Drafts

Babu, K. S. (1965). Anatomy of the Central Nervous System of Arachnids. Zoologische Jahrbucher: Abteilung Fur Anatomie Und Ontogenie Der Tiere, 82, 1–154.

Barth, Friedrich G. (2002). A Spider’s World: Senses and Behavior. Springer Science & Business Media.

Hill, D. E. (1975). The structure of the central nervous system of jumping spiders of the genus Phidippus (Araneae:Salticidae). 

Jakob, E. M., Long, S. M., Harland, D. P., Jackson, R. R., Carey, A., Searles, M. E., … Rolland, J. P. (2018). Lateral eyes direct principal eyes as jumping spiders track objects. Current Biology, 28(18), R1092–R1093. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.0655.

There are three basic types of scientific articles are research articles, reviews, and notes or brief communications. Research articles are papers where an experiemtn was performed and the author is reporting on what was done ad what the results were. They generally contain an introduction of the subject, the methods that were performed, the results of the experiemnt, and the author's discussion of those results. Reviews are pieces of writing in which the author reports on a certain topic or body of knowledge as a whole, and highlights certain researchers or experiemnts done that have furthered the knowledge of the subject. Reviews can also include current debates on a topic or gaps in knowledge. Notes and brief communications are shorter works that provide an overview of topics to inform the scientific community. They can include observations that will be studied more in-depth at a later point, or results of an experiemnt can be summarized if they are not extensive. Both research articles and brief communications are usually peer-reviewed, while reviews may or may not be.

I thought it was interesting how Roman culture and art parallels so directly to leadership and military expansion at that time. During the Age of Plunder, the amount of new greek art greatly influenced sculptors at that time, bringing about a Hellenistic era of culture. Now, with the rise of Augustus the chaos of previous years of civil war have died down and the people of Rome can again switch their focus back to culture. Again Greek influence rises up, with Ovid's utilization of a specific form of Greek poetry. Although this style of Greek poetry had been in Rome for a while, Ovid repopularized it. I also find it ironic how during the time Greek culture was introduced that some Roman politicians were concerned about a moral decline. Ovid, who writes his work with Greek influence, often expresses scandalous ideas in his poetry, somewhat justifying politicians fears from a long time ago. 

DNA replication is an important biological process that acts as a basis for cell growth and division. When a cell must divide, the DNA must also replicate itself so that each daughter cell may contain identical DNA transcripts. This process begins by sections of DNA called origin of replication being targeted by intiator proteins. These origins of replication tend to contain AT repeats due to the fact that Adenine and Thymine have a weaker bond making it easier for those two nucleotide to seperate. Helicase will seperate the base pairs and establish the replication fork. Following intiation, the DNA will elongate in a 5' to 3' direction due to the free hydroxyl group. DNA polymerase will be recuited by the initiator proteins like primase and begin elongation in the 3' direction. The opposite strand, or lagging strand, must be replicated in fragments because DNA must be replicated 5' to 3'. These fragments are called  Okazaki fragment. Since DNA replication is intiated at many parts in the genome, it will be terminate a various points as well. Termination will be a result of a blocked replication fork. 

A concussion is defined by Meehan et al. as a blow to the head, neck or face that causes short term neurological deficits without structural changes in the brain as visible by neuroimaging. Concussions are a very serious medical injury that can lead to long term brain damage impacting memory, behavior, and mental ability. Many modern journals focus on brain health and injury and disease diagnosis and it is no wonder why: humans care about their brain health. Why is it then that so many young athletes often go undiagnosed with serious injuries? Meehan et al. reported that less than half of high school students who sustained concussions during a football game would report it to medical staff. In college students, they were unlikely to report any injury, but when they did they often called their concussion a minor head injury, terming it something of less danger. The percent of students in contact sports that were observed to have a head injury and resulting concussion symptoms is consistently lower than the percent of students confirmed to have concussions by medical diagnosis. This is a great pitfall in reducing the harm done to young athletes especially during developing years when the brains formative functions can be greatly impacted by such a disturbance. It was found that up to 30% of athletes showing symptoms and cause for concussions went undiagnosed (Meehan). 

While the data itself cannot conclude the factors in the lack of diagnosis, theories exist that may explain part of it. Firstly, the mean age of the athletes in the report was 15.5 years old (Meehan). Consider this age as quiet vulnerable to the critizism of parents and coaches, and highly in tune to the behavior and expectations of the social sphere. As a fifteen year old athlete, they want to be great and hold up the team, not hold them back. Often receiving injuries can make a young teammate feel guilty for taking time out of the game or attention from the medical aids, and also can lose them playing time when they want to be doing the most to help their team win. These emotions could result in the belittling of their own symptoms and potentially ignoring signs of major damage. 

