Drafts

Quantifying communication will be done using bioacoustic analysis. For starters, sound is places in the air where molecules are compressed in some areas, and less compressed in others, these less compressed areas are called rarefractions. Sound is a change in air density, so what we hear is compression of air particles. We can measure the amplitude, which is the amount of energy. This is what we perceive as loudness. We can also measure frequency, which is what we perceive as pitch. Frequency is how often the sound wave occurs. A higher frequency occurs at a higher pitch. 

Many animals use sound as a form of communication, as do we. One of the most commonly studied form of animal communication is bird songs. They have been studied since the beginning of people studying how animals communicate because there are a lot of different variations and it is very easy to observe and record bird sounds. In birds, you can measure what is known as the band width by subtracting the lower frequency from the higher frequency. There is a longer difference in wide bandwidths and a smaller difference in short bandwidths. You can also measure the trill rate which is how often they create this noise. The trill is known as a high performance form of communication. There is a trade off between these two sounds becasue one cannot have a wide bandwidth as well a high trill rate, you cannot have both really well. So a higher or faster trill rate is accompanied by a short bandwidth becasue it is too difficult to have a wide bandwidth and fast trill rate. 

Sounds used by birds can also be used to signal different things even though they might be the same sound. In some gulls, they have certain sounds used for finding a mate that are also used when trying to communicate with that mate when it comes to finding a place to nest. They have some other sounds that overlap when mating and then when caring for the young. They have the ability to use the same sounds but interpret them differently based on the context of the situation. 

Following the completion of the image manipulation in Microsoft Paint, the images were all saved. I then imported them all to a newly created project in the software Inkscape. Each image was appropriately resized and arrayed on the page. The photo of the web was placed to the upper-middle left side of the project. Equivalent in size, the second image of the location was placed to the right of the first. A small white gap was created between the two photos. Both ends of the images connected with their respective ends of the figure. Next, the screenshot of the map was placed at the center below the first two images and was slightly larger so that the details of the map could be clearly seen. Finally, each figure was labeled with the web being denoted at “(A)”, the location as “(B)”, at the map as “(C)” These labels were placed near the top right corner of each component of the figure. The overall construction of the figure was done in such a way that every element was could be seen clearly and understood.

To prepare the figure, each image was imported to Microsoft Paint and uniformly cropped. The map view was acquired via a screenshot of the University of Massachusetts campus on the website OpenSourceMaps.org. For the image of the spider web itself, a black horizontal line was drawn across the center of quarter to get the width, and then placed above it. Two ends were fitted with equivalent vertical black lines that were about one fourth the length of the first line. “24.25 mm” was entered into the text creation tool and placed directly above the horizontal line. This allowed for the scale of the web to be adequately shown. For the image depicting the location of the web, a small red circle was drawn with the shapes tool in paint and placed so that it encompassed the position of the web.

Next, the screenshot of the map was brought into paint and subsequently cropped so that the Student Union building was clearly displayed at the center. A red dot was placed at the exact location of the web and black line was extended off of it to the right at a slight angle.At the terminal end of the newly placed line, a black outline of a rectangular box was created. The word “location” was put inside of the box.

One of the impacts of a hurricane such as the recent Hurricane Florence comes after the storm has passed. The flood waters can overtop places that people have sealed off to contain contaminants and as a result they are released into the environment. Such exampes of these quarantined spaces are waste facilities that can release toxic chemicals or hog lagoons, which farmers use to store feces and urine that are generated on the farm. The flooding causes these areas to overrun and releases contagious bacteria into the surrounding area and potential ruins the water supply. The environemntal impact on health may be better revealed as flood waters receded, but must be monitored in the interim. E.Coli, salmonella and giardia are all contagious bacteria that could be released. 

Another environemtnal hazard that could stem from the flooding is the contamination of water from coal ash. As coal is burned, it leaves behind ash that has toxic heavy metals and radioactive material. The ash is stored in a landfill, but similar to the hog lagoons, the flood water breached the walls and led to contamination. This allows for the spread of these toxic materials into the environment and results in exposure to people. The resulting materials could make its way into the groundwater and have lasting impacts on the surroundings or on drinking water.

The spider web was located under a small light post outside the stairwell to Morill 1, between the two Morill buildings. The photograph was taken with a camera phone as the sun was setting, when the light post had just turned on. This allowed the spiderweb to be seen much more easily than it would have been in complete daylight. Additional light from the light post aided visibility. Several photographs were taken from differing angles until a clear photo was taken where the spiderweb was mostly visible. Additional photos were taken, and were later reviewed for which was the best representation of the web. Some of these pictures included a ruler, which was held just below or to the side of the web. One picture was taken exclusively of the ruler against the light post, to give a measurement of the width of the light post and a scale of how large the web was. In order to give a sense of the environment the web was found in, and reference points as to were it was located; another photograph was taken of the light post as a whole, its general area and the door to the stairwell which lead up to Morill 1.

