Drafts

    To find a spiderweb on the UMass campus, I had to go through many trials and errors. The first spiderweb I found was too small for my phone to recognize. I had to go search for a bigger (more-defined) spider web. After a few days of searching, I found a spider web on the side of the Lederle Graduate Research center. On the section facing the main road (N Pleasant St), there was a spider web at about hip height.

    Photographing this web was quite difficult. I had to try to photograph it at several angles, with and without flash. I found that flash worked the best in making the web visible on in my photo. I had to angle the phone so that the camera was parallel to the main part of the spider web.

    To create the figure, I gathered the location of the spider web on openmaps.eu and my photo of the spider web and put them in the Inkscape app. I put the map on the left side and the photo of the web on the right side. Then, I created labels to point out where the location of the spider web was, along with a label that highlighted the spider web on the photo.

Sharks are osmoconformers. That is, they actively regulate their internal salinity to match the salinity of their outside environment. In most organisms the kidney regulates internal salt levels. While sharks have kidney’s there is an additional organ which aids in their salt regulation, the rectal gland. The rectal gland receives hormonal inputs, mainly from Angiotensin-II and 1-a-hydrxicorticosterone (1a-OHB), the latter of which is only found in Elasmobranchs such as sharks and rays. When receiving these signals, the rectal gland will shut off blood flow and retain osmolytes, which contain solutes. Through this process, a shark may match its environments salinity, perhaps even exceed it which allows it to take in water easier when in a salty environment. This also means a shark may enter fresh water, though it will need time to accumulate since regulation takes time and does not occur immediately. Due to this ability to osmoconform, sharks can populate a variety of environments. On several occasions, sharks have even swam up a large rivers such as the Amazon or the Mississippi river. Sharks have even been spotted as far up as Chicago, a long way from the ocean.

Methods:

I entered Morrill 2 from the front of the building, the side facing the rest of campus. I went up one flight of stairs and walked to the back stairwell and left through that door. I was now facing the area of campus where Frank dining hall is. At 9:55 in the morning, I took a picture of the spider web in the bottom left corner of the glass door. I was standing outside and saw a web in the corner of the glass frame. I squatted like a duck and held the back of my ucard up to the web, at this time there was a little spider. I held my ucard so that the back was facing me and the Ucard logo was at the top, I held it vertically. In the image, the ucard is on the left of the spider web and the ucard was held up to the metal corner of the window frame so that it was touching. The black rubber edging of the glass is about centered in the picture I took. I then backed up and stood on the curb where the sidewalk ends that is directly across from the doors and took a picture that shows the entire doorway and part of the building. For the map, I googled “umass amherst campus map” on my iphone and clicked on the first link which brought me to a pdf of the campus, in the upper left hand corner it said “UMass Amherst General Location Campus Map September 2018”. I took a screenshot of this and then in my photos I edited this and cropped the image so that it showed only the Integrative Learning Center, the campus pond, the Fine Arts Center, Morrill Science Center and Wilder, University Club, Shade Tree Lab and Clark. I then clicked on the three little dots in a circle on the edit screen and chose the highlighter marker and made it red. I then made a circle around Morrill 2 and made a dot near the back entrance where I took the pictures of the spider.

Once I had all the pictures I emailed them to myself and opened them in Inkscape. They all opened individually so I copied and pasted two of the images into one of the inkscapes so that this inkscape had all 3 images. The picture of the campus map was placed in the top left corner right next to the image of the doors to Morrill. Underneath those two I placed the picture of the spider web. The map was located with position x=2.170, y=1124.41 and had a height of 508.249 and a width of 421.103. The image of Morrill had a position x=423.046, y=1124.41 and a width of 421.103 and a height of 508.249. The image of the spider had position x=2.170, y= -1.492 and a height of 1128.872 and a width of 841.979. Overall, all three images were positioned at x=2.170, y= -1.492, a height of 1634.161 and a width of 841.979. Each image had a letter in size 48 sans serif black font. The map had the capital letter “A” located at x=30, y=1550. The Morrill had the capital letter “B” located at x=450, y= 1550. The spider image had a capital letter “C” located at  x=30 and y=1055. I then saved the final image.

