Drafts

In the fungus cultivation portion of this lab, penicillium mold was grown onto two agar plates with variations in nutrient availability. Fresh potato dextrose agar (FPDA) and potato carrot agar (PCA) were the two media used to grow penicillium. FDPA is more nutrient rich than PCA, so it was expected that the penicillium mold would grow better on FPDA compared to PCA. Both plates were inoculated in the center of the agar with a dime sized circle of penicillium and left to incubate.

In 2017, the city experienced a record number of days that had at least a foot of snow on the ground. From November to early April, for 132 the city had at least one foot of snow. This beat the previous record of 120 days that was set in the winter of 1968-69 (Samenow, Jason. 2017). This example does not show a pattern of increased snowfall but it is an example of above average phenomena. Despite a warming winter, on average, Caribou is seeing a minor increase in snowfall. In general, a trend can not be seen in the snow departure anomalies in Figure 7, but since the mid 1990’s, there are more years with above average snowfall than years with below average snowfall (NOAA National Centers. 2016). Since 1950, 37 years had a higher than average snowfall and only 29 had a decrease. Since 1990, 18 years had a higher than average snowfall and 9 years with less than average. (NOAA National Centers. 2016). This shows a trend towards winters with increased snowfall.

The perfect paragraph assignment gave cause to less stress than the drafts because I felt relatively confident in my paragraph writing. With the drafts, it was a matter of reaching a quota, but I felt that each draft could have served as a perfect paragraph so writing one for submission was not going to be a problem. As I did the project, leaving comments on other paragraphs gave me a better view into my own writing. Looking at other people’s paragraphs and leaving comments aimed at helping improve them gave me a lens to view my own stylistic approaches to writing. I realized how I would set sentences up or how I would phrase something was different than others. I also found that sometimes I would leave a comment and realize that I could do a better job of looking out for the things I was commenting on too. This allowed me to better edit my own writing. Reading your own writing is usually difficult because you know what it is you are trying to convey, but by using a different viewpoint to edit your writing is helpful in evaluating if it is as easy to read as it could be.

The METHODS project intrigued me because I haven’t done anything similar to a project like this in college. I knew this project would be a good challenge for me to write methods in a concise and effective manner. I used to think that my writing was very wordy so going into this project I knew I needed to write many drafts for these methods until I found a description that explained my process of finding a spider web in the best way. Throughout my process of writing my methods, I found that my writing ended up clearer than I thought. This showed when my peer  replicated my methods; the replicate was very close to the original! As for the actual report, I was confused as to how to write my findings in an efficient way. It was interesting to determine the distinction between observations and inferences. The practice in writing about these observations was helpful in explaining the findings about the replicate photo without being repetitive or confusing. This project was also helpful in showing how paragraphs should be split up. I never realized how big of an affect splitting up paragraphs has on the flow of a scientific paper. I learned that it is important to keep alike topics in one paragraph, rather than scattering it throughout multiple paragraphs. I will keep this in mind when writing in the future. Overall, I think my classmates also enjoyed this project because it was interesting and fun to see how all of the other replicate figures turned out.

Writing perfect paragraphs each week helped me finalize a piece of writing for my peers to review. I was nervous at first to post my writing for others to see and comment on, but I slowly became more comfortable with it after seeing how helpful the comments were. As the semester went on, I got better at writing helpful comments rather than just complimenting everyone’s paragraphs. I noticed that most of the class had trouble with making the perfect paragraphs flow nicely with transition statements. It was interesting to see that there were some common factors that we all could have improved on. I liked the perfect paragraphs because I could see what I needed to improve on before turning in the assignments for some classes. I was able to use the revised paragraphs to hand in; I basically had free peer editing for my papers which was valuable. Revising my paragraphs also helped me understand and solidify my knowledge on a particular topic as some of the paragraphs were taken from notes in my classes. This was a very useful study technique throughout the semester. In the future, I will write out the material that I struggle with as if it is telling a story because I learned that this tactic was very useful for studying and understanding complicated concepts.

