Perfect Paragraph

An elaborate representation of static electricity can be demonstrated through the use of a Van de Graaf. Structurally, a Van de Graaf has a base with a dial to turn it on and increase/decrease the voltage. It is plugged to a power outlet through the base. Emerging from the base, the plastic cylinder has a belt (made of felt) constantly rubbing against one another when the equipment is switched on. This causes a sea of negatively charged electrons to be produced. The electrons travel up the belt to the metal ball of the Van de Graaf (on top). Upon skin contact with the metal ball, the person will experience their hair being "static". This is due to the fact that electrons cannot stay in one place and are always looking to leave through any form conducting medium. The person has to stand on an insulating material (e.g. wooden or plastic stool) to avoid the electrons travelling down to the ground since that pathway is natural for them. This is the same mechanism as the simple "socks shuffling against the rug" or "balloon rubbing against hair". 

In the future, I would like to use my biology degree to pursue a career in medicine. With that in mind, bioethics must be considered when approaching life science in the real world. Bioethics is the ethics of medical and biological research. Ethics drive the way we are allowed to behave in different settings, and the science field is no exception. One article illustrates the consideration of bioethics, where five couples are currently lined up for CRISPR babies to avoid deafness. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is a modern gene-editing technique that has not been well tested. It primarily causes a mutation in the germ-line cells, creating a heritable sequence for future generations. There are guidelines in place to make sure that CRISPR is not abused and tested on humans without proper conditions. One such condition is the inevitable death of some diseases. An example includes the editing of HIV-resistant infants. In this case, I think that the editing of infants to get rid of deafness is not life-threatening, so it should not be used and should be considered invasive, palliative surgery. However, moral guidelines may vary from country to country. Russia may have different protocols that may allow them to bypass this issue.

There are many possible explanations for the differences between Figure 1 and Figure 2. The orientation and placement of the images within the figures were different. I did not specify the exact location of each panel within my original scientific figure, Figure 1. I also did not mention labeling each panel, A, B and C, so that may explain the lack of labels within Figure 2. The arrows of each figure also differed in color and placement. This may be due to the fact that I created one of the arrows, the white one in Figure 1, on a different software than the usual editing software, Inkscape. I did not include the fact that I did this in my methods description. 

In the first image, panel A in Figure 1, the original and replicate look differently. This may be due to the fact that the replicate camera was held closer to the leaf than I had originally, or perhaps the student zoomed in their camera to capture the photo while I kept mine zoomed out. The difference in phytophagy spots and leaf shape may be because different leaves were used. It could also be because the replicated photo was taken over a week after my original photo. The leaf could have decomposed slightly or been weathered more during that time, explaining the brown spots on the leaf in Figure 2.

The Methods project provides evidence of phytophagy on the University of Massachusetts campus. Students on campus are found organizing in Harvest, one of the markets on campus. In this market, students collect different types of plants into plastic or recyclable boxes. These plants vary by day but typically spinach, kale and romaine lettuce leaves can be observed in this market. At certain times of the day, students will enter Harvest and collect large amounts of leaves for consumption. Factors that are controlled in this project; of time of day, type of market, area of market, area of consumption and vocal consent.

The title of the poster my lab partner and I created was, "Qualifying the Effect of Microscope Properties and Techniques". In a series of experiments we learned how to properly use a research quality light microscope. The experments were geared towards the technical ascepts of the microscope. This involoves the use of filters, shutters, and adjsuting numerical aperature when capturing images. There were also a variety of methods we practiced in order to capture a high quality image. These methods included setting up Kohler illumination, use of fluoroescent microscopy, and properly using an oil immersion lense. All these various experiments came together to encapsultate our main objective of qualifying the effect of microscope properties and techniques in order to create a high quality image.

