Writing in Biology - Section 1

Before the Vietnam war, we as Americans saw our nation as superior to other countries in every aspect of wealth, power, and characteristics. Thus, the Vietnam War compelled millions of citizens to question this belief known as American exceptionalism. At first, after WWII, confidence in American exceptionalism was at its peak. After the Vietnam war, however, Americans came to believe that their leaders had misled and even lied to them about the realities of the war. All in all, the combination of shock and mistrust toward the government as a result of the war, shattered the central tenet of American national identity. One of the historical pieces of knowledge I gained from reading Fadiman’s book is that the U.S. government destroyed democracy, freedom, and the Hmong people. The book highlights for me how the government due to its involvement in the war forced thousands of people off their land. Moreover, I believe that the appearance of refugees aided the actions of the U.S. government by portraying the belief that America is always the good guys and always victorious. 

Scope of Medicine: Medicine is one of the most ancient sciences. For many centuries, people have been looking for ways to deal with various diseases. Due to the fact that Western and Eastern medicine developed at different times and separately from each other, they are radically different. This is shown in the book as Fadiman examines the beliefs of Lees and Lia's doctors. First difference I found was that the doctor focused on studying the causes of various pathological conditions in the human body. Basically, he aimed more at eliminating the consequences of diseases. Lia’s family viewed the world through that of Eastern medicine. Such that, Eastern doctors are more focused on the person as a whole and the body's ability to counteract pathogens. Medicine in the East is more focused on the prevention of diseases than on the fight against them. Furthermore, Lia’s family share a whole separate philosophy. Their view of medicine takes into account such concepts as energy, spirit. While the western doctor approaches medicine through dry scientific approach. Fadiman suggests that this differences in medical practice, belief, and inability to communicate were the failures that lead to the death of Lia.

Pain and Hope: The Vietnam War has become a phenomenon of our nation’s modern-day warfare and culture, whose effects have come up to daylight and whose debate has yet to be finalized. This war has had a great influence on America’s society, politics, and economy. Socially, the Vietnam war has shattered its people’s faith in American exceptionalism and gave rise to the antiwar movement. Politically, the Vietnam war helped establish the 26th Amendment and the War Powers Resolution. And economically, the Vietnam war stressed the production of normal goods, rose inflation, and increased labor costs. However, Fadiman in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, recounts the history of the Hmong people, from being driven from their homes in both China and Laos to fighting in Vietnam war and being abandoned by the U.S. government. The majority of Hmong people lost their loved ones as a result of the Vietnam war. They lost their relatives, possessions, and country to immigrate into the United States. However, one thing the new arrivals held onto was hope. This is evident as Lia's family never gave up hope that their daughter's soul would return.  

Anne Fadiman’s book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, as the literal translation from the Hmong language is epilepsy, is a story of the misunderstanding in medicine due to intercultural differences proving to be deadly. But on this medical route, Fadiman moves to the town of Merced in California and speaks with the local Hmong immigrant community. In this way, she manages to tell the heartbreaking story of Leah Lee, a little girl with a severe form of epilepsy. Fadiman portrays how diverging views on health and illness, between the Eastern philosophy of Lia’s parents and her Western doctors, condemned Leah to death.

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.

Chirp structure and EOD frequency are sexually dimorphic to different extents across wave-type species. In Apteronotids, males often have lower EOD frequency than females but EOD frequency chirping can be sexually dimorphic in a number of different ways (Smith 2013, 2422; Ho et al. 2013, 335; Ho et al. 2010, 1050). For example, A. albifrons males have lower EOD frequencies than females while A. leptorhynchus males have a higher EOD frequency than females (Smith 2013, 2422). Additionally, in A. leptorhynchus, males chirp more than females but their chirp complexity is similar while in A. bonapartii and A. devenanzii chirp complexity and not chirp rate is higher in males than in females (Smith 2013, 2428; Ho et al. 2010, 1059). Another Apteronotid, Sternarchogiton nattereri, shows no sexual dimorphism, as males and females show no discernible difference in EOD frequency, chirp rate, or chirp form (Ho et al. 2013,337). Instead, S. nattereri shows differences in EOD frequency that are dependent on male morphology, as toothed males show higher EOD frequency than toothless males (Fernandes et al. 2010, 660). In the wave-type Gymnotiform Gymnotus omarorum, and unlike in many of the aforementioned wave-type Apteronotids, electric signalling is sexually monomorphic (Batista et al. 2012, 398). Such sexually monomorphic electrocommunicative behaviour has also been observed in other non-Apteronotid genera such Eigenmannia and Sternopygus (Smith 2013, 2422).

