smomalley's blog

Traits such as hair color, freckles, and certain diseases can be passed from generation to generation. You recieve one copy of a gene from your biological mother, and one copy of a gene from your biological father. alternative forms of a gene are called alleles. The genes inheited can form either dominant or recessive phenotypes. The dominant phenotype is defined as the phenotype that results from the heterozygous gneotype. It is 2/3 likely that you will have the dominant phenotype, and 1/3 likely you will have the recessive phenotype. The dominant phenotype is not stronger or better than the recessive, it is more likely because it is haplosufficient: one copy of the dominant allele is sufficient for the dominant phenotype. 

For my thesis I am writing about the treatment of mental health in prisons in America. America has a mass incarceration issue and I am arguing that proper mental health treatment in and out of prison would reduce the amount of inmantes and reduce re-incarceration rates. About thirty percent of prisoners have a serious mental illness that may or may not be treatment while in prison, but contributed to their arrest. The prison healthcare system is not universal across the country. Even federal prisons have varying levels of treatment they offer. Many prisons are understaffed and under resourced to provide acurate treatment. Other prisons neglected to adopt Obama's prison reform plans, and do not keep record of prisoner's psychiatric records, which makes proper treatment impossible. In my thesis I argue that proper treatment and transition programs back into society with adequate resources such as councelors and treatment facilities, would reduce the recidivism rate in the United States. 

Action potentials are the way in which neurons send and recieve signals. Neurons can be connected directly through gap junctions, which transmit electrical impulses as a form of transmiting information. Neurons can also communicate through chemical signals over the synapse between two neurons. The chemical signals are packaged in vesicles at the axon terminal (neuroproteins are made and packaged in the ribosomes), and sent across the small gap between neurons. The chemical vessicles bind to receptors at the post-synaptic neuron's dendrite. The molecules are taken up by the post-synaptic neuron and elicite an inhibitory, or an excitatory response. The post- synaptic neuron can have an action potential if the stimulus is enough to make the post-synaptic neuron reach threshold. Once threshold is reached, an action potential must occur because action potentials are all or nothing. After the action potential occurs, there is a period of time when a second action potential cannot occur. The absolute refractory period is when the GPCRs are locked and the channels cannot open to depolerize the cell. Once the cell is hyperpolerized enough, the GPCRs will uncouple so that the cell enters the relative refractory period. A second action potential can occur during the relative refractory period if the signal is strong enough. 

When kids are about three years old, they are able to understand depth perception and visual illusions. If a researcher places a toy in a bucket, the baby will reach inside the bucket to retreieve the toy. The baby also understands quantity. If a resercher has grahm crackers and places one in a backet and two in a seperate bucket right next to each other, the baby will immediately go to the bucket containing two grahm crackers.  The baby doesn't understand the representation of quantity using numbers, but does understand that one bucket contains more than the other. Similarly, when kids get a little bit older (3-4) they are able to count to ten. This does not mean anything however, just that they can remember a series of words. When a researcher points to two pictures and asks which picture contains a certain number of dots, the child has no idea which is which. The kids are able to memorize a pattern, but don't understsand the meaning of the words. 

The flu shot is often something that is not a priority. The flu shot changes every  year to keep up with the varying proteins on the virus. The vaccine is important for the recipient's protection against the flu, as well as everyone surrounding them. Certain individuals are vulnerable to disease, they are the elderly, infants, those recieving chemo-therapy, and individuals with an autoimmune disease. Individuals who are immunocompromised cannot get vaccines, vaccines should be administed several weeks before the individual becomes immunocompromised (if that is possible, such as several weeks before chemo-therapy). These immunocompromised individuals can be protected through herd immunity; when the majority of a population is vaccinated, the virus has a hard time infecting individuals.  Therefore everyone should keep up with their flu vaccines to prevent contraction of the virus for themselves, as well as immunocompromised individuals who cannot recieve the vaccine and rely on others for protection.

The visual cliff is a psychological test given to babies of different species. The visual cliff is exactly what is sounds like; a visual illusion of a cliff. The baby is placed on the side that looks solid, and on the other side of the table is a glass pane with a dropp so that it looks like a cliff. The baby's mother stands across from the cliff and tries to pursuade the baby to cross the cliff to test their depth perception. When a baby first starts to sit, they reach right over the cliff, not noticing the dropp. Once a baby has been sitting for a while they do not readily reach over the cliff. Then when the baby first starts to crawl it readily crawls across the cliff to it's mother. However when a baby has been crawling for a while, he does not crawl over the cliff. This pattern continues for when the baby starts walking. The baby must re-learn depth perception at each stage of development. The baby learns through experience sitting, crawling, walking. 

Photosynthesis is the process plants use in order to make food from sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water. Chlorophyll in the leaves is most responsible for this process. In the spring and summer months, the chlorophyll is abundant and gives the leaves their green color. In the fall, the days become shorter and shorter and the UV index generally decreases. This causes the chlorophyll to decrease in number and therefore the green color fades. The fading of the green color allows other colors to apear on the leaves like yellow and orange, which are caused by different pigments in the leaf. Once winter rolls around, ther temerature, UV index, and daylight hours are too low for the leaves to survive so they die and fall off of the trees. 

Polymerase chain reactions, or PCR, is a technique used in labs to quickly amplify strands of DNA. This lab technique can copy millions of strands of DNA in hours. The process can amplify a known strand of DNA, or an unknown sequence as long as there is a known sequence directly around it. The section of DNA you want to replicate is boiled in order to break the hydrogen bonds holding the double stranded DNA together. A primer is used in order to bind to the now single stranded DNA to make a small section double stranded. Millions of nucleotides, as well as DNA polymerase is added to the DNA. This allows the DNA to grow into a new copy of double stranded DNA. The primers as a part of the new strand of DNA, so you need millions of copies of the primer to create millions of copies of DNA. PCR is an extremely useful technique; it allows scientists to replicate enough DNA to be visible in a gel. 

Children are usually seen as too innocent to do the wrong thing, or lie and make up an incriminating story. However, researchers have discovered that children are extremely susceptible to persuasion and immagination. When being questioned in a crimial trial, children are asked highly leading questions by the investigators. The use of leading quesions over a period of time causes the child to create a story around these quesitions, and believe the invented story actually happened. The children truely believe the story they created happened in real life. Many children studied added details to their stories that were never brought up by the interviewer. A similar study was also done without using leading questions, but by simply asking one question every week for ten weeks. Before the end of the ten weeks, the kids had believed that this quesiton was something that had actually happend to them. For example, one of the questions was: have you ever gotten your finger stuck in a mouse trap and had to go to the hospital? One boy told this story with great detail including how it happened, where it happened, who went to the hospital with him.

As we get closer to flu season it is important to think about getting the flu shot. The flu shot changes every  year to keep up with the varying proteins on the virus. The vaccine is important for so many reasons. I myself used to forget or not bother to get the yearly vaccine, but now I make sure to get it every year to protect myself and everyone around me. Individuals who are immunocompromised cannot get vaccines, vaccines should be administed several weeks before the individual becomes immunocompromised. These immunocompromised individuals can be protected through herd immunity; when the majority of a population is vaccinated, the virus has a hard time infecting individuals.  Therefore everyone should keep up with their flu vaccines to prevent contraction of the virus for themselves, as well as immunocompromised individuals who cannot recieve the vaccine and rely on others for protection.