Drafts

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.

The order Lampriformes is largely catagorized by morphological features. Fishes in this order have a Mesethmoid bone posterior to their lateral ethmoids, an elongated premaxilla, their first dorsal pterygiphore insterts anterior to their first neural spine and have the absence of a platine prong. Oarfish, Lampris and apahs are all examples of Lampriformes. The giant orfish, of the family Regalecidae is known as the king of the herrings. This fish is a very elongate and slab sided. The giant oarfish has a tube shaped mouth, which it uses to suck in its prey. Furthermore it has a very large eye and red fins. The most notable feature of the Giant Oarfish is its crownlike spines on the top of its head, which are fused with its dorsal fin and follows the entire length of its body. The Giant Oarfish is a very large fish and can reach up to 11 meters in length. Its body stays ridgid as it swims, but sends sin waves down its long dorsal fin to propell itself. There is a notable absence of scales on the oarfish as well.

As a scientist, it is important to have a comprehensive knowledge of the ecological, behavioral, physiological, and evolutionary factors that affect the organisms of an ecosystem and their interactions. For example, if we look at a crab spider on flower in a field, we can study its predator-prey interactions with bees, the evolution and physiology of its color-changing mechanisms, or its defensive behavior towards potential predators like birds. The initial work of this course will build my knowledge on the biology of tropical environments, which will allow me to design and carry out my own project in an actual tropical field site. The ability to develop an experimental design, testing it, and later analyzing the results, is a fundamental skill for graduate school that this course will help me to improve.

It makes sense that G1 cells would be able to replicate while G2 cell would not be able to. Even when a signal for replication is present, G2 will not replicate. I would think that the G2 cells must have a signal or something that indicates that it has passed certain checkpoints, such as the DNA replication checkpoint at the end of S phase. The ORC is a multi-subunit SNA binding complex that binds to the orgins of replication in all eukaryotes. It is made up of 6 subunits and ATP is needed for binding to occur. The subunits are encoded by ORC 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The ORC is active at the end of mitosis and early G1, which makes sense for replication. While it is highly unlikely since so many different complexes and proteins are involved, what happens if re-replication occurs after S phase? Is this even possible at all? It makes sense that Cdk activity reduces to zero so chromosomes are ready for a new round of replication. It reminds me of a "reset" button.