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Leaf Miners Perfect Paragraph

Submitted by smomalley on Sun, 11/03/2019 - 14:17

Leaf miners are a type of insect that eat the mesophyll layer of the leaf. The elm leafminer's common name is a sawfly. The adult female sawfly lays eggs on the bottom side of the leaf. These eggs hatch and the larvae burrow through the mesophyll layer of the leaf creating tracts as they eat. The leaf eventually falls to the grown in the fall, or the leaf is killed by excessive leafmining and falls to the ground. Once the leaf is on the grownd, the larvae crawl out and burrow about one inch under the top soil. The larvae form a cacoon and wait out the winter underground. In the spring the larvae hatch from the cacoon and dig their way out of the soil to emerge as an adult sawfly. The adult saw fly lays more eggs and the life cycle continues.

The majority of damage done by the leafminer is asthetic;the overall damage to the leaf is not life threatening ot the tree, but the leaves can die if too much of the mesophyll is eaten. There are insectasides available for the soil, to kill the sawfly cacoons, or for the leaves of the tree, to kill the eggs. Insectasides are expensive and time consuming. Therefore finding trees that are less likely to be attacked by sawflies is the best solution to this problem. 

Cranberry Flowering Time Perfect Paragraph

Submitted by nskinner on Fri, 11/01/2019 - 21:56

Research has shown that cultivated cranberries react to warmer temperatures by flowering earlier; just as wild flowers do. This has critical implications to both cultivators and symbiotic species that utilize cranberries in Massachusetts. Cultivators face challenges by the earlier flowering of cranberries. The effect of phenology alteration due to climate change is also important when considering the relationship between pollinators and plants. Using controlled and well recorded cranberry bogs in Massachusetts can help understand the processes of earlier flowering times throughout the world.

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Submitted by ashorey on Fri, 11/01/2019 - 13:44

Nuclear lamins are intermediate filaments in all animal cells that little is known about. It is not common to know what nuclear lamin are or what they do. Nuclear lamina mutations however are responsible for a high number of common diseases in the human population. Nuclear lamina are a type five intermediate filament that come in two main types, A and B. Both types of filaments have subtypes, and all animals express at least one subtype of B lamins. A common disease occurs when a type A prelamin, that is a type A lamin that is modified to produce other subtypes of A lamin, has a mutation to not allow it to bind properly to membranes and DNA. It congregates in the nuclear envelop and causes progenic syndromes and muscular dystrophies. These affect many people across the globe and nuclear lamina is clearly very involved in multi-cellular organisms. They are very structurally important for working muscles and an effective nervous system. 

AQ 11/1 Perfect Paragraph

Submitted by atquang on Fri, 11/01/2019 - 13:15

Today is Halloween, which means dining halls at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst will be preparing for their annual fresh lobster special. Fresh lobsters must be prepared in a particular way. Seafood should always be prepared with extra care because shellfish is a common allergen to the public. One topic that is talked about around lobsters is their innate ability to be immortal. Biological immortality in lobsters is expressed through the telomerase gene. When DNA is replicated, we lose DNA at the ends of our chromosomes (telomeres). Studies have linked the shortage of telomeres with aging. Telomerase is an enzyme that reduces the loss of telomeres. 

Endoplasmic Reticulum

Submitted by rmmcdonald on Fri, 11/01/2019 - 12:08

The endoplasmic reticulum is an important organelle that makes up 10% of the cell's volume. The endoplasmic reticulum, or ER, surounds the nucleus and spreads through out the cell. There are two types of ER: smooth and rough. The smooth ER contains no ribosomes on its membrane, hence the name "smooth". This smooth structure is because the main purpose of the smooth ER is to synthesize lipids and decrease toxicity of the cell. In contrast the rough ER has ribosomes scattered along the membrane because the main purpose of the rough ER is to synthesize, process, and export protiens. In terms of the relationship of the ER to ribosomes, a ribosome will recgonize a translation initation sequence of an mRNA and begin synthesizing the protein. This complex will then bind a translocon located on the membrane of the ER. This channel protein will direct the newly synthesized protein into the lumen of the ER. The protein is then processed and can possibly be retained in the lumen, secreted into the cytoplasm, or released in a vesicle. 

