Writing in Biology - Section 1

The history of medicine in the United States, with its innumerable social movements, is a period of demurality that continues to be a classic example of social change. This part of U.S history challenged existing race, gender, and cultural practices that continue to affect our daily lives today. However, all thoughts need a medium to portray their ideas and such is the case with American medical history. Since its conception, the media has become the vehicle for social metamorphosis. This was particularly true with respect to diseases. The greatest challenge of the early 20-century germ gospellers was to convince the public that tuberculosis was a communicable disease.

Why studying the similarities and differences between hox genes is important. And why their expression is important. In the development of animals, there is a special period of embryonic similarity, during which not only the appearance of the embryos but also the expression of their genes is very conservative. The existence of this period is associated with the appearance in the evolution of stable building plans. In hox genes, the genes themselves are located on the chromosomes in order, therefore, strict, consistent activation of them is necessary in order for the body to form correctly. However, the mechanism and regulation of the Hox genes themselves remain unclear. It is clear that this process is very complex and multi-staged; non-coding RNAs are involved in it. To a complete understanding of all these processes in different animals, science is still very far away. When the basic mechanisms of gene regulation during early ontogenesis are deciphered, biologists will be able to closely address the following fundamental question, namely: why is all this necessary? Why do multicellular animals suddenly switch from maternal transcripts to their own? Incidentally, this problem has not only theoretical but also practical significance.

Leaf miners are a type of insect that eat the mesophyll layer of the leaf. The elm leafminer's common name is a sawfly. The adult female sawfly lays eggs on the bottom side of the leaf. These eggs hatch and the larvae burrow through the mesophyll layer of the leaf creating tracts as they eat. The leaf eventually falls to the grown in the fall, or the leaf is killed by excessive leafmining and falls to the ground. Once the leaf is on the grownd, the larvae crawl out and burrow about one inch under the top soil. The larvae form a cacoon and wait out the winter underground. In the spring the larvae hatch from the cacoon and dig their way out of the soil to emerge as an adult sawfly. The adult saw fly lays more eggs and the life cycle continues.

The majority of damage done by the leafminer is asthetic;the overall damage to the leaf is not life threatening ot the tree, but the leaves can die if too much of the mesophyll is eaten. There are insectasides available for the soil, to kill the sawfly cacoons, or for the leaves of the tree, to kill the eggs. Insectasides are expensive and time consuming. Therefore finding trees that are less likely to be attacked by sawflies is the best solution to this problem. 

Leaf miners are a type of insect that eat the mesophyll layer of the leaf. The elm leafminer's common name is a sawfly. The adult female sawfly lays eggs on the bottom side of the leaf. These eggs hatch and the larvae burrow through the mesophyll layer of the leaf creating tracts as they eat. The leaf eventually falls to the grown in the fall, or the leaf is killed by excessive leafmining and falls to the ground. Once the leaf is on the grownd, the larvae crawl out and burrow about one inch under the top soil. The larvae form a cacoon and wait out the winter underground. In the spring the larvae hatch from the cacoon and dig their way out of the soil to emerge as an adult sawfly. The adult saw fly lays more eggs and the life cycle continues.

The majority of damage done by the leafminer is asthetic;the overall damage to the leaf is not life threatening ot the tree, but the leaves can die if too much of the mesophyll is eaten. There are insectasides available for the soil, to kill the sawfly cacoons, or for the leaves of the tree, to kill the eggs. Insectasides are expensive and time consuming. Therefore finding trees that are less likely to be attacked by sawflies is the best solution to this problem. 

There is a viatamese village that historically, did not have many deaf individuals. This village had no universal way of communicating with the deaf individuals and vice versa. After generations of deaf individuals not being able to communicate, or be fully included in society, the presidents son was born deaf. This launched a new private school for disable children, specifically for the deaf. This school brough deaf children from all over the country to one location. Many of the kids had never met another deaf person before. These kids all used different ways of communicating in their home villages and had to adapt to their new environment. Over the years the communication between children became more and more uniform, eventually leading to a new sign language for the deaf individuals. This new language has been expanded and perfected over the years to create a community of deaf people in the country who can socialize and be a part of society. 

In neurobiology we have been discussing different techniques to insert a specific gene into cells. One tequnique used to do this is transgenic technique. This technique does not specifically target cells. The technique inserts a promoter and gene that you want to insert into an embryo. The embryo has natually occuring breaks in the DNA while it is developing. This means that if a break occurs the protomor and gene can be inserted into the DNA sequence. This added section can include a flourescent sequence. This allows the cells that have taken up the gene sequence to be seen so you can tell which cells or which area contains the transgene. 

Research has shown that cultivated cranberries react to warmer temperatures by flowering earlier; just as wild flowers do. This has critical implications to both cultivators and symbiotic species that utilize cranberries in Massachusetts. Cultivators face challenges by the earlier flowering of cranberries. The effect of phenology alteration due to climate change is also important when considering the relationship between pollinators and plants. Using controlled and well recorded cranberry bogs in Massachusetts can help understand the processes of earlier flowering times throughout the world.

Changing the phenology of flowering times in cranberries not only affects cultivators but it also affects species that closely interact with the cranberries. Lycaena epixanthe, bog copper butterflies, are affected by earlier flowering times of cranberries (Ellwood, Playfair, Polgar, et al. Int J Biometeorol 2014). Adult bog copper butterflies consume flower nectar while the developing caterpillars consume shoots and leaves. Two major ecological issues occur when the phenology of the cranberry changes. First, the phenology of the bog copper butterfly may not match up with its food source; the cranberry. Second, if the cranberry flowers earlier and cultivators spray herbicide earlier, then the bog copper butterflies may come after the cultivators have sprayed rather than before. This may have negative impacts on the survival rate of the bog copper butterfly. Cultivators may find it easier to yield a crop that is not consumed by the bog copper butterfly caterpillars, however, they still need the butterfly as a pollinator for future crops. The use of pollinators in agriculture has been well studied in regards to bees as pollinators (Bartomeus et al.). Understanding this process is important as it may clarify the process of earlier flowering times and pollination for both agricultural purposes as well as in the wild. 

Why studying the similarities and differences between hox genes is important. And why their expression is important. In the development of animals, there is a special period of embryonic similarity, during which not only the appearance of the embryos but also the expression of their genes is very conservative. The existence of this period is associated with the appearance in the evolution of stable building plans. In hox genes, the genes themselves are located on the chromosomes in order, therefore, strict, consistent activation of them is necessary in order for the body to form correctly. However, the mechanism and regulation of the Hox genes themselves remain unclear. It is clear that this process is very complex and multi-staged; non-coding RNAs are involved in it. To a complete understanding of all these processes in different animals, science is still very far away.

Glucose sensing neurons are far from a new discovery, they have actually been known for around 50 years. However, their physiological function has yet to be understood clearly. In a recent study, Oh et al. discovered the mechanism of glucose sensing these cells perform. Oh et al. identified a pair of neurons with bifurcated axons. One of these axons signaled to insulin producing cells to trigger the release of Drosophila Insulin-like peptide 2 (DILP2)¹. The other signals to adipokinetic hormone (AKH), a fly equivalent to glucagon, producing cells to trigger its release¹. Oh et al. then proposed that this mechanism is used for glucose homeostasis in Drosophila.