Writing in Biology

Ethers can only react with HBr and HI.

If they ask for products you have to follow the table, while if they ask for the ingredients to prepare an ether you have to assign the less hindered side to the X. In the second case your alkyl halide can't be vinyl, phenyl, or tertiary.

In Claisen rearrangement you have a phenyl and an allyl on each side of the ether. You have to start numbering form the double bond towards the O, and then shift the double bond to carbons 2-3.

Epoxides:

If a reaction whose product is an epoxide has a reactant with an X you have to use NaOH/H-.

If there is no X, the reaction will happen if there is Ag2O/O3/300C or molecules with CO3.

The base always attacks the less hindered side.

Due to using intermediate flight speeds for calibration purposes, pectoralis power data for cockatiels and doves is overestimated at slow speeds and underestimated at fast speeds. A follow-up study could address this issue by using other calibration parameters that do not interfere with slow and fast speed data for pectoralis power. Apart from the pectoralis muscles, data from other relevant wing muscles was not recorded in this study, and the role of the tail in reducing power requirements at slow speeds was unaddressed. This could be easily solved by employing sonomicrometry and other techniques in the rest of the muscles involved with flight, and by analyzing the bird’s use of its tail when flying at slow speeds. Finally, the model struggled to accurately measure drag at faster speeds due to a gap in the knowledge of the components of total drag. This would require further studies in the aerodynamics of flight, perhaps by employing more advanced biophysics software or using new lab techniques that record the components of total drag.

After being separated for long periods of time, African Elephants have been recorded carrying out illustrious greeting ceremonies filled with vocalizations and actions. Its is hypothesized that the longer the elephants are separated, the more intense the ceremony is. Our group wants to decipher whether or not these ceremonies indicate overwhelming joy or not as recent studies have shown that elephants convey emotions similar to humans. Data on this subject is plentiful and can easily be found online and in scientific journals.

 

Whales communicate with each other at a very low frequency, almost undetectable to human ears. Orcas use various signals while hunting to isolate prey and effectively capture and kill it. As a group, we are asking how the Orca Whales establish a hierarchical dominance? And how they communicate with each other during the act of hunting? As of late, Orcas have been studied more regularly as the hunting behaviors are becoming more prevalent and aggressive without much explanation as to why. With only a quick Google Scholar search, we have uncovered papers, videos, and data sets that other behavioral scientists have gathered in order to better understand this phenomena. Below are links to videos and articles we found with preliminary information.

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.     

Some things I noticed that either make a poster better or decrease its quality:

• Adding too much information on the poster. I think this really distracts the reader and steers them away from important information. 
• The organization is one of the most important traits for a poster. 
• There are usually symbols that let the viewer know what affiliation the author has (university, company, etc…)
• Pictures are important if they are relevant to the poster content.
• I noticed that the design of the posters matters a lot more than I thought. 

The first poster I looked at was the “Mind-wandering in chronic pain and control participants during a smartphone-based mindfulness task” by M. A. Azam, MSc, V. Latman, MA, & J. Katz, PhD. I liked that it had color to break up the poster, but this was almost a necessity since it did not have a lot of figures or charts. It was mostly comprised of words, but each section was kept brief and had large text which made it easy to read. I liked that it was organized in columns and went from left to right, which made the flow easy to follow. The first figure they used was also made of mostly words and acted as a flow chart. Overall, the poster lacked an eye catching graphic or figure or something that would stand out amongst the columns of text that is provided.

The next poster I looked at was “Effects of socio-economic and cultural factors on the ALSFRS-R in South African ALS patients: A pilot study” by Anna Caroline M.A. Braga (MSc PT), Franclo Henning(MD). This poster had a different reading flow and instead of going left to right went from top to bottom. The middle of the poster that followed the methods and preceded the results was a nice break in the text and was mainly a series of graphics and flow charts that helped to explain the process and experiment. It was easy to look at and understand and didn’t have sentences. This was also the only section of the poster which had color which drew the eye to it immediately and held the attention. However, its only color was in a few directional arrows and overall the rest of the poster looked plain and no different than if a paper had just been expanded and printed out.

The third poster I looked at was “Implementation of wireless device to monitor cardiorespiratory response to aerobic exercise in ALS patients at home. A pilot study” by authors Anna Caroline M.A. Braga MSc PT, Anabela Cardoso Pinto MD PhD; Mamede de Carvalho, MD PhD. This poster was the most aesthetically pleasing, with a background color and multiple figures that were of different tables, charts and graphs. They put this in the middle of the poster which had the background, aim, methods, and two different boxes for exercise protocol and explaining a monitoring system. The bottom had the results/discussion grouped together and then the conclusions. The two written sections comprised about the same space and were thorough and brief.

Examples of stimulants include caffeine, cocaine, and amphetamines. These drugs turn on the flight response of the sympathetic nervous system; this makes sense as coffee is typically used to wake people up and make them more alert. One may notice that when they get nervous their stomach hurts. This is due to the effect on the digestive system that stimulants have. They turn off the sympathetic nervous system which can decrease appetite. These drugs are very addictive, and harmful drugs like cocaine can have detrimental effects on the brain. Some research has proven that one in five people who try cocaine become addicted to it. As for hallucinogens, these include examples of THC and LSD. These drugs typically distort perceptions and increase sensitivity to colors, sounds, tastes and smells. They can also evoke vivid images which is understood as the hallucinating aspect of the drug. They drugs can be used for medicinal reasons; for example, THC can aide chemotherapy patients in curbing nausea and increasing appetite. It can also aide in reducing chronic pain for patients which some health conditions. Some bad side effects of these drugs include a decrease in motor control, as well as a false sense of euphoria. This can make these drugs highly addictive as they help the body to relax. Additionally, research on hallucinogens has proven that THC can cause a decrease in fertility for men. 

Drugs affect the brain in various ways depending on the classification of the drug. Four main categories of drugs are depressants, narcotics, stimulants and hallucinogens. Depressants have certain effects on the brain and include tranquilizers, sedatives and hypnotics. Believe it or not, alcohol is a depressant. These drugs slow down brain functions and can lead to slower reflexes and coordination. They also decrease the flight response of the sympathetic nervous system. Not only do these drugs also interfere with self-awareness, but they affect memory as well. It is very dangerous to drive when taking a depressant such as alcohol due to the decrease in motor control and coordination. Additionally, due to the decrease in self-awareness, alcohol can be highly addictive for their relaxing characteristics. As for narcotics, they include morphine, heroin and fentanyl. These drugs are anti-anxiety drugs meaning they increase relaxation and drowsiness. They are used for pain reduction; they are commonly given to patients after surgical procedures. Narcotics unfortunately slow down physical activity and speech. When they wear off, they can induce extreme anxiety causing a desire for more of the drug to calm them down. 

Poster C has the most aesthetically visual format of this selection. Despite its unusual format, it has the perfect balance between words and figures, and it conveys its message in a clear and easy way to understand. At the bottom of this poster there is a QR code next to the contact information, inviting the reader to further interact with the poster by downloading it or reaching out to the authors, which is a great idea because this way it can potentially reach out more people than just the attendants of the conference.