Writing in Biology - Section 1

Medicine is not a perfect science. Nothing is a perfect science ever. Humans are naturally very prone to mistakes, errors, miscalculations, and bad assumptions. When a human does something, the best it can be is perfectly human, but never perfect. When that principle applies to medicine though, the concequences become extreme. Atul Gwande's book "The Checklist Manifesto" writes about the inability of people in any profession to ever achieve everything they know how to do. This sounds backwards, "If you know how to do it, just do it and you'll achieve it", but it is not that easy. Considering the more complex a task required, the greater opportunity for failure in completing it successfully and the more harsh the failure becomes. This is esspecially true in the medical field when tens of people: doctors, nurses, aenestaticians, critical care personel, etc., have to all perform their tasks in harmony to treat horrible patients with a one in a million chances of survival. If anything anywhere along the line goes wrong, and it will, the room for improvision has to be there, but small enough for the treatment to have a true and certain path from A, diagnosis, to B, cure. 

While considered one of the most nutrient abundant foods, fish is known to be very high in harful heavy metals, which are thought to cause adverse affects. The American Heart Association has plugged fish as a vital part of a healthy diet to support healthy arteries, veins, and hearts for decades. Even still, fish is only eaten weekly by one third of Americans. Let's examine why that might be. Firstly, its true that fish simply does not appeal to everyone. Some ambiguity in the process of cooking and preparing the fish may be off putting some who find it unmanagable. Then there are those who avoid it for the advertised risks the pollutants may house. Are these worries founded, or do the benefits outweight the risks? Benefits from fish include the maintenance of a healthy heart beat, decreasing blod pressure, reducing inflammation, and keeping healthy blood vessels. It remains true that contaminants make their way into our fish through run-off water and the magnification from smaller organisms accumulating metal and being in turn eaten by the preditorial fish we eat. Pollutants in fish include PCBs, pesticide residues, and mercury. Mercury can destroy nerves in adults and cause brain damage in fetuses and children, when at levels much higher than that found in fish. The best method is to avoid the fish known to have the highest amount of mercury accumulation, and dig in to the others!

“Fish: Friend or Foe?” The Nutrition Source, Harvard School of Public Health, 22 May 2019, www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fish/.

    Ponds contribute more to biodiversity and ecosystem processes than any other small aquatic ecosystems. Preliminary research has shown that they house the most species, the most unique species, and the most rare species of all small aquatic ecosystem types. This information has only been identified recently, so there is a need for research into pond biodiversity and possible dangers to this ecosystem’s integrity. Scientists have suggested from early research that these small aquatic ecosystems are highly valuable in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem use. Without further research into these ecosystems, we pose a risk of losing oases of species diversity whose full value has yet to be understood. This loss could prove a crippling blow to species diversity on a global scale. With this in mind, we aim to determine the health of local pond ecosystems that have yet to be studied in order to prevent such catastrophic loss.

Breeding animals has been a part of human history for some time now, going back to agriculture and the introduction of dogs into human culture. Dogs in particular have been subjected to a lot of selective breeding, which can be seen in every breed of dog today. All dogs have the wolf as their common ancestor, which may lead one to wonder how we got to dogs like the dachshund, or the pug. A species of dog like the pug are actually suffering due to our high level of selection. Pugs are thought of as cute because of their small, pushed-in nose. What many people don't realize is that due to this phenotype, dogs like pugs, boxers, and bulldogs have a lot of difficulty breathing as well as other health problems. While the selective breeding process has produced dogs that look cute to us, these dogs have serious underlying health issues that affect them throughout their entire lifespans. People should consider the lives these dogs live and how uncomfortable they might be due to their "man-made" morphology. Selective breeding may be good in some cases, but can have very detrimental effects in other cases.

Analysis of canine MC1R sequences is performed when MC1R sequencing from GeneWiz is received. First, the quality of MC1R gene sequences is checked to see if there is useable data. Sequencing files are modified using the sequencing program “4Peaks” to cut off unreliable ends of the files. Potential heterozygous sequences (two peaks on top of one another) are noted. BLAST results are retrieved to compare known sequences in the NCBI database with our dog sequence, noting Query cover, E-value, and percent identity of the top 5 hits. Our MC1R genome is then compared with Tasha the Boxer’s MC1R genome (the first dog to have its full genome sequenced) using EMBOSS Needle. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were noted and compared to specific MC1R SNPs identified in Nowacka-Woszuk, Salamon, Gorna, and Switonski’s paper (2012).

