ashorey's blog

Global warming is a rapidly increasing phenomenom. Many people choose not to believe that global warming exists, citing phrases like "Why is it snowing then?" and "It doesn't feel warmer" as arguments for how global warming is not occurring. Instead of entertaining these ideas, the more all-encompassing term used is climate change. Climate change references general changes in weather patterns, warming and cooling of large areas over long periods of time, increases in natural disasters, and the greenhouse effect's. Trends that have been proven scientifically and reserached by many highlight the patterns that are causing and increasing the effects of climate change. All levels of greenhouse gases are rising and temperature trends are increasing steadily by 0.2 degrees centigrade or more.

Hello,

Our project was the analysis of different HOX genes in humans and aquatic species to identify the relation between the organisms and the history in their evolution. We started our research project based off of group 5's proposal, but adjusted it to our own project by selecting different HOX genes and organisms to investigate based on those with the HOX genes of interest available in the nucleotide database on the NCBI website. We decided to investigate HOXC6, 10, and 12 in Humans, Zebra fish, Long-finned pilot whale, Orca, and others as seen here in one of the phylogeny trees. After obtaining the DNA sequences for these genes and inputting them into the MEGA software for analysis and building of the trees, we discuss how the trees demonstrate the relationships between the different species and also show the evolutionary history based on how early the branches diverge on the scale.

Theories for invasive species and why they occur have been hypothesized in ecological research. Some such theories are the enemy escape hypothesis, EICA hypothesis, EDCA hypothesis, Novel Weapons hypothesis, Missed Mutualism hypothesis, Invasional Meltdown hypothesis, Biotic Resistance hypothesis, unusual refuge hypothesis, global competition hypothesis, introduction pressure hypothesis, unintentional screening hypothesis, intentional screening hypothesis and biological control corollary. The enemy escape hypothesis states that species are less subject to specialized predators and pathogens where they are introduced than where they are native. This is due to the lack of selection for a specialized predator where the organism was not existing. The EICA (Evolution of Increased Competetive Ability) hypothesis is where plants evolve to grow faster than other plants. EDCA  (Evolution of Decreased Competitve Ability) hypothesis is where plants evolve to reproduce faster than other plants, but have no competetive ability. Novel Weapons Hypothesis explains how native species have not evolved to be selected for defenses against introduced species. This means that the introduced species defense mechanisms are more likely to target and harm the native species. Missed Mutualism Hypothesis states that the invading species will be less likely to take over it if is introduced without its native mutualists because it no longer benefits from the relationship with them. The opposite is true of the Invasional Meltdown Hypothesis which discusses the idea that if the mutualists of an introduced species are brought with it, the species will be highly invasive and almost always win out. The Biotic Resistance Hypothesis states that introduced species are less likely to be invasive because the presence of native predators, pathogens, and competitors will limit their spread. The idea that specific location yield species that are highly specialized to live there and only there comes into play in the Unusual Refuge Hypothesis, where it is thought that lack of adaption to local stresses limits invasive-ness, then locations with unusual stresses are less invasible. Global Competition Hypothesis simply states that it is more likely that some species elsewhere is a better competitor in a single niche than the local species because of the opportunity for better plants to be located and adapted to any other location on the planet. The introduction pressure hypothesis believes that the greater the number of individuals of a species are introduced and the more times that species arrives, the more likely it is to take hold in the introduced environment. That is because increasing the number of individuals reduces the limitations on the genetic pool of the migrated population and decreases the affects of genetic drift, and interbreeding between previously separate species populations increases fitness. Intentional screening causes certain traits that are more likely to yield an invasive species to be artifically selected for when people pick plants to bring. The unintentional invasion hypothesis deals with the traits that a plant species is likely to have to have survived travel and dispersal to become invasive. Plants that cling to boats and crops and survive travel are likely to be more drought tolerant, more fecund, parasitic to plants that were intentionally brought, and from places disturbed by people and therefore disturbance tolerant. The biological control corollary is the idea that a specialized predator from the native location of an invasive plant can be brought to reduce the invasive-ness of that plant. 

Most species of plants that we see on the North American continent today are not native. There are many causes for the migration of plants across the globe, a majority of which humans have a hand in. The basis of a plant being introduced from its native origin to a new location is that humans or other animals bring them, either intentionally or unknowingly. There are several ecological theories as to how this causes invasive species that overtaken nonative land and out compete the preexisting species. Firstly, when humans intentionally bring a plant across oceans and mountains to a new location, we are performing an informed selection of plants that are likely to become invasive. We pick plants that can survive drought to weather the traveling required to move to a new location, plants that grow faster and heardier, are less susecptible to pathogens, and are likely already well suited for the new environment. These traits all lead to a plant that will be highly competetive in the new community and likely will beat native species. Secondly, because an invasive species can travel from any part of the world to the new location and become rampant, the likelihood that another plant somewhere is more specialized and better at survival than the native plant is high. This can be compared to local marathons that are open to a global population, for example, the Boston Marathon. No one from Boston usually wins, because the likelihood that the BEST person is from the exact town that the marathon is heald in, when the entire world's population is allowed to compete, is low, while the opposite is high. 

