Drafts

Tokyo is susceptible to flooding even with the smallest amounts of abnormal rain, so any increase could lead to flooding. The average rainfall in Tokyo is shown in Figure 1. Japan has a drier winter than it does summer and has most of its rainfall in September. When the flooding occurred in July, the water levels were already higher on average than they were previously in the year since the summer and fall is wetter than the winter. So the rainfall that occurred in July had a larger impact than it would have had in January when average precipitation is lower. This is because the water tables are more full in July, so excess water does not have as many places to go. However, the flooding was not as detrimental as it might’ve been come September.

   An experiment to determine the effects of gene complementation when a mutation occurs was performed on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or as it is known better by its common-use name, Yeast. The mutation was induced by UV radiation, and complementation was observed by the crossing of the resulting mutants. It was found that when there is no adenine present in a growth medium, diploid yeast cells crossed from mutant haploid cells do not grow unless there is complementation. The resulting experiment shows this through plating two haploid strands of yeast, MATa, and MATα to form diploid cells. 

Original figure created by me. (A) The campus map cropped to include a small area around the Student Union, which is circled in red. (B) The whole front of the student Union is pictured in this horizontal image that I took, including all four of the pots in front of it. The pot which the spider is on is circled in red.  (C)The specific pot on which the spider is located is pictured, which 2 thick, vertical, red arrows indicating the location of the spider on the pot in between the vertical ridges in the center of the pot. (D) This is the close up, final image of the spider on the pot. The spider is circled in red.

Replicate figure created by classmate. (A) The campus map is cropped to include a large area around the Student Union. The student Union is not circled. (B) The front of the Student Union is pictured. The photo is vertical, so only part of the building horizontally is pictured. (C)The location of the spider on the pot. 2 slanted, horizontal arrows depict the location of the spider, inside a circular ridge at the top of the pot. (D) The final zoomed in image. The circular ridge of the pot is shown, and there is no real spider in the image but a cartoon one is drawn in and circled in red.

Cell signaling is how our cells communicate. Our cells must constantly be receiving cells signals to survive, otherwise they will die. Other than signals to survive or die, our cells also receive signals to do things like differentiate, grow and to divide. Cells are not limited to receiving one signal at a time and in fact don’t, receiving multiple signal at the same time. It is possible for the same signal to be received by the same receptor on cells but depending on what the cell type is will affect the outcome in the cell. This allows for one stimulus to apply a signal that many different cells can receive and can cause different actions. Longer pathways allow for more outcomes from a signal. Signal amplification can be applied to signals that travel along multiple steps in a transduction cascade and with more components in the pathway there can be more crosstalk. However, shorter step pathways are still helpful when a signal needs to be transduced fast.

From the equation, we can interpret that this line is a linear function through its equation by following through the basic equation mx+b. Our represents the slope and is the measured steepness of a line between the original point Y which is  4 units vertically. If we had a different equation as we can also graph it as a linear function because it follows our mx+b format. We would first find our Y axis and follow the units down from 0 to negative 6. Negative 6 is our Y intercept, there are two ways we can graph this equation we can either move up three units vertically and move 9 units horizontally OR reduce our given fraction m(x) and y-intercept since they all share a common factor of 3. So our new equation can begin again as  like our previous statement this equation follows the mx+B rule 2 units down from the original negative two units we graph our second point 1 unit up and 3 units across creating a new slope. 

One way that plant life can be conserved strictly through ecology is that nature maintains a diverse, healthy environment. By maintaining a balanced environment, plants will obtain the nutrients and elements needed to complete their full life cycle and provide their benefits efficiently. Even in times of a natural disaster, plants will continue to produce the nutrients needed to sustain the environment. One way in which ecology cannot conserve plant life on it’s own is when human impact kills off populations of plants. Due to resource demand and growing architecture, forests are being destroyed. This wipes out hundreds of plant species at a time. Knowing all of the benefits plants have to nature, their absence affects multiple factors of the environment. Plants play an extremely important role in the balance of nature and it is important that we conserve their presence.

Introductory Statistics is a course that all UMass biology majors must take, but many students do not remember much from it. I took Introductory Statistics at my old school about three years ago. Thinking back, I do not remember a lot. In the class I took we were given formula sheets so a lot of the formulas we used were not necessary to remember. In addition, I remember almost everything we did was just punching things into a calculator. Some things I remember looking at were baseball stats and probability. For example, we spent some time looking at the Monte Hall problem. I also remember looking at distributions. We learned about the empirical rule and how statistics fit into it. For the empirical rule I remember 68.26% of data falls within 1 standard deviation, 95.44% in 2 standard deviations, and 99.73% in 3 standard deviations. Although I am a biology major, math has never been a really fun or interesting subject for me. 

The concept of memory is still a highly researched subject for many scientists. It is often wondered how humans can use their memory to draw details from the past. A common misconception states that memories are like playing a video back in one’s head; memories are mostly broken pieces of information stringed together. Researchers found that it is easy to skew memory or make humans remember a memory incorrectly. When asking a witness if they remember something on a scene, using the phrase “the object” versus “a object” is more likely to make them remember something that did not technically happen. For this reason, it is thought that memories are theoretical ideas that can be persuaded one way or another. These questions contain presumptions. A presumption is a way of thinking about the situation that makes the question understandable. This idea explains that the way a question is worded when asking to recall a memory is very influential in persuading an answer one way or another. The integration of new information into a memory is a tactic that can affect ethics and law. For example, prosecutors may ask questions worded a certain way that will force the witness to recall the memory incorrectly. The new information added to a memory may not be true. 

The pencil used in the replicated version is different from the pencil I used in my multi-panel figure. I noticed that the pencil in the replicated figure is a completely different pencil and it is facing a different direction than the original. My partner used a mechanical pencil while I used a ticonderoga pencil. This is most likely due to the fact that my partner did not have a ticonderoga pencil to use. Additionally, the tip of the pencil is pointed towards the radiator in my original figure while it is pointed away from radiator in the replicate. This could be because the person who replicated the photo estimated 15 degrees differently than I did.

A protein can continually react in the cell unless the cell receives a signal to stop. Then the cell is able to hinder the performance of the protein until it is needed again, thus avoiding having to waste the energy in destroying the protein when not in use and then transcribing and translating a new protein. Post-translational modifications affect an already made protein and are able to regulate that proteins function. Types of post-translational modifications include ubiquitination, phosphorylation and acetylation. Different modifications cause different results in different proteins, but the end result is a modification of the proteins original function. Post-translational modifications are not only for stopping a proteins actions, but also can also cause conformational changes and lead to active states. Nucleotide bonding and hydrolysis can work together in proteins to counterbalance each other. For instance, in the Ras protein, hydrolysis causes the bound GTP to lose a phosphate group and causes Ras to enter an inactive state. Nucleotide bonding acts to replace the now GDP with GTP when the protein needs to be active again. Regulating proteins is essential to making sure the cell runs properly and efficiently. Post-translational modifications are one of the ways this is accomplished.