I wanted to write about CBD today. CBD stands for cannabidiol. One of the many cannabinoids, or chemical compounds, found in marijuana and hemp. Research has shown CBD may be helpful by lessening anxiety for people who have schizophrenia or psychosis, or who are addicted to opiates. Because of its anti-inflammatory properties, CBD could even help treat acne. There's also evidence it can help children who suffer from epilepsy, which is why the FDA last summer approved a new prescription medication, Epidiolex, which is a formulation of CBD, meant to treat severe epilepsy. Although this is still under a lot of research, the results of taking CBD is so far positively correlated.  I have it in drops, and realize my anixety diminishes after 15 minutes ish. I like how this also comes in edible form, candy, medicine, so you have options! It is also legal, compared to contrary belief.

There are several reproduction repression mechanisms in eusocial and social species. Honey bees are a eusocial species that have a reproductive division of labour with only one reproducing queen. Worker bee reproduction is limited by the level of royal jelly provisioning. If the larvae doesn’t receive enough royal jelly then then it will not develop ovaries and will not be able to lay eggs, only potential founder queens are given enough royal jelly to produce ovaries and hence eggs. Naked mole rats are the only eusocial mammals and also have a queen that mediates reproduction repression in her subordinates. Should any of the subordinate females reach reproductive maturity and show signs of reproductive intent, the queen will bully the females by biting and scratching them. This causes stress hormones to be produced in the bullied female which will in turn repress the production of stress hormones and limit reproduction. Though not truly eusocial, meerkats are group living animals that suppress reproduction in a similar fashion to naked mole rats. During the breeding season, if dominant females fear reproductive competition from subordinate females they will temporarily evict those females from the group. Evicted females will produce more stress hormones than females that remain in the group which will, in turn, suppress production of their reproductive hormones. This is additionally evidenced by the fact that evicted females have higher rates of abortion and lower rates of conception than females who remain in the group.

Over the past decade or two, scientists have been trying to study the effects of PTU on fish. Studies on amphibians and mammalians have been much more popular during the course of this time period. Mentioned in one of the excerpts, researchers have been able to figure out that low thyroid hormone levels prior to the development of the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis leads to brain damage and impairments in humans and rodents. Due to the fact that the HPT axis does not form right away in zebrafish offspring, the levels of thyroid hormone comes directly from the maternal egg yolk. After about 60-72 hours post fertilization, the HPT axis is formed and the zebrafish can now produce their own thyroid hormones.  Altering thyroid hormone levels is one of the major factors involved in neuronal and oligodendrocyte balance in the development of the zebrafish brain.

When the sun heats up several water bodies, water vapor starts rising up due to its low density. As it reaches a higher altitude, the temperature starts to cool down. This drop results in the vapor to condense and form clouds above. A more simplified version can be shown using a cloud in a bottle. Adding a small amount of water (or to make the process much faster - ethanol) in a 1 litre plastic bottle would represent the process in a closed system. Using a rubber cork, the nozzle of an air pump can be secured in place. Once everything is set, air is pumped into the bottle with water/ethanol. As more air is pumped into the bottle, the pressure inside starts increasing. Since PV=nRT, the temperature also starts to rise inside. This equates to the water rising once the sun heats up the seas, lakes, rivers etc. As soon as the cork is removed, there is a pop sound following by a sudden appearance of fog, which represents the cloud. When the cork is removed, there is a sudden drop in pressure, followd by the drastic drop in temperature that rapidly cools down the heated air inside, thereby causing condensation.  

The organization of this poster does not follow conventional scientific sections (abstract, introduction, methods) as it is more of a review than a study. The flow of the poster is choppy and confusing. Although there are numbered sections, it stills feels clunky when following the sections in order. The beginning of the flow is in the upper middle, then it goes left and down, then up to the middle, then down, then right, then up, then down. In my opinion, this is not an optimum flow. The charts and images are simple and can be understood by reading them, requiring no additional information. As well, each section focuses on what the header prompts and properly informs the reader on the subject of that section. Overall the organization is lacking, however, the information is easily presented.

    Formating was well done, but the writing requires editing. In the four paragraphs, the word count is kept minimal and paragraph form is used which prevents the poster from becoming busy. However, as I previously stated, the writing needs editing. There are grammatical errors present in all four of the paragraphs and unnecessary phrases added to sentences. This writing is not suitable for scientific purposes.