Drafts

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.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Germany captured 15 frigatebirds in order to prove that this was actually happening. They monitored their brains to visualize what their brain activity was like during the long flights.  An electroencephalogram (EEG), was implanted to record brain wave activity on the two hemispheres of the brain. A 3-D accelerometer was used as well to monitor brain activity and the movement of the birds’ heads. The birds also had a GPS tracking device implanted in order to determine whether or not the bird was flying above water, or located on land.

The aim of this study is to determine if there is a relationship present between spider body weight and spider silk thickness among Pholcus-pholcidae,commonly known as cellar spiders. This experiment tested the effect of spider weight on the thickness of spider silk. Discovering the various factors that contribute to differences in spider web characteristics, such as thickness, could help us learn more about the factors that contribute to their extreme elasticity and could be useful for material engineering of a material that is both strong and soft . Previous studies have shown that there is some variation in spider silk diameters, as well as the mechanical characterization of spider silk . Light-microscopy is a proven method to study the differences between objects that are small, such as spider silk, and will be used in this study to measure the diameter differences. In this experiment, six spiders were weighed at the beginning of the experiment and they spun webs for 3 days after being weighed. After the third day, the thickness of an individual strand of silk from each web was measured using a microscope and micrometer. The measurements of weight and silk thickness were compared to determine if a relationship existed between the two factors.

I never really considered how gene therapy and editing could ultimately lead to a transformation society values, economic status, injustice, and more. If gene therapy becomes more popular in the medical field, the division of classes will be even more noticeable. A lot of gene therapy costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, so only very wealthy people can get cured for certain diseases and disabilities. Is this fair to allow only the top 1% to get cured for these things? It is hard to know, because many people cannot afford chemotherapy for cancer, which is such a common treatment in our society. Also, I have heard the idea about using gene therapy to help parents decide the appearance of their children. While it is good to know if a future child is likely ro have a condition such as Down syndrome, is it ethically okay for us to start picking and choosing characteristics we like for our children? How would a child feel about finding out their parents put them together like a Sims character?

This property must be due to a conformational shift in the tubulin that causes it to lose some affinity for its binding partner in polymerization. This is an excellent mechanism to utilize for dynamic instability because it is not too complex and can occur quickly within the cell. In addition, the cap is an important part of this process because it prevents the microtubule to completely degrade.

One of the most fascinating qualities of Tau protein is its incredible stability. Even in its regular form, Tau protein can withstand the heat of boiling and not denature. When the protein begins forming aggregates, it becomes even more difficult to denature and researchers believe that this property contributes to the mechanism by which tau build-up kills other cells in its vicinity. It takes up excess space and essentially suffocates the cell.

While I realize that microtubules are involved in the process of motility in cells, I always thought that actin filaments were the primary driver. As described here, the microtubule push outward onto the cell membrane and cause the cell to move. Perhaps microtubules are more involved in the directionality of the movement, rather than specifically generating the force necessary for the cell to move. That would leave actin as the protein with the purpose of generating the force required.

This concept is one of the most interesting jobs of microtubules in my opinion. Especially because no one fully understands how they influence gene regulation. I've heard that microtubules in the cytoskeleton form in a specific way once the cell differentiates and results in certain regions of the DNA to be unreadable. Therefore, each cell type will have a specific set of protein that it is able to transcribe and translate. The DNA that a given cell has access to after differentiation is dictated by the microtubule cytoskeleton and accounts for the proteins that give each cell type its specific identity.

This is really interesting because of the differences between eukaryotic DNA segregation and plasmid segregation. Plasmids a essentially circular pieces of DNA the attach at both ends. The plasmid is generally condensed, very similar to how a rubber band twists up. The potential energy stored in the condensed plasmid configuration can be used to propagate certain interactions. Since our cells utilize microtubules in chromosomal segregation, I wonder how microtubules interact with plasmids; their structure is very different, so I imagine their segregation is similarly different when compared to DNA.

The amino acid chemistry of Beta-tubulin must make it more conducive to the propagation of microtubule growth. Since it is a GTPase, perhaps it has a higher affinity for GTP and consequently more likely to bind to another tubulin protofilament than the alpha or minus end. It's interesting because there is still addition to the microtubule from the minus end, just not as much as the plus end.

I wonder what benefit the alpha-beta seam found in many microtubules does. If it is a regularly occurring molecular orientation utilized by cells, then there must be a purpose for it. Perhaps it enhances the flexibility of the microtubule, either positively or negatively, as a way to regulate its function. For example, sometimes microtubules need to be more rigid than normal, and sometimes the opposite is true.

An example of an intricate three-dimensional shape taken by RNA is the ribosome. Although it is more than just RNA, a large part of its structure is made of it. There are other structural and functional proteins involved, but it’s interesting to think about. The ribosome reads mRNA, a more specialized RNA molecule, and translates it to an amino acid chain.

This idea relates back to the difference in hydrogen bonding between nucleotide pairs. Because the AT pair has only two hydrogen bonds and CG has three, it requires more energy to break apart a strand of DNA that has a majority of CG pairs. Thus, it requires more heat to denature DNA of this nature and less heat to denature a majority AT strand of DNA.

I know that the interior of the microtubule is not believed to have serve a function, but I just think that its strange that it's entirely hollow. Just based on the tubulin composition, I would assume that there is some type of electrostatic interaction that exists on the interior of the microtubule, like hydrogen bonds of ionic interactions. Another idea is that perhaps the reagents needed for GTP hydrolysis of the microtubule are able to flow through in interior and increase the rate, affecting dynamic instability. Of course, it could just be as simple as we suspect.