kruzzoli's blog

Additionally, flooding as a result of hurricanes has become worse in recent years due to climate change. Sea levels have been rising and Houston sits barely above sea level to begin with, so now there is more water creating larger stormsurge potential than there was 100 years ago (Associated Press). The air and water are also warmer, and warmer water leads to increased evaporation occurring. Increased evaporation leads to a rise in air humidity; the amount of water that sits in the atmosphere. When there is more water in the atmosphere, there is more potential water to be collected by hurricanes and then come down as rain when the hurricane makes landfall. This was a key factor in the massive amounts of flooding that occured in Houston after Hurricane Harvey (Associated Press).

Methods:

I entered Morrill 2 from the front of the building, the side facing the rest of campus. I went up one flight of stairs and walked to the back stairwell and left through that door. I was now facing the area of campus where Frank dining hall is. At 9:55 in the morning, I took a picture of the spider web in the bottom left corner of the glass door. I was standing outside and saw a web in the corner of the glass frame. I squatted like a duck and held the back of my ucard up to the web, at this time there was a little spider. I held my ucard so that the back was facing me and the Ucard logo was at the top, I held it vertically. In the image, the ucard is on the left of the spider web and the ucard was held up to the metal corner of the window frame so that it was touching. The black rubber edging of the glass is about centered in the picture I took. I then backed up and stood on the curb where the sidewalk ends that is directly across from the doors and took a picture that shows the entire doorway and part of the building. For the map, I googled “umass amherst campus map” on my iphone and clicked on the first link which brought me to a pdf of the campus, in the upper left hand corner it said “UMass Amherst General Location Campus Map September 2018”. I took a screenshot of this and then in my photos I edited this and cropped the image so that it showed only the Integrative Learning Center, the campus pond, the Fine Arts Center, Morrill Science Center and Wilder, University Club, Shade Tree Lab and Clark. I then clicked on the three little dots in a circle on the edit screen and chose the highlighter marker and made it red. I then made a circle around Morrill 2 and made a dot near the back entrance where I took the pictures of the spider.

Once I had all the pictures I emailed them to myself and opened them in Inkscape. They all opened individually so I copied and pasted two of the images into one of the inkscapes so that this inkscape had all 3 images. The picture of the campus map was placed in the top left corner right next to the image of the doors to Morrill. Underneath those two I placed the picture of the spider web. The map was located with position x=2.170, y=1124.41 and had a height of 508.249 and a width of 421.103. The image of Morrill had a position x=423.046, y=1124.41 and a width of 421.103 and a height of 508.249. The image of the spider had position x=2.170, y= -1.492 and a height of 1128.872 and a width of 841.979. Overall, all three images were positioned at x=2.170, y= -1.492, a height of 1634.161 and a width of 841.979. Each image had a letter in size 48 sans serif black font. The map had the capital letter “A” located at x=30, y=1550. The Morrill had the capital letter “B” located at x=450, y= 1550. The spider image had a capital letter “C” located at  x=30 and y=1055. I then saved the final image.

Figure 1. Giraffe in Nature. The giraffe is standing in the middle of the picture with his body parallel to the photographer, his neck twisted and facing the camera. He is covered in light brown spots that sit on a beige body. He seems to stand as tall as the trees and the grass is tall so that it covers his feet. "Giraffe" flickr photo by Rachel Hobday https://flic.kr/p/dijkTQ shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license.

Most animals use sound as a form of communication and with it are able to express many different things. It is often a key factor in survival and in many cases, if an organism cannot communicate properly or well enough, they may not survive. In some gull species, there are certain sounds used for specific needs, such as finding a mate, locating food, or claiming territory. These sounds are also often used in different scenarios based on the time of year. Sounds used to find a mate for example, are later used to communicate with that mate when caring for the young and finding food. The sounds are versatile and have different meanings based on the context. The sounds of birds is recorded and analyzed for different measurements when studied. The band width of sound can be measured by subtracting the lower frequency from the higher frequency. There is a bigger difference between the high and low frequencies in wide bandwidths and a smaller difference in short bandwidths. The trill rate is how often a sound is made, or how quickly. The trill is known as a high performance form of communication, because it requires a lot of energy. There is a trade off between these two sounds because one cannot have a wide bandwidth as well a high trill rate, the bird is incapable of doing both really well at the same time. A higher or faster trill rate is accompanied by a short bandwidth because it is too difficult to have a wide bandwidth and fast trill rate.

Quantifying communication will be done using bioacoustic analysis. For starters, sound is places in the air where molecules are compressed in some areas, and less compressed in others, these less compressed areas are called rarefractions. Sound is a change in air density, so what we hear is compression of air particles. We can measure the amplitude, which is the amount of energy. This is what we perceive as loudness. We can also measure frequency, which is what we perceive as pitch. Frequency is how often the sound wave occurs. A higher frequency occurs at a higher pitch. 

Many animals use sound as a form of communication, as do we. One of the most commonly studied form of animal communication is bird songs. They have been studied since the beginning of people studying how animals communicate because there are a lot of different variations and it is very easy to observe and record bird sounds. In birds, you can measure what is known as the band width by subtracting the lower frequency from the higher frequency. There is a longer difference in wide bandwidths and a smaller difference in short bandwidths. You can also measure the trill rate which is how often they create this noise. The trill is known as a high performance form of communication. There is a trade off between these two sounds becasue one cannot have a wide bandwidth as well a high trill rate, you cannot have both really well. So a higher or faster trill rate is accompanied by a short bandwidth becasue it is too difficult to have a wide bandwidth and fast trill rate. 