The auditory template model describes how male birds learn to sing and was developed by Peter Marler through his experiments on chaffinches. First, he observed that males were only sensitive to songs during two periods: following hatching and during their first spring after hatching. Additionally, he discovered that the chaffinches weren’t sensitive to any song, only the songs of their conspecifics. Through further experimentation, he also determined that males who were deafened produced more abnormal songs than males who were deprived of a tutoring song. From these data, Marler hypothesized that male chaffinches possess a crude template that they match to conspecific songs during their sensitive period, and that they later refine these songs by listening to themselves sing. This process of song learning is known as the auditory template model. Though this model explains the way some birds learn how to sing, recent experiments have produced data that do not fit this model. Experiments with white-crowned sparrows showed that even though male hatchlings do not learn heterospecific song when tutored by a speaker, they do learn heterospecific song when tutored by a heterospecific male. This seems to counter the idea of a pre-encoded crude template that serves to filter out heterospecific song. Other song learning modalities, such as in the marsh wren and European robin seem to counter the auditory template model. Marsh wrens are sensitive to songs from ten days after they hatch to their first spring, and like chaffinches, have a descending ability to learn songs the older they get. However, unlike chaffinches, if marsh wrens learn a lot of songs before winter they will be less ready to learn songs in the following spring, and vice versa. Indigo bunting prove to be another kind of exception to the auditory template model. The indigo bunting has no species-specific song and forms groups that share a repertoire that changes from year to year. It has also been shown that indigo bunting males can switch groups and will learn new songs to better fit in with their new neighbours. Though the auditory template model has proven accurate for some species, the many variations in song learning have shown that it is hardly ubiquitous among all bird species.

Phytophagy means eating of plants. It usually describes insect behavior. However, it can also be interpreted as any animal eating a plant. In this project, I took two pictures of evidence for autophagy and organized it into a figure. A map of where the evidence was found was also included.  I wrote a method on how to take that picture and someone else followed my method to make a similar figure. The result was a similar figure that had some differences in formatting, the object in the photo, and the photo quality. The biggest difference that changed how the figure looked was differences in formatting, whereas photo quality contributed to the difference but did not cause the figure to change drastically. The difference in the figure that is described in the result is due to a differing camera,  method of image export, object, and hand that was taken. Due to these differences, the two figures were similar but not completely the same.

Dog whiskers are very interesting as some dogs do not have whiskers and some do.I have realized that my current dog who lives with me at UMass has very prominent whiskers, and I realized that not all dogs have whiskers, as my other dog, who lives with my family at home does not. The technical term for dog "whiskers" are "vibrassae".  It helps animals define where they are in space and helps them detect danger. Just like when a baby touches everything, a dog also uses his "whiskers" to get a feel of everything. They are closely related with nerve terminals, which makes it a high sensation area. To us, they just look like extra hair. After doing some research, they are a huge part of animal's sensory functioning, which helps with food acquision, and even communication with different species. A lot of more cool aspects! Such as helping their head position in swimming. I am very happy to have read about this as I truly thought it was extra hair.

The replicated figure does in fact show an image of the same leaf as the original. It lacks a ruler in the photo to show size. The hand holding the leaf is also not orientated the same way as the original. The time of day seems to possibly be different in the replicate since the leaf and hand is within the shadow of the tree rather than being in the sunlight such as the original is. The figure A also showed the trunk to the chute in the photo whereas the replicate only shows the petiole of the leaf in addition to the leaf itself. The figure B that shows the entire chute and the bottom half of the tree is also completely shadowed rather than the tree casting a 90-degree shadow to the right of its trunk. The arrow in figure B is also slightly off in regards to the angle of the arrow in the original. It looks like the photo was captured while the photographer was standing closer to the tree than the photographer of the original photo. The figure C replicate also looks like it was a photo taken by someone standing closer than that of the original photo. Like the shadowing in figure A, the shadow of the trees is also different in the replicate than the original in figure C. It seems like the time of day when the photos were taken was different in the replicate than it was in the original. The tree on the left of the figure C photo is also cut off a little whereas in the original it is not cut off at all. The letters that label the figures are also a little different. The second figure which included the map had a smaller red X than the original figure 2. They are in smaller text boxes and located more in the left corner than they are in the originals.

Humans have affected the world around us in innumerable ways. As humanity progresses, we further alter the world to our needs, which can sometimes create problems of its own. Despite human power and ingenuity, nature  and its laws continue to persist. Humanity has had a close relationship with bacteria since the first human encountered its first bacteria. It was only in recent history that the invention of antibiotics relieved the human race from the grip of harmful bacteria. The invention of antibiotics was an extremely important leap in medicine for humans and the animals we can give antibiotics too. They are used heavily in a variety of industries, which all contriburte to the process of natural selection. Antibiotic resistant bacteria have become a terror for doctors, researchers, and patients in the last few decades. 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.