Drafts

Whaling has been a practice for thousands of years. About 4000 years ago whaling was practiced by Norwegians and most likely the Japanese as well. Whaling was also practiced by many Inuit communities in the artic. During that time the entire whale was used. Blubber was used as a source of vitamins and protein for people to eat. Bones where made into tools. Baleen was used for basket weaving, roofing material, and fishing line. As whaling became more and more popular and profitable, European communities began the practice and eventually America began the practice. Whaling in America was rather wasteful and excessive. There is an oil gland in the head of most whales that is called the melon. This melon contains oil that people sought after for lighting lamps. There were some other uses for the oil such as cosmetics, lubricants, and heating but mainly it was used to lamp oil.

                In the 1800’s whaling had reached its climax and people became more efficient in killing whales. Harpoon guns were much more efficient and steam ships were faster. Since humans were becoming more populated and more efficient at killing whales, their populations began to plummet. In the 1900’s people became less reliant on whale oil due to the new use of petroleum. Later in the 1900’s whales started to become recognized as endangered. Fortunately, in 1971 the U.S. outlawed whaling. Since then, some species of whales rebound. As time goes on, whaling has become more and more unpopular allowing some species of whales to continue to recuperate.   

It is funny how the first thing that comes to my mind is Parkinson's diseases whenever someone says deep brain stimulation (DBS). DBS has proven to be helpful in treating several other movement disorders, one of them being Tourette's. Tourette's causes somebody to make involuntary movement and noises called tics. This usually happens due to abnormal connections in the basal ganglia of the brain. DBS allows two small electrodes implanted into the brain and delivering electrical impulses to potentially change the connections and prevent the impulses causing the tics. The patients are usually awake during the procedure because the activity can be measured while they are awake rather than under sedation. It is quite mind boggling whenever I think about the patients just aware of their surroundings while there are holes being drilled through their skulls. 

Songbirds have the capacity for species-specific recognition and individual recognition. The mechanisms of species-specific recognition generally involve recognition of invariable song features rather than variable ones. For example, though European robins produce hundreds of songs, they all follow the same syntactic rules. The robins’ songs must be composed of different phrases, phrases must alternate in pitch, and during bouts, all of the songs must be different. Experiments were performed where the speakers played songs using sounds that robins can’t produce but followed their song’s syntactic rules and they responded as if the speaker were another male. However, the robins didn’t respond to the speaker when the song was changed to include only low-pitched phrases. This supports the inference that the environment may degrade pitch and different individuals will use differently pitched notes, but that syntactic rules will remain the same, allowing for conspecific recognition. Another example of this invariability phenomenon is in the indigo bunting, which recognizes conspecifics by element composition. Indigo bunting song consists of a single element repeated quickly to produce a trill. As opposed to the robin where manipulating syntactic elements changes response rate, changing the element results in much lower conspecific response in the indigo bunting. Individual recognition is a more complicated story, and is very species specific. Colonial birds tend to have the ability to recognize individual calls, as is the case with bank swallows and emperor penguins. As these species live in colonies, parents have to be able to recognize the calls of their offspring in order to feed them. In the zebra finch, females seem to recognize their father’s calls, as they tend to choose mates which have similar but not identical songs, a behaviour that is likely to have arisen in order to avoid incest. Songbirds have the capacity to recognize individuals, and not only respond differently to neighbours and strangers but have different levels of response to different neighbours. A male will respond less strongly to a neighbour’s song from a familiar location than a stranger’s song from that same location. Should the neighbour’s song be played from an unfamiliar location, the male will respond just as strongly to it as it would a stranger’s song. This response seems explicable from a territoriality point of view. The male will respond more aggressively to new individuals who pose threats as opposed to neighbours with pre-established boundaries, and will respond aggressively to expansionary neighbours.

I woke up at 9 AM on Saturday to get ready for lab at 10 AM. I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and returned to my room. Here, I got changed and got my things ready to leave. These included a water bottle, my wallet, keys, and my phone. In the kitchen, I filled my water bottle up and grabbed a few snacks so I didn't need to go to a dining hall for breakfast. I left my apartment and locked my door. We've never had an issue where we live, however, better be safe than sorry. I unlocked by my car, prayed, and started the car. Over the summer I had 2 times where my car did not start due to a faulty alternator. This left me often doubtful my car will start. I drove for 5 minutes to get to campus and parked near Tobin hall. I walked into the building and went to the lab to set up. 30 minutes passed before the participant showed up in the parking lot. I was there to greet and lead them to the proper room. The lab runs children aged 6-10 years old through a series of pictures and records their brain responses to those images via EEG caps. These caps have 64 nodes on them all over a cap which record the brain waves radiating from the participants head. An hour into the study, the participant viewed and responded to all the images. We rewarded that participant with a prize and the parent with a $20 compensation for their help. Clean up lasted another 30 minutes, after which I left the lab and went to a dining hall around 12:30 PM.