 In summary, although the last decade has produced many studies on social electrocommunication in weakly electric fish, they have been biased towards proximate research and to some extent wave-type species. Species recognition in the wave-type fish A. leptorhynchus is mediated by stereotyped EOD frequencies and in the pulse-type fish. M. rume it is determined by a species-specific IDI (Fugère & Krahe 2010, 213; Dunlap et al. 2010, 2234; Worm et al. 2018, 1). JAR seems to be unique to wave-type species and has been hypothesized to have an intrasocial function in Apteronidae, Eigenmannia, and Dystocyclus, but seems absent from Sternopygus (Worm et al. 2018, 1; Stamper et al. 2010, 368). Ritualised aggression in weakly electric fish is often negotiated via modulated EOD frequencies, EOD lengths, and IDI patterns that signal the dominance of one fish over another, and in the males of some species, dominance strongly correlates with levels of 11-ketotestosterone (Gebhardt et al. 2012, 623; Fugère et al. 2011, 197; Salazar & Stoddard 2009, 399; Cuddy et al. 2012, 4; Raab et al. 2019, 1). Sexual dimorphism of EODs is evolutionarily labile, as A. leptorhynchus shows sexual dimorphism in EOD frequency and chirping while many other wave-type genera are sexually monomorphic (Smith 2013, 2428; Batista et al. 2012, 398). S. nattereri is a unique case where electrocommunication is sexually monomorphic but different male morphs vary in their EOD frequencies (Ho et al. 2013,337; Fernandes et al. 2010, 660). Lastly, pulse-type fish of the Marcusenius genus also show differences in sexual dimorphism, as M. pongolensis males show a life-long increase in their EOD length while male M. altisambesi only show increased EOD length during the breeding season (Machnik et al. 2010, 699). Overall, these studies show that weakly electric fish use electrocommunication in a variety of contexts and explore how electrocommunication takes place but explanations for its evolution remain largely in the hypothetical realm. Answering ultimate questions about electrocommunication would be facilitated by studies into: (1) how differences in selection pressures have affected species differences in electrocommunication, (2) the evolutionary history of electrocommunication in Gymnotiformes and Mormyriformes to understand how these groups diverged and became segregated to South America and Africa respectively, (3) the environmental and evolutionary factors that contribute to sexually dimorphic electrocommunication.

Crotamine likely evolved from beta defensin genes through a combination of gene duplication, regulatory mutation, and coding sequence mutation. Gene duplication must have occurred first because the initial gene, beta defensin, is a gene critical to an organism's function therefore that gene must be conserved. When an ancestor had two copies of the beta defensin gene, one of the copies then had a spontaneous mutation in the regulatory sequence, expressing beta defensin in the fangs at higher concentration. This evolutionary step might have happened before, after, or at the same time as a series of mutations in the coding sequence of the copied beta defensin gene in order to code for a poisonous protein instead.

Gene Duplication: a spontaneous event such as a mutation or other factors may result in DNA polymerase or other mechanisms mistakenly duplicating a gene. Further mutations in the regulatory or coding region of one of the duplicated genes alters when, what, and how much of that gene may be expressed. These two copies of the same gene (found within a species) are called paralogs.

Regulatory mutation: mutations in the regulatory region of a gene will alter when and how much of a gene will be expressed. The genetic code of the gene itself will not be altered, preserving the phenotypic expression of the gene. However depending on the level of expression caused by a mutation in the regulatory sequence the phenotypic expression of the gene may also be altered.

Coding sequence mutation: Since the regulatory sequence remains the same, gene will be expressed at the same time, place, and level. However depending on the type of mutation in the gene it may be a nonsynonymous or synonymous. A nonsynonymous mutation may result in a loss of original function of the gene, but gain function in another pathway. If the protein is promiscuous it might not completely lose its original function, just alter one of its many active sites. 

Crotamine likely evolved from beta defensin genes through a combination of gene duplication, regulatory mutation, and coding sequence mutation. Gene duplication must have occurred first because the initial gene, beta defensin, is a gene critical to an organism's function therefore that gene must be conserved. When an ancestor had two copies of the beta defensin gene, one of the copies then had a spontaneous mutation in the regulatory sequence, expressing beta defensin in the fangs at higher concentration. This evolutionary step might have happened before, after, or at the same time as a series of mutations in the coding sequence of the copied beta defensin gene in order to code for a poisonous protein instead.

The resultant species must have a deep beak like the geospiza magnirostris because it must rip the bark from trees. The deep set beak will help the bird tear off the bark. Furthermore the bird will likely inherit the length of the geospitza conristris so that it may probe for insects. A sharp long beak will help it pick out the insect. Therefore, the beak will be deep set and long so that it may peel back the bark and pick at insects. I would expect the bird to express both Calmodulin and Bmp4 early on and at high amounts. An early and high expression of Calmodulin will lead to an elongated beak. Similarly, an early and high expression of Bmp4 will result in a deep set beak.