Drafts

I was actually surprised about our results. I believed that seeds with a tampered seed coat would not germinate as well as a normal seed. However, the graphs reveal that for most types, seeds with a nicked coat germinated sooner and in greater numbers. From handling the seeds, I also believed that seeds with a thicker coat may actually germinate faster if they are nicked. Again, there was no distinct difference found between seeds of thick or thin coats. If we had more time to run this experiment again I would have liked to use seeds of more varying coat thickness. 

We wanted to figure out how important the seed coat is to the germination of a seed. For our experiment we focused on six types of seeds, ranging from green peas to chickpeas. We soaked 30 seeds of each type then removed the seed coat of 10 seeds, nicked another set of 10 seeds, and left the remaining 10 seeds alone. The seeds were then placed in petri dishes with a moist paper towel, all conditions being held constant. Over the course of four days we checked on the seeds every twelve hours. We noted the number of seeds germinated and any other traits that stood out to us.

Professor Seydoux went onto explain what really happened in order. At the very beginning, anterior PARs stop posterior PARs from entering the membrane . When the sperm enters, it brings along a centrosome that bursts into microtubules and there was a correlation between that and the posterior PAR proteins at the membrane. Blocking of the microtubule formation of the sperm, stopped the PAR proteins from reaching the membrane. However, when the oocyte nucleus about to undergo meiotic division – the spindle formation allowed the PAR protein to access the membrane. This is suggested that it was not a question of sperm vs oocyte, it was more of a question of which cell made a rich microtubule first. In wild type, meiotic spindles are more transient, whereas the sperm asters are much more dense and stable. 

 I really like this article and am very happy that this experiment was conducted on the mice to prove that healthy gut bacteria can cause a healthy life. This can be used on humans once more research is done, and provide antibiotics to humans to provide them with a healthier life and reduce their chance of developing things such as schizophrenia. There were different patterns of neural activity in the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex when the gut bacteria was disrupted, so in turn brain regions associated with fear and learning. Hopefully the research can continue in this topic, and hopefully one day this antibiotic tested on mice will be available for humans.
 

In this article we find out that mice with a disrupted gut microbiota may be unable to shake off fearful memories – and that gut bacteria that is disrupted affects the memory and learning skills..David Artis at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York and his colleagues studied the effect antibiotics have on the way mice learn and respond to fearful situations. They made mice fearful of this specific sound, as it delivered a small shock to their paws, making them scared when they heard the tone. If the shock was not in the scenario, they can learn to forget the fear, but since there is the shock, it is rather traumatizing. When they had added an antibiotic that clears their gut bacteria and microbes, they were able to forget the fear, and not respond to the specific tone that caused them distress before the antibiotic. Researchers found that with disrupted gut bacteria, had different gene switches on. The ones without the gut bacteria, had lower levels of four compounds related to schizophrenia and autism. Thus, the conclusion of this experiment is that if your gut bacteria is healthy, you are more likely to have a lower risk of developing certain defects, such as fear, schizophrenia, and autism.  

The activity of P. occidentalis, harvester ants, has been shown to enrich soil nutrients around their mounds due to the ants’ movement of particles¹. The rudimentary soil composition in certain areas has also influenced the density and variation of ant populations². In our experiment, the effects of salinity on the harvester ants burrowing behaviors were tested. 

Hypothesis: The ants will burrow more in the sand where the salinity is lower.

Half of an ant farm was filled with regular, untouched sand, while the other half was filled with sand where the salinity was manipulated to be that of seawater (35 ppt). Eight ants were added to the farm and left to burrow for 6 days, while every few days their food and water were restocked. The burrowing results and general observations were recorded and the Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze the results. 

Each group received 30 seeds of the same soybean species, totalling 6 species and 180 seeds total. One set of 10 seeds served as a control, 10 were nicked with a small needle, and 10 were manipulated so that the seed coat was completely removed.

We placed each set of seeds in a large petri dish with a wet paper towel. The dishes were labeled with the type of seed and the treatment that the set received. 

The seeds were covered and left to sit for 3 ½ consecutive days, and we checked them for germination at 8 am and 7 pm every day. Each group member re-added water to a paper towel if it had dried out. We recorded the amount of seeds in each dish that had no change, began germination, were germinating, and have stopped germinating at every check-in time. 

The gravitational pull of the Moon influences our oceans' tides more than the Sun because it is much closer to the Earth. High tides are created by the moon pulling water up, and low tides are created by water moving away to satisfy those high tides. High and low tides occur almost twice per day, but not quite. This is due to the fact that one solar day is 24 hours, but a lunar day, the time it takes the Earth to reach the same position relative to the Moon, is about 24 hours and 50 minutes. The tides follow a lunar day schedule because the gravitational pull of the Moon is almost twice as strong as that of the Sun. 

The change between tides, also known as the flood tide and ebb tide, are gradual. This means that the line between the high and low tides is a gray area, so one cannot exactly predict the length of each. The speed of water flow varies during te flood and ebb eriods, and it also varies from place to place.

Immunostaining is the use of antibody-based methods for detecting specific proteins within a cell. In electron microscopy, immunostaning can be especially useful because elctron microscopy uses very, very thin slices of samples, and proteins can be marked and identified under this method using heavy metal particles. While useful, staining in EM is very difficult, as membrane conservation and replicability is next to impossible. 

In general, immunohistochemistry is used to stain cells in identifying structures, either using fluorescent dyes or non-fluorescent methods like enzymes. Light microscopy can be used to view the effects of the staining, reducing the costs compared to EM. Like EM, replicability and fixation protocols are still being adjusted. 

Ponds contribute more to biodiversity and ecological processes than any other small aquatic ecosystems. Research has shown that they house the most unique and rare species compared with all others in this category. This information has only recently become available, so further research into pond biodiversity is necessary. From the research that has already been conducted, scientists have suggested that ponds are havens for all plants and organisms involved due to the high biodiversity and well maintained ecosystem.

However, the research is still scarce. So without observing further, we risk losing the opportunity to study these oases of species diversity which are responsible for high levels of biodiversity: and therefore the knowledge and capability to conserve these environments. At the worst, we risk losing these ecosystems altogether. This loss could be detrimental to species diversity on both a local and global scale. With this in mind, it is our goal to determine the health of local pond ecosystems that have yet to be studied, and make suggestions on what kinds of foreign plants could be introduced in order to spread awareness and one day prevent potential catastrophic loss.