Pangolins are mammals of the order Pholidota that look like scaly anteaters and have species that live in Asia and in Africa. They are the only known mammals to have large keratin scales covering their skin for protection and have a diet that consists of ants and termites. They are also the most trafficked animal in the world. The pangolins are threatened by poaching and deforestation and IUCN Red list classifies the extant species along a range of vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered.

The Pangolin is hunted for its meat and scales, both of which are revered in Asia. The scales are thought to possess medicinal qualities, even though they are made of keratin and are no different than human fingernails. As a result, a blackmarket has been created to buy and sell these animals. This creates one of the pressures that the pangolin is already facing. Along with loss of habitat, record numbers are being imported from Southeast Asia and Africa into China where their meat and scales are sold. As the Asian numbers decrease, more and more traffickers are turning to Africa to poach pangolins. Efforts are being made to stop poaching and resuscitate numbers, but it will take time and dedication, along with a change in the ideaology that these animals provide some miraculous remedy, so as to temper the black market.

In biome 2 the temperature pattern is quite unique when held alongside the biomes of Earth. The average annual temperature sits around 3 degrees Celsius which when compared to biomes present on Earth is somewhat close in nature to temperate deciduous forests (average annual temperature usually around 7.6 degrees Celsius), yet this biome is still on average colder. The overall pattern while it does follow that of the other temperate biomes (forest and grassland) in directionationality and cold winters, it does not reach the same heights. Precipitation follows a consistent pattern similar to the deciduous forest, however the levels of precipitation are on par with that of a rainforest, having almost double the amount of total annual precipitation when compared to a deciduous forest. These two factors of precipitation and temperature would most likely lend themselves to a highly unique environment that would have seasonal changes and at points freezing temperatures with massive amounts of moisture.

For biome 1 the temperature pattern is quite similar to that of temperate shrublands and woodlands. In this mysterious biome, through the winter months of December, January, and February (in respect to the northern hemisphere) temperature is typically lower when compared to the summer months of May, June, July, and August in which temperatures reach approximately 25 degrees Celsius. This most closely mirrors the change in temperature of the temperate shrublands and woodlands, with the temperature change being extremely similar in pattern and nature, alongside the fact that the temperatures themselves are only marginally different. Even comparing the average annual temperature of this biome 13 degrees Celsius, to the average annual temperature of Gerona, Spain, which is decidedly a temperate shrubland and woodland and has an average annual temperature of 16.7 degrees Celsius the 3 degree Celsius difference is small.

Precipitation wise this biome on the newly discovered planet is almost an average between that of temperate shrublands and woodlands and savanna. The total annual precipitation of Coxim, Brazil a tropical forest and savanna is 1,493mm, and the total annual precipitation of Gerona, Spain is 747mm. When these two total annual precipitation rates are averaged a total annual precipitation of 1120mm which is relatively close to the total annual precipitation of the alien planet which rests at 1024mm . The precipitation pattern is also reflective in ways of these two different biomes, this new biome experiences a significant drop off during the summer months which occurs in both the temperate shrublands and woodlands and the savanna which typically reflects a dry season.

Temperature and precipitation in this new biome interact together in this environment to create a significant dry season. While precipitation is high in the non-summer months when temperature is relatively cool, sufficient for plant growth, during the summer months when temperature rises precipitation drops drastically. This drop in precipitation has serious implications for the biome with increased occurrence of droughts and fires and come along with rising temperatures.

This biome is most likely relatively close in nature to temperate shrublands and woodlands found here on Earth. The combination of its temperature and precipitation patterns lend themselves to a biome that has a significant summer,dry season and wet,colder winters that affect plant life. Evergreen-like shrubs and trees most likely are found across this landscape due to their ability to survive dry, hot summers with tough leaves which are able to grow and photosynthesize even under dry conditions. Fires would also be a prevalent force in this biome due to high temperature and low precipitation in the winter, these fires would reduce larger tree life that might be a product of the high levels of precipitation that would occur in the non-summer months. Latitudinally this biome would most likely be found between 30 degrees and 40 degrees North, which mirrors that of similar temperate shrublands on Earth.