Diabetes mellitus is a disease that affects the way the human body obtains energy from food. There are two forms of diabetes mellitus; type one and type two. Both of these forms of diabetes are the result from a defect in a negative feedback loop that regulates blood sugar levels. The negative feedback loop in someone without diabetes works by using a sensor, effector, and control center. The sensor indicates that there is an increase in blood sugar which lets the pancreas, or control center, release insulin. Insulin acts as the effector, and facilitates the reuptake of glucose from the cells, therefore, bringing blood sugar levels back down to normal. However, a human with type one diabetes creates antibodies that destroy the pancreatic beta cells, therefore, destroying the sensor and control center of the negative feedback loop. As a result, the pancreas does not know to secrete insulin and leaves the blood glucose levels abnormally high. As for type two diabetes, insulin resistance leads to the increase in blood sugar. The damaged part of the negative feedback loop is the effecter, as it does not respond to the insulin. This decreased sensitivity to insulin makes the glucose not readily enter the cell and does not let the blood sugar levels return to normal after eating food.

During this experiment, we gave Tetrahymena India ink to calculate how much food vacuoles they formed when given different amounts of time to phagocytize. Under a microscope with the objective at 40x we counted and recorded the number of vacuoles formed. To analyze we looked at the time versus the number of vacuoles formed. After analyzation, it became apparent that the longer amount of time the Tetrahymena have in the ink before they're fixed the more food vacuoles that they will form. This information tells us that the Tetrahymena phagocytize consistently and the more time they are given the more food vacuoles that they will form.

Feedback loops are something that occur in many different aspects of life. They are an observation found in all different scientififc studies. This year alone I've learned about them in terms of human physiology and in climatology. Feedback loops are kind of like cycles. There is a signal that starts a chain reaction that leads to a response. Sometimes the response inhibits the initial siglanl, a negative feedback, and sometimes the response leads to an increase in the signal. An example of a positive feedback loop is chidbirth. The contraction leads to a nerve impulse that signals the hypothalamus to release the hormone oxytocin. The release of oxytocin leads to more contractions. Which then lead to more production of the hormone. The initial contraction leads to a stimulus that in the end results in more contractions. Blood clotting is another example of positive feedback because when a vessel is damaged platelets start to cling to it and when they cling they release a hormone that attracts more platelets. So the initial blood clotting leads to more blood clotting. The initial stimulus leads to an increase in the final product. 

Negative feedback has the opposite result. Negative feedback most often keeps something more towards equilibrium whereas positive feedback escalates, so usually only occurs in special instances. An example of negative feedback is thermoregulation. If a body temperature increase, measures are taken in order to try and lower the body temperature. So the initial increase leads to a decrease in body temp, therefore a negative response. Another example is blood sugar levels. When glucose levels are high, insulin is released to decrease levels. When levels are low, gllucagon is released to increase levels. The initial stimulus results in something trying to lower the signal. 

Methods and procedures play a huge role in scientific writing and research. Most of the information and knowledge we have obtained through history is because of scientific research and the ability to replicate that research. Experiments are an important aspect of science that allows us to obtain new knowledge and understand the world around us. In order for an hypothesis/experiment to be accepted, it must be able to be replicated. In order to do this, scientists must include a clear procedure of how they achieved their results. Within an experiment, there are variables that are changed as well as variables that must be controlled. The goal of this project is to practice writing informative and descriptive methods so others can understand and replicate an experiment. While we are not designing an experiment, we will be creating a multi-panel figure of a spider web found on the UMass campus as well as writing the methods we did to capture and create the figure. Once the methods are complete, each student will receive another student’s methods from their own and follow the procedure to hopefully create the exact same multi-panel figure as that student. The original multi-panel figure and the replicated multi-panel figure will be compared to see how accurate and descriptive the original methods were. This exercise allow students to see where they may need to be more descriptive in their methods and improve their scientific writing overall.

The hydronium concentrations was found by using the pH halfway through the jump in pH change and using logarithms to isolate the concentration. The hydronium concentration that was calculated for the Sprite and NaOH reaction was 8.91E-9 M. This concentration was correlated, yet not similar to the citric acid concentration found in the previous experiment: 4.027E-9 M. This could be due to human error, such as adding too much base when trying to control the pH measurements. The calculated hydronium concentration in Coke and NaOH reaction was 1.02E-8 M. This concentration was similar to the phosphoric acid concentration found in the previous experiment: 1.07E-5 M. The hydronium concentrations that were calculated equal the Ka of half of the reaction. This is why we were able to solve for the hydronium concentrations by looking at the jumps in pH change as the volume of base increased.