Drafts

(1).Another study described spider webs as depending upon the mechanical performance of capture threads, and states that web function arises from the architecture and mechanical performance of silk (3.) This study also used microscopy, and measured the web thickness of different web types: orb webs, funnel webs, dome webs, and irregular mesh webs. The different types of webs yielded different thicknesses on average, with orb webs being the thickest. Since spider webs must be strong enough to withstand the weight of the spider on the web, and be durable enough to support the spider’s movement, it is plausible that spider weight could also be a factor in web thickness, in addition to web type.   

Figure 1: This is the basic setup for the LED during this study. Multiple resistors and multiple different colors will be used.

Putting up a finished project onto a poster board to present has been a part of science forever now and some things constitute a good poster while others bad, and some combination can land most posters in between.  A scientific poster can be viewed as good to different people for different reasons, like the opinion of the article or if that's a field the reader is genuinely into. These are important but also some things across the board that make a good poster board are things such as, the title must sum up the experiment is an understandable way.  The bear minimum requirement for the title should be that, but a good title will also intrigue the reader and almost trap them into wanting to read the rest. The title “ Using zebrafish larval models to study brain injury, locomotor and neuroinflammatory outcomes following intracerebral haemorrhage [version 2; referees: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]” is a basic title, just getting the point across, barely simplifying it.  Compared to this title,

“Are we aiming to miss in translational autoimmunity treatments?[version 1; referees: awaiting peer review]” which involves the reader and tries to grab their interest with a question.   Another important aspect of a poster is the display of the data, if it is hard to see or make sense out of, the reader is more inclined to lose interest.  Having the entire project be displayed in such a manner that someone who has no clue on the subject can generally figure it out is the aim. This means using words that are not unique to the field of study or if used explaining them in everyday terms.  Another good key for quality posters is length, if the poster is too long it can scare readers away and if too short make them not see the point in the project. Many good things contribute to the quality of posters, these are just a few.

SIGNIFICANCE  

    The findings of this study will be very beneficial for multiple reasons. The data we collect will give us insight into the behavior and lives of the small cellar spiders that live in basements and homes right alongside humans. Today and going forward, LED lights are the new light bulb, they are more efficient, cheaper and easier to install and use. This means that the LED light will began to have a much larger presence in the outdoors as street lamps, lights in the park, etc.. With LEDs becoming more and more prominent and mixed into our surroundings, this study will show some of the effects LED lights can have on spiders creating their webs, eating, sleeping, and just their overall behavior. Comparing the results of this study to studies about regular light bulbs effects on spiders can be very useful  in helping decide where to put LEDs up, how intense to have them, and the schedule for the LEDs. Many people also face fears of spiders, both rational and irrational. Cellar spiders are one of the most common species of spiders to reside in homes and buildings. The results of this study could be helpful for people to repel spiders from living and coming into their homes and other place. Depending on the results of this study, potentially, differences in color, brightness, and/or the duration of LEDs could be used by anyone who wants keep spiders away.

There are some fish species which reproduce through parthenogensis. This may come in at least two froms, gynagenesis and hybridogenesis. One example of gynagenesis is with fish carrying monocha (M) and lucida (L) genes. Some females are triploid and carry MLL. These females will produce a triploid egg, also MLL. A diploid LL fish will release its L sperm in order to "fertilize" the MLL egg. There is actually no genetic transfer in this process, the sperm only stimulates the MLL egg. Once successfully stimulate, the egg activates and a new triploid MLL female (yes always female) fish is born. So where do males come from if all that is produced from this process is females? The normal diploid population, which is favored by diploid males. Therefore, there are two seperate populations. A diploid population of both males and females and a triploid population of all MLL female clones.

Each environment chamber will consist of a styrofoam box with a lid allowing for access to the enclosures and insulation of temperature. A thermometer will be attached to each environment chamber to ensure constant temperature. The room temperature chamber will have not have any additional materials. The other two environments will have modifications that allow for the control of temperature above and below room temperature(See Figure 2). For the cool condition, an additional layer of plastic will be placed above a layer of ice. The layer of plastic will have a hole in it to allow for replenishing of ice. Melted ice will drain from a hole at the bottom of the environmental chamber into a receptacle. The ice will ensure that the chamber will maintain a cold temperature for the enclosures within to be subjected to. For the warm condition temperature chamber, a heat lamp fixed above the box will maintain it at 25°C.

To determine the web production in each environment, the plastic cup enclosures will be weighed again once five days elapses. The initial weight will be subtracted from the final weight, which will give us the weight of each spider web produced over the course of the experiment. The difference in weight between the temperature groups will then be compared. Finally, a statistical analysis will be run to see if there is significant correlation between temperature and spider web production.

Previous research has found that web production is greatly decreased in the cold, thus we expect the cool condition to have the lowest web mass. This research concerns the effect of temperature on web production and can be related to the global shift in temperature. Global warming is altering the climate and resulting in temperatures that would be considered abnormal in the past. As a result, the behavior and localization of organisms will change. We plan to apply this to cellar spiders to observe how global temperature change may alter their behavior, specifically web production.

Our research aims to observe the effect of temperature on the production of cellar-spider webs. We plan to include nine spiders and evenly split them across our three conditions. Each spider will be kept in an enclosure based on a design from previous research and placed into one of the conditions. The enclosures will be weighed before they are put into their respective conditions and again when five days elapse. The three temperature conditions utilized for our experiment will include a cool condition, a room temperature condition, and a warm condition. These conditions will be kept at a constant temperature with the utilization of styrofoam boxes for insulation, a heat lamp for the warm condition, and cycling of ice for the cool condition.

 

The aim of this experiment was to explore the wide variety of organisms found in biofilms that form on toothbrushes. My lab partner’s used toothbrush was the source of these bacteria, and was sacrificed for the purposes of this experiment. The toothbrush head was cut off and placed into sterile saline to create a fluid suspension. An inoculum from the toothbrush-saline suspension was streaked onto TSA, SBA, MacConkey agar (MAC), Mitis-Salivarius agar, and CDC anaerobe blood agar plates. After incubating the plates, it was expected that each one would contain several different colonies that would allow the bacteria growing on the toothbrush to be directly observed.