Writing in Biology

Throughout the United States and world history, there have been many disputes over how much control government officials should have over reproductive bodies. Although women are said to have autonomy over their bodies, they are often thought of as unable to govern themselves properly and therefore should be expected to hand over this control to legislators. A specific disagreement that has been going on for decades now is the question of abortion rights and legality. Historically, even when abortions were made illegal, it did not necessarily decrease the rate in which women were getting them. Although Roe v. Wade made abortion nationally legal in 1973, hundreds of restrictive laws have been passed by states in efforts to make abortion as inaccessible as possible. There are many factors that influence a person’s access to abortion resources such as gender identity, culture, race, socioeconomic status, and religion, which most specifically stem from the political policies that are in place.

The first recrystallization had a 30.02% recovery.  While this percent recovery is rather low, this recrystallization likely got rid of a significant amount of impurities that were incorporated in or on the crystals after the crude weight was obtained.  From the first recrystallization to the second recrystallization, a 72.4 3recovery was obtained.  In comparison to the percent recovery obtained from the first recrystallization, this yield is quite high.  This second recrystallization likely got rid of any remaining impurities, and product may have also been lost during the transfer of materials. 

            While the percent recovery of the first recrystallization was low, the melting point obtained from this purified sample, 52-54 °C, was not too far from the standard melting point, 56-57 °C.  The melting point obtained from this first recrystallization was indicative that the sample obtained was impure as the melting point obtained was greater than 2 °C lower than the standard melting point.  However, after the second recrystallization was conducted, the melting point of was 55-57 °C.  The melting point found experimentally aligns nicely with the expected melting point, meaning that these crystals were very pure.  Not only does this second recrystallization affirm the fact that multiple recrystallizations yield purer products, but it also confirms the identity of the extracted product since melting point is a physical property of a substance.

The air condenser was attached to the round bottom flask, and the solution was placed on the sand bath.  The flask gently boiled for 10 minutes and was then removed from the heat, allowing the solid within the flask to settle to the bottom.  During this time, a pressure filtration was set up.  Once the solid in the flask had settled to the bottom, the condenser was removed from the flask, and the liquid within the flask was transferred to a 25-mL Erlenmeyer flask (25.5g) by pressure filtration.  To the remaining solid in the round bottom flask, 2 mL of fresh TBME was added, and the flask was reheated for an additional three minutes on the sand bath.  The liquid in the round bottom flask was again removed via pressure filtration and placed into the same 25-mL Erlenmeyer flask.   The solvent in the Erlenmeyer flask was evaporated by passing a stream of air over the flask while the flask was also being warmed.  A pale yellow product remained in the flask once the solvent had evaporated, and the flask was allowed to sit and dry for an additional five minutes.  

The primary energy source for the body is glucose. However, fatty acid metabolism yeilds more energy per carbon. This is largely because a fatty acid is more reduced than a glucose molecule. That is, it can be oxidized more, having its electrons stripped and therefore yielding more energy. Fatty acid synthesis typically yeilds a chain of 16 carbons (via fatty acid synthase). Overall the oxidation of a fatty acid yeilds 6 ATP, 31 NADH and 15 FADH2. Glucose on the other hand yeilds 4 ATP, 10 NADH and 2 FADH2. The additional FADH2 and NADH can be used in the ETC to generate ATP. This energy excess from glucose produces a total of 28 ATP from the ETC, while fatty acid oxidation (from a 16 carbon chain) will yield 100 ATP from the ETC. This averages out to about 5.3 ATP per carbon in a glucose molecule and 6.6 ATP per carbon in a fatty acid molecule.

Prosocial behavior is defined that the behavior that creates a positive outcome and can include factors of cooperation, communication and helping. This behavior was studied by scientists after the tragedy in New York of a young woman being stabbed on the street while 30 bystanders stood and watched. Scientists questioned why the bystanders did not try to help the young woman in trouble, to which the bystanders stated that they assumed someone else was calling the police. It was determined that the “diffusion of responsibility” led to these bystanders to fail to help in a large crowd. While this information was interesting to scientists, it was not enough to determine why this woman why stabbed so many times without anyone calling for help. This bystander intervention research gives insight to the factors that affect someone’s ability or probability to help another person in danger. Many experiments were designed to study the diffusion of responsibility and how it is affected by different variables. 

There have been numerous studies on spider silk and silk characteristics as well as their
applications towards creating new technology. Spider silk is extremely thin, the largest silk fibers
being only 5-10 μm. Some can be as thin as only 50 nm, making spider silk very difficult to
measure. Although spider webs are very thin and flexible, they are remarkably strong. The
tensile strength of spider webs is comparable to steel, with strength as high as 1.75 GPa. (5)
Due to the small size of spider silk, there have been few studies on how its properties
can be exploited, and even replicated. A common tool used to measure spider silk is using a
microscope. In an experiment done by researchers at UCLA (1), light microscopy was used to
compare spider silk from different species. In this study, spider silk was stretched out on a
microscope slide. The silk was then measured using a micrometer to obtain its diameter. This
method was used in several different studies to measure the diameter of spider silk in different
conditions, allowing for researchers to compare each silk effectively.​

The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord. The two types of tissues that makes up the central nervous systems are grey matter and white matter. The grey matter contains the cell bodies as well as dendrites and unmyelinated axons. This gray matter is the processing region of the brain. It also consists of regions in the brain that deal with motor control and sensory perception. These regions affect the senses such as seeing and hearing, as well as self-control, memory, emotions and decision making. White matter is composed of myelinated axons, and their job is to transmit signals between neurons and connect the gray matter areas to each other. Gray matter is typically found near the surface areas of the brain whereas white matter is found in the brain cortex’s inner layer. 

The carbon gases can be removed from the atmosphere and deposited in the land, but it is also known that there is a carbon process that involves the soils at surface level. Soil carbon is a large pool of terrestrial carbon and holds more than the atmosphere or that is held in biomass. Understanding how the soil carbon is cycled can help in any process in trying to keep it sequestered in the soil so that it is not released back into the atmosphere. One study took this outlook to compare the soil carbon pools at deforested coal mines to those that had been reclaimed. The reclaimed mines had been purposely afforested and were compared to the unreclaimed sites that remained barren and to older forests. The investigation into the differences in the carbon flow at the sites showed that there was an increase in carbon dioxide flux at the reclaimed sites, which was attributed to a higher root biomass presence. This increased the soil respiration rate, which is better for the reclamation of the environment and the eventual means to sequester carbon dioxide

It is important to remember that the plus end and minus end do not reflect the charge of the microtubules. While polymerization occurs at both the plus and minus ends, polymerization occurs much more quickly at the plus end. Additionally, the alpha subunits are exposed at the minus end while beta subunits are exposed at the plus end. I wonder if the alpha or beta subunits have any influence the speed of polymerization. We talked a little bit about the gamma tubulin in class. y-tubulin plays an important role in microtubule development since it initiates the nucleation/formation of microtubules. Since it initiates formation, the y-tubulin complex is located in the centrosome. It makes sense that it would be located in the centrosome since that is where spindle production occurs. If there is a mutation at this complex, microtubules will most likely not form properly and possibly lead to improper chromosome segregation.

The chamber that is used in each experiment is similar to avoid variability that could skew the results. Spiders can easily live in small, enclosed areas. Yet, spiders thrive in a playful environment to prevent boredom. This is why two sticks are placed in each chamber. This will ensure that the spiders have a suitable, controlled environment to create webs and live efficiently.