Blogs

Dog whiskers are very interesting as some dogs do not have whiskers and some do.I have realized that my current dog who lives with me at UMass has very prominent whiskers, and I realized that not all dogs have whiskers, as my other dog, who lives with my family at home does not. The technical term for dog "whiskers" are "vibrassae".  It helps animals define where they are in space and helps them detect danger. Just like when a baby touches everything, a dog also uses his "whiskers" to get a feel of everything. They are closely related with nerve terminals, which makes it a high sensation area. To us, they just look like extra hair. After doing some research, they are a huge part of animal's sensory functioning, which helps with food acquision, and even communication with different species. A lot of more cool aspects! Such as helping their head position in swimming. I am very happy to have read about this as I truly thought it was extra hair.

Although this is not science related, I would like to talk about New York City english. I am from Canada so to hear a New York accent from one of my teammates was cool. I decided to do some research on it. There are several recognizable characteristics that make up for this accent. According to the American sociolinguist William Labov, is it has been said to be as the most recognizable variety of sounds in American English. William Labov went to Columbia University then Harvard college and is a doctoral student. Labov carried out a study of dialect patterns on the Lower East Side of New York City. He has concluded that the use of pronunciations (ex: dropping post-vocalic /r/) correlates with social class, ethnicity etc. To prove this, he went to three stores in New York City. The first one was the high-class Saks Fifth Avenue, the average priced Macy’s and finally the cheapest discount store in the city at the time of the experiment, S. Klein. He then asked directions to a department that was located on the fourth floor. He repeated “Excuse me?” so that he can hear their answer for a second time. He was trying to see if they would say “fourth” or “fawth” and “floor” or “flaw”. He found that 30 percent of the clerks at Saks pronounced all their r's, compared with 20 percent at Macy's and 4 percent at Klein's. It is evident that the higher you are socially and economically, the more likely you are to pronounce your r’s. This study was an amazing one, and revealed the true colors among New Yorkers. Additionally, it was found that the reason as to why those with a high social-economic status pronounced their “r’s” was due to the fact that it was brought from the prestigious London England pronunciation.

Dog whiskers are very interesting as some dogs do not have whiskers and some do.I have realized that my current dog who lives with me at UMass has very prominent whiskers, and I realized that not all dogs have whiskers, as my other dog, who lives with my family at home does not. The technical term for dog "whiskers" are "vibrassae".  It helps animals define where they are in space and helps them detect danger. Just like when a baby touches everything, a dog also uses his "whiskers" to get a feel of everything. They are closely related with nerve terminals, which makes it a high sensation area. To us, they just look like extra hair. After doing some research, they are a huge part of animal's sensory functioning, which helps with food acquision, and even communication with different species. A lot of more cool aspects! Such as helping their head position in swimming. I am very happy to have read about this as I truly thought it was extra hair.

Phytophagy means eating of plants. This is often said regarding insects eating plants. However, it can also be interpreted as any animal eating a plant. I took a picture of evidence for autophagy in plants and presented it as a figure. I then wrote the method on how to take that picture and someone else followed my method to make a similar figure.  The result was a similar figure that had a differing light composition, sizing, and formatting of the map and different size and shape of the leaf. The difference in the figure that is described in the result is due to a differing camera, a differing preferred method of image export and differing leaf and hand that was taken. due to these differences, the two figures were similar but not completely the same. 

In doing research on the food allergy model in mice, transgenetic mice such as il4 gain of function mice are used as a model to do food allergy research. Mice with il4 gain of function are more susceptible to allergens, which makes sensitizing them for food allergy studies easier. In the case of the study that I've done over the summer, the procedure for sensitizing mice is to slowly expose the mice to the allergen along with SEB and then cause an anaphylactic shock by introducing them to a large amount of allergen. This would cause the mice's temperature to drop, which can be measured using an internal probe. The challenge to this model is the high variability. Because this is an animal model, the failure rate can be quite high, and the amount of temperature drop can vary wildly. This, I found out when I had to present the results of what I did over the summer to my PI who is an organic chemistry professor. The professor asked me why the error margin was so high, and I tried to explain that in these organismal models, the error margin is always relatively high compared to models with cells or proteins. Another problem with this model is that it is hard to do with many sample sizes. Because the measurement occurs in less than an hour, this would mean that the limit of how many samples is determined by how quickly oral gavage can be performed on a conscious mouse. This limits the size to about 25 mice at most, because oral gavages can take quite a long time to perform, especially if the mice are not cooperating. However, the benefit of doing this mouse model is that it is standardized across the field and it is relatively easy and inexpensive to do, especially for a lab that already works extensively with mice. 