Sounds used by birds can also be used to signal different things even though they might be the same sound. In some gulls, they have certain sounds used for finding a mate that are also used when trying to communicate with that mate when it comes to finding a place to nest. They have some other sounds that overlap when mating and then when caring for the young. They have the ability to use the same sounds but interpret them differently based on the context of the situation. 

Feedback loops are something that occur in many different aspects of life. They are an observation found in all different scientififc studies. This year alone I've learned about them in terms of human physiology and in climatology. Feedback loops are kind of like cycles. There is a signal that starts a chain reaction that leads to a response. Sometimes the response inhibits the initial siglanl, a negative feedback, and sometimes the response leads to an increase in the signal. An example of a positive feedback loop is chidbirth. The contraction leads to a nerve impulse that signals the hypothalamus to release the hormone oxytocin. The release of oxytocin leads to more contractions. Which then lead to more production of the hormone. The initial contraction leads to a stimulus that in the end results in more contractions. Blood clotting is another example of positive feedback because when a vessel is damaged platelets start to cling to it and when they cling they release a hormone that attracts more platelets. So the initial blood clotting leads to more blood clotting. The initial stimulus leads to an increase in the final product. 

Negative feedback has the opposite result. Negative feedback most often keeps something more towards equilibrium whereas positive feedback escalates, so usually only occurs in special instances. An example of negative feedback is thermoregulation. If a body temperature increase, measures are taken in order to try and lower the body temperature. So the initial increase leads to a decrease in body temp, therefore a negative response. Another example is blood sugar levels. When glucose levels are high, insulin is released to decrease levels. When levels are low, gllucagon is released to increase levels. The initial stimulus results in something trying to lower the signal. 

A neuron is a specialized cells that transmits nerve signals. The nervous system has two parts, the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system is what acts as the integrating signal. The peripheral nervous system then is further broken down into two parts, the sensory division which sends signals to the CNS through afferent neurons. The other part is the efferent nervous system which takes the signals from the CNS to the target cells via efferent signals. Efferent signals are what leave. Afferent is responsible for the input of signals to the CNS from somatic, special, and visceral signals. Efferent is responsable for the output from the CNS. Efferent signals then go to either somatic or autonomic controls, autonomic are the things in which you cannot control. 

The neuron itself is made up of a couple different parts. The dendrites are what recieve the signals, they either recieve nuerontransmitters or hormones. The dendrites extend from the cell body, which is where everything is made. The nucleus is found in the cell body. The signals are integrated in the axon hillock, which is near the edge of the cell body and this is where the action potential is generated. The action potentials are propagated in the axon and the neurontransmitters are released in the presynaptic terminal. This is the basic structure of a neuron. 

A sodium potassium pumps is used in the active transport of sodium and potassium ions across a cell membrane. The pumps moves 3 sodium ions out of the cell for every 2 potassium ions that it brings into the cell. The movement of these ions is against their concentration gradients, which means the pump needs energy in order to transport these ions. In a cell, most of the Na+ exists outside of the cell and the K+ is inside the cell. Charge is measured at the membrane and in a neutral cell, the inner layer is negative where the outside is positive. Cells move torward the membrane potential of the ion it's most permeable to, so if a cell has more leakage channels for K+ then the membrane potential for K+ is what is desired. 

Extracellular potassium will result in a less negative membrane potential because an addition of extracellular potassium results in a decrease in the concentration gradient. There is more potassium inside of the cell to begin with so an increase in extracellular potassium decreses the chemical gradient, creating a less negative membrance potential. 

Decreasing extracellular sodium will not have a similar impact on the membrane potential. This actually has little effect on the membrane potential since the membrane is not very permeable to sodium. Leakage potassium channels exist so the membrane is more permeable to potassium than to sodium. So potassium has more movement available. An increase in extracellular potassium would then decrease the amount of potassium leaving the cell through these leakage channels since the gradient is less steep. This results in a less negative (more positive) membrane potential. Becasuse sodium is not as permeable, reduction of extracellular sodium would not have a similar effect because active transport is required regardless. 

This morning, after preparing myself for the day, I grabbed my backpack and walked to my first class of the day. It was Climatology at 9:05 in Morrill 2 222. I arrived 5 minutes early and the professor was playing videos of the news showing the events of Hurricane Florence. He began lecture at 9:05 and he discussed briefly the damage that Hurricane Florence can potentially cause as well as how original predictions of its strength have so far not been accurate. It was predicted to be a category 4 but has since been downgraded to a category 1 as it makes landfall. The remainder of the class focused on the water cycle and how energy is transferred from water droplets as water travels through the cycle.

Sitting on the desk in a little plastic cup in front me was a small spider. His body was about the size of a grain of rice and segmented into two sections and he was mostly a golden brown color with a spot of black on the second segment of his body.  Emerging from the smaller, front segment of his body were 8 long spindly legs. Each leg was segmented into three parts by two different joints. These joints looked to create bends in the les that added to the spiders mobility. Each joint was marked by a white spot at the bend that was sandwiched by two black spots on the outside of the joint. The rest of each leg was the same golden brown color held by the majority of the rest of the spider. His front two legs were the longest of his legs and seemed to be used in order to feel his way around and as a way to know his surroundings. He was rather still and motionless for a mjority of the time while I was observing him, however, when he did move, he moved all legs individually and seemed to have independent control of each limb. He moved gracefully and was unbothered by the outside movement of the cup. If I were to hold the cup and flip it upside down he would remain stable in place. After observing him in this environment, a small plastic cup, I would guess that his movements would be much different in his own habitat.