Overuse of antibiotics has led to mutations for resistance becoming commonplace in some bacteria species. This threatens our modern medical system, as well as the lives of all humans exposed to these bacterias. These resistant bacteria cannot be killed by the most common antibiotics and even some which are used as a last resort. A few alarming strains have been appearing more and more in recent years, usually within the species of Salmonella typhi, Mycobacterium tubercluosis, Pseudomonias aeruginosa, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae. While not all of these bacteria lead to deadly diseases, antibiotic resistance in these strains make it nearly impossible to help relieve the symptoms of them, or help stop an individual from dying. However, we have not run out of options yet. One possibly alternative is to simply work on developing a new antibiotic which bacteria are not yet immune to. As the new antibiotic is administered and (hopefully) kills off the bacteria, the process of lowering antibiotic use can begin. This combined process would hopefully eliminate the possibility of resistance occurring, at least at such a high rate and across multiple species of bacteria. Of course, this process is not perfect, and could result in new resistances being developed and individuals not getting the antibiotics they truly need. There is still room for genetic changes to happen spontaneously and result in resistance, but by killing off the resistant bacteria there is hope that acquired AR in bacteria can be lowered, or at least controlled.  

Plant pathology and animal pathology differ greatly. While animals have an adaptive immune system that allows them to generate defences as new infections arise, plants do not. Plant pathogens come in three general classes, necrotrophs, biotrophs, and hemibiotrophs. Necrotrophs are organisms that kill plant tissue through enzymes and tend to be generalists that can infect many plants. Biotrophs are parasitic organisms which, in order to complete their life cycle, require host survival. These pathogens will cause slowed senescence and build haustorums that usurp metabolites from plant epithelial cells. Hemibiotrophs are biotrophs in the first part of their life cycle and necrotrophs during the second part of their life cycle.. Pathogens have three main ways of egress into a plant. They can either directly penetrate the plant through the use of a pilus or penetration peg, enter through pre-existing openings such as stomata, or enter through wounds. Plants have a series of defencive strategies to resist infection. The first line of defence is physical, plants have a waxy cuticle and cell walls that aim to prevent direct access to the cytoplasm of plant cells. In addition to a physical barrier, plants produce toxins to kill certain pathogens or create papillae in the epithelial cell walls to prevent pathogenic penetration. The second line of defence is specific, and is known as resistance (R) gene immunity that follows a gene for gene model. Pathogens produce effectors that mask their presence, and plants produce proteins that are able to detect effectors. If a plant can detect an effector then it will engage a hypersensitive response that involves immediate cell death around the infected area. At the cost of a few cells, this method enables the plant to prevent the infection from spreading.

Figure 2 contains two sets of three images. There are a few minor differeences between the two figures. Image A differs in the distance the photo was taken, the boundaries of the image, and size of the image. Image B differs in the size of the image, the boundaries of the image, and the zoom of the image. Image C differs in the boundaries of the image, the zoom of the image. Images B and C on the right include the arrows from google maps, while images B and C on the left do not. The figure differs overall in the labels used, and the sizing of the images to fit the figure. The figure on the left uses red capitalized letters to label the different imges, the figure on the right uses lowercase black letters with a white box underneath to label the images. Figure A on the left is shorter compared to figure A on the right; figure B and C on the left are taller than figures B and C on the right.

These differentces are most likely caused by the methods section. The methods most likely did not describe how far from the tree the photos were taken, or the boundaries seen in the images. The methods also most likely did not include the sizing of the images used in the figure. Figure A on the right is brighter than figure a on the left, which could be cuased by taking the picutres at a different time of day.

Types of differences:

- Way of photography: quality, lighting, view of plant (angle), colors

OBSERVATION: Panel A's background it brighter on the left than on the right.

INFERENCE: Panel A on the right had greater exposure

- Look of plant: differences in angle, number of leaves, length, size in picture

OBSERVATION: Panel D on the left had more water in the plant pot than Panel D on the right

INFERENCE: The plants had been watered prior to the picture on the left but not on the right.

- Style of arrows/lettering: where are arrows, what size, colors, orientation

OBSERVATION: Panel A on the left had one arrow but Panel A on the right had two arrows

INFERENCE: They did not put two arrows on the left panel

- Organization of photo placement: Are the panels the same size, same order, same distances between, same grouping

OBSERVATION: The panel B in the first photo is to the edge of the page but panel B in the second photo has room between the picture and the edge of the page.

INFERENCE: They were placed differently on the page.

Figure 2 "figures from previous semsesters"

The differences between the figures

- the figures on the left uses red uppercase letter labels while the figures on the right use a white box behind a black lower case letter.

- figure A, B, and C on the left are more zoomed in than the coresponding figures on the right 

- Figures b and c on the left include the google maps arows and orange figure while figrues B and C on the left do not

- figure A on the lefft is cropped more than figure a on the right

- all of the figures are made to different sizes in between the figures

    In trees, phytophagy can be observed in a sturdy, long lasting structure. In my research, I seeked out this specific variety of plant for that very reason. I was walking back to my dorm room from class northbound along Thatcher Way, when I reached the southern side of Lewis Hall. Parallel with the southern wall of the building, the closest wall to Thatcher hall, I looked to my right and I observed a tree with a large central gash in the trunk. The tree was in between the road and the building along a row of garden area. This particular tree is located directly to an asphalt ramp that leads to Thatcher Way. Upon further inspection, I observed a small pile of wood shavings at the base of the tree, indicating possible insect predation on the organism.