In CMT, there is demyelination of distal nerve, resulting in a loss of sensation and ability to control distal limbs. CMT is also marked by deformities in the hand and feet due to a lack of muscles in that region.  The specific mechanism of this disease is that there is demyelination of the nervous system, and since myelin sheath is crucial in maintaining signaling speed, the distal nerves are most affected by this disorder. Because of the demyelination, a person who have this illness is unable to control their feet very well and may result in stumbling, and loss of muscle in the feet, which may cause deformities because the muscles are unable to support the foot correctly. The disease also cause the loss of sensation in hands and feet, which may result in the inability to tell if they are hurt.  The disease onset of this disease is during the 20s to 30s, however, there have been cases where the onset has been earlier. There is a wide range of symptoms with people who have this disease, with some needing braces and other orthopedic devices to maintain mobility. However, CMT1A is not fatal.

For the purpose of organization, the comparisons between my original figure, Figure 1, and the replicated figure created by a classmate, Figure 2, were observed in 4 separate categories for distinctions: layout and label differences, then differences referring to the photographs in panels a, b, and c, respectively. When observing the layout of the figures for comprehensive differences, four large distinctions were present. I discovered that Figure 2 contained white borders separating each panel. This feature was absent in Figure 1. Furthermore, Without scaling the photos, Figure 1 in its entirety resembled a square, and Figure 2 exhibited the shape of a rectangle. This variation in shape indicated that both figures were not analogous, because Figure 2 panels were larger in size by length but not in width. The labeling on each of the panels were also different. The letters were smaller in Figure 2 and the white circles they were enclosed in were wider and closer to an oval compared to Figure 1. Ultimately, I detected a difference between the labeled arrows. The arrow tips were not the same size relative to the body of the arrow. In Figure 1, the arrows were slender with a wider tip while in Figure 2, the ratio of arrow tip and body was more proportional. 

The scientific method is extremely straight forward and has been driven into young brains across the country since the age of ten. Step one, pose a question. Step two, plan an experiment to exam that question with constants and variables. Step three, perform the experiment and log your observations and results. Step four, if they match, you are right, if they fail to match, you must try again with the new question being: why? This simplified pathway is perfectly useful when you question are simple and methods are attainable. The issues arise when your question seemingly cannot be answered with the tools and opportunities for exploration available to you, which is oft a problem for people like us in the scientific field. They question stops being something with a searchable answer. The plan for the experiment must start from literal scratch with tools and methods to identifiying the variables and constants. This happens all the time in science, as my post-grad in my lab once said, it took their coworker seven years to complete their experiment successfully. Seven years. At that point, the scientific method cannot withstand the possibilities of troubleshooting required. There is no "go back and design a new experiment" when you are already stuck on step 3. What I am saying is that the complexity of right and wrong and inbetween answer to question posed in research creates a never ending vortex that you fall into. Disillusionment is real and everyone who survives a career in the scientific field has experienced it. 

It is difficult to plan around assignments and work when two factors come into play: unforeseen events and lack of motivation. The lack of motivation makes it hard to commit to completing an assignment. Unforeseen events such as illness, stress, oversleeping, etc. could make you lose minutes to hours of a day where you had planned to do homework instead. Being sick last week made me fall behind in a few classes because I had to skip classes and rest in order for my cold to pass. Stress from things happening at home and around me at school fog my mind and leave me feeling stuck. With all of these events happening every day, keeping track of the things I have to do or need to do becomes like a maze with no outlet. The work piles up and I end up cramming everything in one day while still being behind at the end of it.