Drafts

Every day I drink coffee. I do this without thinking about any possible consequences that come with this stimulant. Coffee is the drink that contains caffeine, but caffeine is the stimulant. Caffeine is a bitter substance that we can find in over 60 plants. These plants include coffee beans and tea leaves, amongst many more. It stimulates your central nervous system, which can make you feel more awake and give you a boost of energy.  Within one hour of eating or drinking caffeine, it reaches its peak level in your blood. You may continue to feel the effects of caffeine for four to six hours. For me, sadly, one cup of coffee is not enough to fuel me for 4-6 hours, maybe 40-60 minutes. Although, based on my research, it does not say that coffee is bad for everybody. It only says too much coffee could be detrimental. In that case, I believe we should reduce our coffee intake and try to have one cup a day if we are between ages 18-26.

The proposal in the article above highlights the analysis of a protein domain (BOP1) in many species, and creating a phylogenetic tree on the basis of taxonomy using program MEGA7. The co-expression of BOP1 protein was then mapped using a heat map. Absolute expression values for BOP1 genes in normal and cancerous tissues were taken from the GENT database. These values between normal and cancerous tissues were then compared.

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?

Bees are a haplodiploid species. Thus, males come from unfertilised eggs and are haploid while females come from fertilised eggs and are diploid. All of the bees in a colony are sisters and males are only produced in order for the queen bee to mate or to found a new colony. Additionally, the queen tends to be monogamous such that all of her daughters always share 50% of their genetic material with one another. Since the daughters are diploids, half of their genetic material comes from their mother, which on average yields 25% relatedness between sisters. This means that, on average, daughters of a monogamous queen will be 75% related to one another. This relates to indirect fitness, which is a measure of an individual’s fitness based on the number of offspring a relative gains through that individual’s help. It is hypothesized that eusociality has evolved in bees because of this increased relatedness between sisters, as it would generate an increased gain in indirect fitness as compared to sisters that are only 50% related as would be the case if the queen were not monogamous. However, due to the fact that there is a greater fitness gain if daughter biased colonies start producing more males than females, a benefit that outweighs any indirect fitness gain that females acquire by helping make more females, this hypothesis is insufficient to explain eusociality in bees.

Slime molds are unicellular protist organisms that were previously classified as fungi until they were discovered to be unrelated. Slime molds are lacking the general characteristics of fungi such as having chitin in their walls and not being able to move in any form of their life cycle. The specific slime mold species that will be experimented, Physarum Polycephalum, is able to live in the haploid and diploid form. In starvation, the diploid will sporulate and the haploid spores then sexually reproduce to increase genetic variation in the species as if favored by natural selection. The diploid form is able to grow plasmodium which is the characteristic appearance of slime molds, forming large branching structures that expand across a surface. 

    Research has been performed on this species and scientists have made conclusions about its intelligence, organization and memory. It has been shown to exhibit a collective behavior where several single celled organisms cluster and form temporary tissues that move together in times of resource deprivation. Also slime molds have been found to grow in any direction to find food, then upon discovery of a food source, reduces the non beneficial branches that did not land on a food source and thickens the successful branch. 

The purpose of the experiment is to study the interactions between leaf miners and three different species of elm trees (Ulmus americana, Ulmus parvifolia, and Ulmus minor).  Using the random sampling of fallen leaves from the different species, the number of leaf mines tunnels can be averaged.  In addition, the survival rate would be determined by factoring the number of aborted leaf mines as well. From this information, it is the goal of the study to determine if there is a preference for the species of Ulmus that the leaf miners lay their eggs. In addition, the data would be used to determine if there is any correlation with the survival rate of the leaf miners with the species they were hosted in.

Understanding the fact that all animals, from scolopendra to elephants, are formed at the direction of very similar blocks of Hox genes, greatly changes the picture of the world. Instead of the fantastic diversity of nature, we suddenly see a room where children's crafts from Lego bricks are scattered. There are houses, and trains, and dogs - you can’t refuse our fantasies to fantasies - but at the heart of all the crafts is the uniform principle of connecting cubes with pimples. If you are used to admiring the diversity of the world in which you live, such a discovery cannot but disappoint you. Despite the fact that you yourself, as it turns out, are such a craft from the same standard set of parts.

Incidentally, this problem has not only theoretical but also practical significance. The difficulties encountered in animal cloning are largely determined by the fact that we still know too little about the work of genes during early development. Cloning of animals is carried out by transplanting a nucleus from a somatic (non-sexual) cell of one animal into the egg of another. However, for normal development, it is necessary that the genes of the embryo are initially silent, and they are quite active in the donor nucleus. The egg cytoplasm must somehow reprogram the nucleus, turn off the genome, and then turn it on again at the right time. Until we know how to help her with this, it’s hard to expect great success in cloning.

 Among all bioindicators, lichens have been identified as the most useful to monitor the level of pollution in the environment (Ferry et al 1973). Lichens can be found in different areas starting from warm, tropical regions to cold, polar regions and even extreme conditions, which might be deemed as too harsh for other living organisms (Weerakoon 2015). The symbiotic relationship between an algae and fungus gives rise to a lichen. The association involves the alga producing the nutrients since it has the chlorophyll to photosynthesize and the fungus provides water to the alga (Hale 1969, 1993). There are three bodies for lichens: crustose, foliose and fruticose (Brodo et al 2001). They can be used in two ways to monitor air pollution: 1) grouping the species of lichens present in a specific area 2) measuring the morphological changes or the accumulation of pollutants in the lichens (Richardson, 1991; Seaward, 1993; Gries, 1996).

The hypothalamus releases thyroid releasing hormone (TRH). The TRH then goes to the pituitary gland which in turn releases thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). TSH then goes to the thyroid gland which produces T4, a biologically active molecule and T4 with is a biologically inactive pre hormone. both are released into the blood some times attached to a protein other times not attached to a protein, They thyroid hormone comes out of the blood vessel and through the blood-brain barrier through a transporter, such as MCT8. Then when inside of the cell, T4 is turned into T3.  The T3 is then attached to the thyroid hormone receptor which attaches to the DNA along with coactivator or corepressor and causes the regulation of the gene. the thyroid hormone is important in changing the metabolism of the body and express developmental genes such as the notch signaling pathway. In the lab, the experiment that is trying to be done is how would changing the T3 concentration in zebrafish changes the number of neural stem cells. While this study have been done in mice before, the lab aims to do it on zebrafish, which is something that has never been studied before. In the lab the hypothesis is that the addition of T3 to the fish would cause an increase in thyroid hormone and cause an increase in notch signaling and as a result, there would be more cell differentiation and as a result, there would be less neural stem cells than there would be otherwise.