For biome 1 the temperature pattern is quite similar to that of temperate shrublands and woodlands. In this mysterious biome, through the winter months of December, January, and February (in respect to the northern hemisphere) temperature is typically lower when compared to the summer months of May, June, July, and August in which temperatures reach approximately 25 degrees Celsius. This most closely mirrors the change in temperature of the temperate shrublands and woodlands, with the temperature change being extremely similar in pattern and nature, alongside the fact that the temperatures themselves are only marginally different. Even comparing the average annual temperature of this biome 13 degrees Celsius, to the average annual temperature of Gerona, Spain, which is decidedly a temperate shrubland and woodland and has an average annual temperature of 16.7 degrees Celsius the 3 degree Celsius difference is small.

Precipitation wise this biome on the newly discovered planet is almost an average between that of temperate shrublands and woodlands and savanna. The total annual precipitation of Coxim, Brazil a tropical forest and savanna is 1,493mm, and the total annual precipitation of Gerona, Spain is 747mm. When these two total annual precipitation rates are averaged a total annual precipitation of 1120mm which is relatively close to the total annual precipitation of the alien planet which rests at 1024mm . The precipitation pattern is also reflective in ways of these two different biomes, this new biome experiences a significant drop off during the summer months which occurs in both the temperate shrublands and woodlands and the savanna which typically reflects a dry season.

Temperature and precipitation in this new biome interact together in this environment to create a significant dry season. While precipitation is high in the non-summer months when temperature is relatively cool, sufficient for plant growth, during the summer months when temperature rises precipitation drops drastically. This drop in precipitation has serious implications for the biome with increased occurrence of droughts and fires and come along with rising temperatures.

For biome 1 the temperature pattern is quite similar to that of temperate shrublands and woodlands. In this mysterious biome, through the winter months of December, January, and February (in respect to the northern hemisphere) temperature is typically lower when compared to the summer months of May, June, July, and August in which temperatures reach approximately 25 degrees Celsius. This most closely mirrors the change in temperature of the temperate shrublands and woodlands, with the temperature change being extremely similar in pattern and nature, alongside the fact that the temperatures themselves are only marginally different. Even comparing the average annual temperature of this biome 13 degrees Celsius, to the average annual temperature of Gerona, Spain, which is decidedly a temperate shrubland and woodland and has an average annual temperature of 16.7 degrees Celsius the 3 degree Celsius difference is small.

Transcriptomes are the sum total of all the messenger RNA molecules expressed from the genome. Transcript/ gene isoforms are mRNAs that are produced from the same stretch of DNA but differ in stability and translational efficiency and potentially function since they have different transcription start sites, protein-coding DNA sequence, or UTRs. This paper goes into analysis of the drosophila transcriptome and proves that the drosophila genome is much more complex than previously imagined. This complexity arises from three sources: promoter, splice sites, polyadenylation sites.

Figure 4 looks into tissue- and sex-specific splicing in drosophila. Transcript diversity: over half of spliced genes encode two or more transcript isoforms. The researchers measured splicing efficiency through "per cent spliced in"- the fraction of isoforms that contain the particular exon. To examine the dynamics of splicing, switch scores are calculated for each splicing event, and examined tissue and sex-specific. Results show that most splicing events are highly tissue specific. Results also show that majority of the sex-specific splicing is due to tissue-specific splicing of tissues present specifically in either male flies (testes) or female flies (ovaries).

The task of finding a spider web on the UMass Campus was tricky. I had to look in weird, unbothered places to find a web. After days of keeping my eyes open, I found a spider web on the way from my class, on the side of the Lederle Graduate Research Center. I noticed that without light, the spider web was pretty hard to see. So to make the web visible in my photo, I took a picture with the flash on, several times, until the web was clearly visible in my photo. Then, I marked my exact location on my maps app (on my phone) to show exactly where I had found this spider web.