Plants have many ways of reproducing. Many plants sexually reproduce by pollination of eggs with pollen to create a diploid zygote from two gametes, much like how mammals reproduce. Some plants go into haploid spore forms that can live in a life cycle on their own by mitosis that then fuse together to form a diploid that creates spores again. And some plants, even with diploid genomics, reproduce by cloning. Such plants include strawberries, quaking aspen trees, poison ivy, and spider plants. Clonal growth has many advantages over other ways of reproducing. Firstly, cloning themselves allows for daughter plants to become fully formed by remaining connected to the parent plant, sharing nutrients, water, sugars, and other vital molecules until the daughter plants can be completely independent. Secondly, with quaking aspens as an example, there are plants that do not severe the connection between the parents and daughter plants, and instead maintain connections that allow the plants to share nutrients, signal molecules, and everything in them for as long as they live. This allowed quaking aspens to be the largest single organism in the world, covering hundreds of acres and living as long as four thousand years- having thought to started growing after the most recent ice age. 

Climate change is an extremely important biological topic that must be included in educational curriculums, however it is slow to be included in public schools. It has been debated to push biology courses back a year in high school education, in a specific case study in Concord, Massachusetts, in order to incoorperate a more earth-based class into freshman curriculums. This method of climate change education, I find, is unbenefitial and disabling students from taking more advanced courses in later years of high school careers because they do not have the option early on to skip low level courses. Also, it is completely true the climate change can be incoorperated into ecology units in biology as the earth's ecosystem and weather patterns and climates are vital to the ecological compositions across the world. This would allow a comprehesive lesson on climate change and the effects on organisms and species richness in case studies. Also, this would give the opportunity to take the upper level biology course and learn the same important information about climate change as would be included in an earth science course. 

In reading EKG, or ECG, outputs, there are many different types of dangerous systoles: deadly beating patterns of the heart. The four major deadly heart behaviors that are identifiable on ECGs are atrial fibrilation, ventrical fibrilation, ventrical tachycardia, and Torsades de Pointes. Notably, only one the four beat patterns involves just atrial issues: the atrial fibrilation. This irregular heart beat consists of a quivering or twitching atria that is not effectively pumping any blood into the ventricles. This can lead to death by lack of profusion from the heart. The ventricles simply are not pumping enough blood, even though the ventricles are pumping correctly, because there is very little blood getting into the them. Ventricle fibrilation is the same type of behavior seen in atria fibrilation but in the stronger, more important ventricle muscles. The quivering here prevents all profusion of blood to the body and lungs because there is no effective pump by the ventricles and the blood pools in the heart. Ventrical tachycardia ocurrs when the ventricles are acting without signal from the atria, and instead consistently beat without any rest period between beats. This prevents blood from exiting the heart because there is no time for the ventricles to fill with the succient amount of blood required to sustain life. Finally, Torsades de Pointes is a heart beating pattern that in english means "Twisted Spikes/Peaks". It looks similar to a sound wave on soundcloud. This pattern shows the ventricle pumping continuously, but at varying and inconsistent strength. It is non-stop beating with either strong or weak pumps, sometimes not beating at all. This is too inconsistent to sustain life by the continuous blood supply needed. 

Notes for poster presentation:

For poster quality, Pdf files are the best and most recommended. Tiffs carry sufficient information for a high quality image, PNGs are slightly worse. JPGs are extremely not recommended . R pdfs are made of objects that are well grouped and when edited using a pdf editor, nothing is shifted/moved and words, axises, and graph sections remain a signle object that can be edited. This does not occur in other pdf files whwere, when edited, every signle letter and object is singular and shifts slightly when ungrouped for editing. Using text boxes is best for putting text into poster so as to avoid formating and font issues carrying over from a word or google document. Thirty point font is a good basis to maintain for all necessary words on the poster. Do not use a monospace font, use a proportionally spaced font. Using the university seal is not recommended for informal occasions like a class poster. The "Be Revolutionary" water marks are best for use, being sure to download and not copy from the website as to maintain high resolution images.

In reading EKG, or ECG, output lines, there are many different types of harmful systoles, meaing beating patterns of the heart. The four major deadly heart behaves that are identifiable on ECGs are atrial fibrilation, ventrical fibrilation, ventrical tachycardia, and Torsades de Pointes. Notably, only one the four beat patterns involves just atrial issues, atrial fibrilation. This heart beat consists of a quivering twitching atria that is not effectively pumping any blood into the ventricles. This can lead to death by lack of profusion from the heart. The ventricles simply are not pumping blood, even though the ventricles are pumping correctly, because there is very little blood getting into the ventricles. Ventricle fibrilation is the same type of behavior by the atria but not in the stronger more important ventricle muscles. The quivering here prevents all profusion of blood to the body and lungs because there is no effective pump by the ventricles and the blood pools in the heart. Ventrical tachycardia is when the ventricles are acting without signal from the atria to consistently beat without any rest period between beats. This prevents blood from exiting the heart because there is no time for the ventricles to fill with the succient amount of blood required to sustain life. Finally, Torsades de Pointes is a heart beating pattern that in english means "Twisted Spikes/Peaks". It looks much like a sound wave on soundcloud. This pattern shows the ventricle pumping continuously, but at varying and inconsistent strength. It is non stop beating with either strong or weak pumps, sometimes not beating at all. This is too inconsistent to sustain life by the continuous blood supply needed.