Writing in Biology

To get the pictures if the spiderweb, first exit the Biology Computer Lab and take a left. Continue to that end of the Morrill building until there is a staircase on both the left and right sides of the hall. Take the staircase on the right all the down to the first floor. Stand at the foot of the stairs and turn left. Facing the wall so that the wooden doors are on the right, look for the red air duct on the wall. There is a missing panel on the bottom left corner. Approach the duct and place a blue Bic ballpoint pen on the ground, with the cap facing away from the wooden doors and toward the exit to the street. The pen should be placed along the edge of the duct where the hole is. This will be used for scale and kept in every picture. Take the first picture with a phone on normal picture mode. Take the picture close to the hole to view the web. The square hole in the duct should match along the edge of the photo to get the correct size. Take a step back to get a wider shot of the area. About half the grate should be seen, with five of the grate sections to the right of the hole. Take another step back to be closest to the wall and take another photo of the whole duct. There should be four tiles in the picture to show the floor before the grate. These three photos will compose part of the figure and should be sent to an email so that they can be downloaded and imported to the inkscape program. To get the map image, use google to search for “Free Map Tools Radius Google My Maps”. Using the google my maps link, search for Morrill Science Center at Umass Amherst. Take a picture so that the campus pond is on the left, the Franklin permaculture garden is on the right and Morrill complex is centered. Use the street view, not the satellite feature. This image should also be saved so that it can be downloaded into inkscape.

    To make the figure for the spider web series, insert all four images from above into inkscape. Arrange them in a two by two fashion so that the closest image to the spider web is one the top left, the second closest is at the top right, the farthest from the web is in the bottom left and the map is in the bottom right. Adjust these images so they are about equivalent sizes, the final size will be adjusted later. Create a square box using the “create a square or rectangle” setting and set its color to red. Using the text feature, type a lowercase “a”. Bring this to the front of the image. Make sure the letter can be read on the box, then center the letter. Use the group button to group the letter and the box. Duplicate the box three times, so there are a total of four boxes. Change the letters in the three new boxes so that they are b-d. Center and group these as done previously. Place the box and letter in the upper left hand corner of each picture, so that the picture closest to the spider web is labeled “a”, the next closest is labeled “b”, the farthest from the web is labeled “c” and the map is labeled “d”. Finally group all the images together and adjust to fit the page. Make the height 3388.23 and the width 2560.94. Export the image and then save it into a google document.

Figure 1. Gravid Tardigrade. Eggs are visible through the body of the tardigrade. "Water bear focus stacked" by Specious Reasons at flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/28594931@N03/8123309913 under a CC BY-NC license.

I think I understand why they would need to be variable in their interaction speed and time. If all transient protein interactions took equal amounts of time to perform their function or all travelled at the same speed, then I don't believe the body could properly function. For example, the various ligands involved in a number of homeostatic systems, such as the HPA axis, need to be different from one another in terms of speed and efficacy because that is what allows them to perform their specific functions. But there are still questions I have about how it all comes together.

Does "far-western blot analysis" mean that there is multiple proteins involved/ it is a quaternary structure that is being examined? I know the a western blot analysis means that proteins are being analyzed, so is far-western just a more specific term?

I wonder how they are able to tell which domains/regions of the two proteins in question are responsible for the binding. It later states that they use DSS for intracellular proteins and BS3 for cell-surface proteins, but I feel like there is not as much specificity. So aside from the new molecular weight of the quaternary structure, what can they infer based on the induced artificial bonds?

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.

The R-K Selection theory postulates that organisms reproduce using either R or K selected mechanisms and behaviors. When an organism is R selected, it will generally produce a lot of offspring and invest very little energy, if any at all, into rearing them. Due to the large amount of young, offspring are smaller at birth and thus less viable. Many will die before maturity, though since there are so many, the idea is that at least some will survive. When an organism is K selected, it produces fewer offspring throughout its lifetime and invests large amounts of energy into rearing them. These offspring will be larger and have a higher chance of living until maturity.

An example of a K selected organism is the spiney dogfish, a species of shark. Female dogfish are pregnant for 2 years and thus will reproduce quite slowly. Recently there has been concerns about the population of sharks. While dogfish are technically a threatened species, they are still susceptible to bycatching while fishing for other fish. This is especially bad considering that dogfish sexually segregate when not mating. That is to say, males and females will form separate schools. This means that when caught, either a large haul of females or males are being caught, which will further reduce the chance of successfully mating and producing offspring as the populations of either sex decreases.

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.

    To find a spiderweb on the UMass campus, I had to go through many trials and errors. The first spiderweb I found was too small for my phone to recognize. I had to go search for a bigger (more-defined) spider web. After a few days of searching, I found a spider web on the side of the Lederle Graduate Research center. On the section facing the main road (N Pleasant St), there was a spider web at about hip height.

    Photographing this web was quite difficult. I had to try to photograph it at several angles, with and without flash. I found that flash worked the best in making the web visible on in my photo. I had to angle the phone so that the camera was parallel to the main part of the spider web.

    To create the figure, I gathered the location of the spider web on openmaps.eu and my photo of the spider web and put them in the Inkscape app. I put the map on the left side and the photo of the web on the right side. Then, I created labels to point out where the location of the spider web was, along with a label that highlighted the spider web on the photo.

Sharks are osmoconformers. That is, they actively regulate their internal salinity to match the salinity of their outside environment. In most organisms the kidney regulates internal salt levels. While sharks have kidney’s there is an additional organ which aids in their salt regulation, the rectal gland. The rectal gland receives hormonal inputs, mainly from Angiotensin-II and 1-a-hydrxicorticosterone (1a-OHB), the latter of which is only found in Elasmobranchs such as sharks and rays. When receiving these signals, the rectal gland will shut off blood flow and retain osmolytes, which contain solutes. Through this process, a shark may match its environments salinity, perhaps even exceed it which allows it to take in water easier when in a salty environment. This also means a shark may enter fresh water, though it will need time to accumulate since regulation takes time and does not occur immediately. Due to this ability to osmoconform, sharks can populate a variety of environments. On several occasions, sharks have even swam up a large rivers such as the Amazon or the Mississippi river. Sharks have even been spotted as far up as Chicago, a long way from the ocean.

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.

Pangolins are mammals of the order Pholidota that look like scaly anteaters and have species that live in Asia and in Africa. They are the only known mammals to have large keratin scales covering their skin for protection and have a diet that consists of ants and termites. They are also the most trafficked animal in the world. The pangolins are threatened by poaching and deforestation and IUCN Red list classifies the extant species along a range of vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered.

The Pangolin is hunted for its meat and scales, both of which are revered in Asia. The scales are thought to possess medicinal qualities, even though they are made of keratin and are no different than human fingernails. As a result, a blackmarket has been created to buy and sell these animals. This creates one of the pressures that the pangolin is already facing. Along with loss of habitat, record numbers are being imported from Southeast Asia and Africa into China where their meat and scales are sold. As the Asian numbers decrease, more and more traffickers are turning to Africa to poach pangolins. Efforts are being made to stop poaching and resuscitate numbers, but it will take time and dedication, along with a change in the ideaology that these animals provide some miraculous remedy, so as to temper the black market.