When we were first assigned to make about 6 drafts per week, I was a little intimidated. I was not sure if I would be able to write that much, especially since none of my other classes required much writing. At first I would work on exercises for the Writing in Biology for my draft entries as well as my Life After Biology seminar. I also would make draft entries for my Cellular and Molecular Biology class. With writing assignments, I often do not spend much time creating drafts or editing my work. Doing draft entries prevented me from procrastinating on most of my assignments. I think making several drafts allows us to reevaluate our work and make improvements over time. It can be challenging to see mistakes or room for improvement. Some weeks it was challenging for me to make enough drafts since sometimes I felt that my work came out well. Overall, I thought doing draft entries made me a better writer and helped me organize my thoughts and projects more efficiently.

The weekly drafts assignment asked for blog posts throughout the week. At first it seemed that the weekly posts would be a lot to handle, making daily posts about science can cover a wide ground. I thought it was going to be especially difficult because I was not taking biology related classes this semester. However, the posts helped me review other classes that I had previously taken and remember important details that I otherwise would not have had to remember. The assignment helped showcase the need to be able to write an effective paragraph in a short amount of time. This was not a daily essay, but a way to mark what had happened. This helped show how helpful it is to take notes from classes that are usually bulleted or sentences that don’t always have a complete flow and reorient them into a more condensed paragraph with clearer meaning. It is helpful to rewrite the notes this way because it gives a review and better understanding of the subject when you are the one who has to write about a something that was taught/told to you.

    For the research I am working on, I am analyzing the physical behaviors of actin and microtubules when cross-linked in various combinations and ratios. I analyze actin cross-linked to itself interacting with microtubules, microtubules cross-linked to themselves interacting with actin, actin and microtubules cross-linked to each other interacting, and actin and microtubules interacting with each other with no cross-linkers. I analyze how these differing combinations influence the behaviors of the actin and microtubules. The ratio of cross-linker used varies from 0.02 to 0.08.    

    In my analysis, I utilize FFTs (Fast Fourier Transform) of the microtubules and actin, and I analyze the data graphically and numerically using Excel and the data analysis application KaleidaGraph.

As concluded in the review, fish locomotion plays a role in ocean dynamics, especially in large scale movements like migrations, which contributes to the mixing of nutrients and temperature. Therefore, studies in fish kinematics can serve to conservation efforts by providing estimates for the fishing industry in order to avoid overfishing. Regarding the use of robot models for studying fish locomotion, they are useful for controlling certain parameters in an experimental setting, but do not portray the whole picture of such movements. In order to understand locomotion, researchers should take a holistic approach that considers often neglected factors like behaviors that enhance such movements.

The Giant kingfisher bat (Pteropus alcedinidus) is a member of the Pteropodidae family, of the order Chiroptera (bats). Members of this family are commonly referred to as megabats or fruit bats, and are characterized by their relatively large size. Like most bats in the Pteropodidae family, the Giant kingfisher bat has lost the ability to echolocate, and relies instead on its sight for locating food. Its diet consists mainly of fish that live in the mangroves and coast of the Malay Archipelago, but usually supplements it with fruit during the weeks previous to the mating season.

This species is unique among bats because it is the only one that dives into the water for catching its prey. Its unusual beak-shaped snout, which resembles the beak of a kingfisher, provides streamlining and minimizes the impact against the surface to avoid displacing water and scaring away fish. Unlike most mammals, which have seven cervical vertebrae, the Giant kingfisher bat has five cervical vertebrae and they are surrounded by thick layers of soft tissue. This gives the bat a shorter neck with a shock absorption mechanism that greatly reduces the risk of injury when penetrating the water.

Pteropus alcedinidus has also developed a series of adaptations for navigating underwater during short periods of time. Its nostrils and reduced ears close underwater, and due to having its eyes protected by a full nictating membrane it mostly relies on its highly sensitive long whiskers for detecting its prey or other obstacles. Nonetheless, this species has good vision on land and uses it for detecting potential prey and fruit instead of echolocation, which has been lost in favor of smaller ears that provide better streamlining.

In order to catch fish, the Giant kingfisher bat soars over the water taking advantage of the high aspect ratio of its wings to save energy. When it localizes its prey, the bat plunges into the water and uses its sensitive whiskers to catch it. In order to move towards the surface, special fibers in the patagium or wing membrane of the bat get harder and serve as a paddle to displace water more efficiently. The unusually high number of mitochondria in its cells, along with a highly vascularized tissue, enable the bat to power its muscles to rise to the surface and fly into the sky once again.