lower average temperature. The lack of precipitation would not allow for the abundance of species found in a rainforest. You might expect to see similar plants, as in ones that are not acclimated to seasonal change. They would not lose their leaves in the winter. You would expect to see a lot of vegetation year round because their is still substantial rainfall and there is never a period of freezing temperatures that would prevent the growth of many plants.

Biome 1 is most similar to a temperate deciduous forest based on both temperature and precipitation. Temperate deciduous forests vary seasonally in terms of both temperature and precipitation. The winters are typically cold and dry and the summers are warmer and typically see more rainfall. The peak of both precipitation and temperature occurs some point in time over the summer. The graph for biome 1 shows seasonal variation, with the winters having below freezing temperatures and the summers ranging in temperatures between 20-30 degrees celsius.  The biome on this new planet has slightly warmer summers than this earth biome but follows a similar pattern. This biome also has more rainfall on average than earth but again, has a similar seasonal pattern. You would expect this biome to be located around 30-50 degrees latitude. On earth, this type of biome is found mostly in the northern hemisphere because the southern hemisphere lacks the landmass needed, however, since we don’t know of any land differences between the northern and southern hemisphere of this planet, it can be expected in both hemispheres. You would also expect to find plants with deciduous leaves, so they loose their leaves in the sub freezing winters. Because there is such variety seasonally, the plants would likely be well adapted to seasonal change. On earth, you find maple, birch and many other types of trees so you might find similar trees in this new biome. There is more rainfall as well so it might be expected to contain larger trees.

There are however some important  articles that show this potential genetic altering can be beneficial, such as the baby born with three parents. I know this is likely a point of argument, but I guess I “believe” in natural selection, and if someone was meant to have children, they would. Although this child was quite literally a miracle, the mother had previously lost four other children. I’m not sure how ethical my reasoning is here, and I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve to have this child, but I don’t believe we, as a race, should be altering our DNA in a way that allows us to reproduce, when clearly we shouldn’t. When you think about the population size, imagine if everyone that couldn’t physically reproduce healthy children, went through a similar process to have children. We would run out of room on this planet. This doesn’t sound quite moral, but we have processes such as natural selection for reason, meaning the most fit of our population should reproduce, and those who can’t, shouldn’t.     

Spider webs are extremely thin, the largest silk fibers being only 5-10 μm. Some can be as thin as only 50 nm, making spider webs very difficult to measure. We found a publication that explains the use of light microscopy to accurately and precisely measure the width of spider webs. Webs are extremely strong, comparable to steel and also super flexible. However, because of the microscopic size, the different principles of silk have not been greatly investigated. In this review they used a polarized light microscope to illuminate the spider webs and images were taken that were then used for comparisons and measurements.

Idealistically, a world free of congenital diseases would be a miraculous one, but the means needed to create such a world are far too severe to partake in. First, people have to decide what congenital diseases the world will be better without, and then comes the question of who is allowed or not allowed to reproduce. And does anyone have the right to restrict the ability of someone else’s reproductive success? In the past, the United States was home to a world of eugenics. According to the nature.com article on Eugenics, the American movement took place in the early 1900’s. In theory, the idea of selecting more desirable traits to rid of certain diseases sounds like a relatively good idea, until you take into consideration the means at which this would be accomplished. The eugenics movement involved many cases of involuntary sterilization and institutionalization. During this movement, we lacked the vast knowledge of genetics and genomes, so they believed certain qualities such as alcoholism, “criminality”, “feeblemindedness”, and epilepsy were traits that possessed a great genetic basis, which is not wholly the case. Also, if these were the traits thought to be undesired, which there are likely many good reasons one might not want to possess them, one can only imagine what type of traits might be considered undesirable now.

There are however some important  articles that show this potential genetic altering can be beneficial, such as the baby born with three parents. I know this is likely a point of argument, but I guess I “believe” in natural selection, and if someone was meant to have children, they would. Although this child was quite literally a miracle, the mother had previously lost four other children. I’m not sure how ethical my reasoning is here, and I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve to have this child, but I don’t believe we, as a race, should be altering our DNA in a way that allows us to reproduce, when clearly we shouldn’t. When you think about the population size, imagine if everyone that couldn’t physically reproduce healthy children, went through a similar process to have children. We would run out of room on this planet. This doesn’t sound quite moral, but we have processes such as natural selection for reason, meaning the most fit of our population should reproduce, and those who can’t, shouldn’t.     

    Idealistically, a world free of congenital diseases would be a miraculous one, but the means needed to create such a world are far too severe to partake in. First, people have to decide what congenital diseases the world will be better without, and then comes the question of who is allowed or not allowed to reproduce. And does anyone have the right to restrict the ability of someone else’s reproductive success? In the past, the United States was home to a world of eugenics. According to the nature.com article on Eugenics, the American movement took place in the early 1900’s. In theory, the idea of selecting more desirable traits to rid of certain diseases sounds like a relatively good idea, until you take into consideration the means at which this would be accomplished. The eugenics movement involved many cases of involuntary sterilization and institutionalization. During this movement, we lacked the vast knowledge of genetics and genomes, so they believed certain qualities such as alcoholism, “criminality”, “feeblemindedness”, and epilepsy were traits that possessed a great genetic basis, which is not wholly the case. Also, if these were the traits thought to be undesired, which there are likely many good reasons one might not want to possess them, one can only imagine what type of traits might be considered undesirable now. In the 30’s, race was a relatively big factor in the eugenics movement. Many black families were sterilized or institutionalized, and who’s to say that within today's cultural turmoil, a similar thing might not occur? There’s not a clear line between one person might consider desirable or undesirable, a decision could not be justly drawn. Although we have greatly expanded our knowledge on genetics and natural selection since the eugenics movement, some attitudes against desirable traits may have not evolved as much, and as a result we might face a similar fight over what is or isn’t ethical in terms of selecting who can and cannot reproduce.  In the knowgenetics.org article about current day eugenics, this similar issue arises. If a certain disease if common within one ethnic group, then how do we screen all people of this ancestry without it turning into something that targets the well being of an entire population? Testing entire races might bring into play harsh stereotypes and biases against these people, as a result of testing that some people might have never wanted to be a part of. For all the good this potential genetic testing might do, I believe there will be too much ethical, political, and social backlash that will cause more harm to society than something such as down syndrome or congenital heart disease ever would.

Individually we each watched 2 videos of domestic Morgan horses, Equus caballus, at the UMass Hadley Farm. Both videos had two mares and two foals of about 6 months old. We watched and observed the behaviors of the four horses for 48 minutes and 35 seconds, created a list of behaviors, and recorded the time each behavior occurred. We compared our lists and compiled all the behaviors into six tables categorized by each type of behavior: grooming, locomotion, playing, feeding, comfort, and body positioning. We determined the categories by grouping like behaviors together and establishing certain characteristics of each category. Grooming was categorized by the horse gnawing at himself or licking. Locomotion was categorized by moving locations. Playing included interaction with other horses by nudging, jumping, or gnawing. Feeding was categorized by behaviors that included the horse’s head touching the grass and the ground. Comfort included behaviors that involve just the horse, such as tail waving, that increased the comfort of the horse or interactions between the foal and the mare. We categorized body positioning as movements to the horse’s posture while they remained stationary. We rewatched the videos and took a screenshot of the behaviors at the time that we observed each behavior. The screenshots were placed into the tables and a description of each behavior was formulated. We organized the table by the category and within each category, the behaviors appear chronologically.