Meehan, William P 3rd et al. “The prevalence of undiagnosed concussions in athletes.” Clinical journal of sport medicine : official journal of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine vol. 23,5 (2013): 339-42. doi:10.1097/JSM.0b013e318291d3b3

The meristem is the region of the plant that contains undifferentiated stem cells, the stem cell niche in plants. These are classified as stem cells because they fit the criteria of being self-renewing, undifferentiated, totipotent or pluripotent, and are found in a specialised area called a niche. Both plants and animals have stem cells found in niches, however, a unique feature of plant cells is that they are all totipotent. That is, if the organism were to be dealt cataclysmic damage - such as a tree being cut down to its base - it would be able to regenerate completely. This process takes place through the formation of a callus. When the plant is wounded, the differentiated cells around the wound will dedifferentiate into a group of cells, the callus, that can grow into any new organ the plant needs. Depending on the concentrations of hormones the callus is exposed to, it will differentiate into different organs. Higher concentrations of auxin lead to more root formation and higher concentrations of cytokinin lead to more shoot formation. Though it is true that an entire plant can be regenerated from a single one of these dedifferentiated cells, that does not mean all plant cells are stem cells. Stem cells must be undifferentiated and found in a niche, as such, although all plant cells can regenerate an entire organism, most of them are already differentiated and are not found in a niche.

In Fall 2019, as part of the Junior Writing Class at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I conducted a project to produce careful writing such that an exact replica of the obtained results can be reproduced. The Methods project is influenced by the idea that scientists must be able to carry out an experiment and reproduce the exact results if they were to also perform the experiment. The goal of the Methods project is to learn how to create a multi-panel scientific figure and ultimately compare an image with someone else’s replicate of your image, who has followed your outlined methods. The topic of the experiment was phytophagy or the eating of plants. The subject that was chosen for this experiment was a leaf with a hole in it. This was inspired by the simplicity of the subject.

In the MV and YED plate, there were many white colonies. The reason for the white colonies in the MV plates is very likely due to complementation. In the YED plates, it is possible that some of the white colonies have a mutation in ade2. However, because the adenine that is required to grow a colony of ade2 mutants is lacking in the MV plates, it is unable to grow. If a colony is growing on the MV plate it can be considered that the  Because the complementation only occurs if the mutations were on the same gene, this indicates that if the resulting diploid colony was white they do not have the mutation at the same gene. This indicates that unknown alpha 2 and the two unknown a do not have mutation at either ade1 or ade 2 since the resulting diploid cells white when crossed with both ade 1 and ade 2.

Species on earth usually follow a similar growth pattern which scientists have been able to observe and quantify. In general, a species will experience a higher growth rate when at lower population densities until it reaches a plateau at its carrying capacity. The carrying capacity is the number of individuals an environment can sustain indefinitely. The most basic way to describe this model is through a logistic growth curve. It begins exponential and levels out. However, this is not the full story in real life. What tends to happen is a population will overshoot the carrying capacity when times are good and population growth rates are positive. When this happens the environment imply cannot sustain this population and the species feels the impact via two factors. Decreased birth rates from less food and possible increased emigration to other suitable ranges. The growth rate then decreases and the population may undershoot the carrying capacity at which point the cycle may repeat. Populations that over-and-under shoot by very little can be described as dampened oscillations.

An unfortunate problem some species face is the allee effect of population growth. The trend most observed in the wild is when population density is low for a certain area, the growth rate is high because the environment can sustain more individuals than currently present. However, consider a small population that is very dispersed and therefore partially isolated from each other. When it comes time to breed they may not be able to find a mate in time and therefore not produce any young. This is the allee effect. Low population densities mixed with isolation produces a decreased growth rate. This effect can drive many species to extinction fairly quick as it's hard to recover when a population size becomes so small so fast.

Species on earth usually follow a similar growth pattern which scientists have been able to observe and quantify. In general, a species will experience a higher growth rate when at lower population densities until it reaches a plateau at its carrying capacity. The carrying capacity is the number of individuals an environment can sustain indefinitely. The most basic way to describe this model is through a logistic growth curve. It begins exponential and levels out. However, this is not the full story in real life. What tends to happen is a population will overshoot the carrying capacity when times are good and population growth rates are positive. When this happens the environment imply cannot sustain this population and the species feels the impact via two factors. Decreased birth rates from less food and possible increased emigration to other suitable ranges. The growth rate then decreases and the population may undershoot the carrying capacity at which point the cycle may repeat. Populations that over-and-under shoot by very little can be described as dampened oscillations.

An unfortunate problem some species face is the allee effect of population growth. The trend most observed in the wild is when population density is low for a certain area, the growth rate is high because the environment can sustain more individuals than currently present. However, consider a small population that is very dispersed and therefore partially isolated from each other. When it comes time to breed they may not be able to find a mate in time and therefore not produce any young. This is the allee effect. Low population densities mixed with isolation produces a decreased growth rate. This effect can drive many species to extinction fairly quick as it's hard to recover when a population size becomes so small so fast.