Transgenetics in neurobiology perfect paragraph

Submitted by semans on Fri, 11/01/2019 - 11:36

Though modern methods for introducing transgenes into an organism are diverse, there are two historically important procedures that were the progenitors of transgenic organisms. Palmiter and Brinster were the first to introduce foreign genetic material to an organism. They added the gene for human growth hormone (HGH) to a mouse zygote at the point where the haploid genomes are fusing to cause random incorporation of the transgene into the host genome. In addition to the transgene payload, Palmiter and Brinster added a promoter in front of the transgene in order to get expression in the transformed mice. Following this historical achievement came the knock-in engineering in embryonic stem (ES) cells developed by Capecchi, Martin, and Smithies. This method involved in vitro transformation of ES cells as opposed to direct zygotic injection. They removed the promoter from the transgene, added arms of homology and a neomycin resistance gene. The promoter is unnecessary as the arms of homology will target the transgene to an already active promoter in a pre-existing gene. The transgenes are then added to electroporated ES cells in order to allow the transgene payload to enter the ES cells. The cells that take up the transgene and undergo a double-stranded (DS) break that matches the transgene’s arms of homology get transformed. Then, the antibiotic neomycin is added to the cultured cells to select for the cells that were transformed. These transformed cells are injected into a mouse blastocyst in order to express the transgene in the adult organism.

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Submitted by ziweiwang on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 23:40

Genomic analysis is the identification, comparison of genetic features and their expression through the use of techniques such as DNA sequencing and bioinformatics. Genomic analysis is generally considered to be divided into two categories; structural genomics which identifies certain genomic structures in the genome and functional genomic analysis which analyses the expression of genes and their interactions often also called transcriptomes. Genomic analysis was made available through the prevalence and availability of gene sequencing. While the Human Genome Project sequenced the entire human genome most of the genomic analysis would not be possible without the further accessibility of sequencing using other techniques such as next-gen sequencing and whole-genome sequencing that does not depend on the isolation of cells in order to sequence the genes. Because these data that are generated from sequencing are generally put in online databases, these data are both available and able to be used for purposes that were not intended by the researchers who have originally read the sequence. The data set contains so many different information that a single sequencing can be the basis of several papers. Because of this, there is a data analysis bottleneck where there is so much data that needs to be analyzed but there is not enough time or computing power to analyze the entire genome has been a problem in the field.

perfect paragraph alcohol

Submitted by mlabib on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 21:44

Many students, including myself drink alcohol, ignoring the possible effects it can cause on our brain. We all know that while under the influence, it has an immediate effect on our brain, but I am curious about the long term effects. It wasn't until I did some research about it where I found out it was harmful to our brain and its' developement. While under the influence of alcohol, there will be a difficulty walking, blurred vision, surred speech, slower reaction times and an impaired memory. These by itself are very harmful to the brain. Of course, if someone drinks alcohol once, that does not mean they will forever be impaired, but it is drinking over and over again that can harm the individual. Alcohol can produce detectable impairments in memory after only a few drinks and, as the amount of alcohol increases, so does the degree of impairment. Large quantities of alcohol, especially when consumed quickly and on an empty stomach, can produce a blackout, or an interval of time for which the intoxicated person cannot recall key details of events, or even entire events. Additionally, you do not retain information because we do not go through "REM" sleep when intoxicated. People who have been drinking large amounts of alcohol for long periods of time run the risk of developing serious and persistent changes in the brain. Damage may be a result of the direct effects of alcohol on the brain or may result indirectly, from a poor general health status or from severe liver disease.

 
 

Minoan Civilization 2

Submitted by mpetracchi on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 21:30

Palaces were large scale structures commissioned by elites who had some control over the people living on Crete. The elites used 3 strategies to get the Minoan masses to accept their rule. First, benefits included being a part of a group with an impressive and immense structure used for rituals and gatherings and fortifications to towns for protection (Minoans of). Second and third, according to archaeologists, previous religious sites were replaced by the palaces or ‘state’ shrines, which implies the elites may have coerced people into abandoning their previous beliefs and pushed people to adopt a new ideology. These state shrines or palaces were large building complexes with multiple floors and specialized rooms. The elites that lived here enjoyed lavish lifestyles; bathrooms with wooden seats and possible flushing apparatuses leading to the main drainage system (First Aegean). In lower rooms, large ceramic jars indicate palaces were storage facilities used for storing, redistributing, and trading wine and olive oil (Minoans of). Evidence also shows the Minoans were in contact with Egypt, exchanging their cloth, timber, and foodstuffs, for copper, tin, gold, silver, and hippopotamus ivory (Minoans of).

 

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Submitted by dfmiller on Thu, 10/31/2019 - 10:20

In the human body, DNA is stored as chromatin when not being actively transcribed. Chromatin refers to the wrapping of DNA around histone proteins to control tangling, proper spatial storage of DNA, and regulation of gene expression. In order for these histones to open, exposing the DNA to RNA polymerase, transcription factors, and other necessary transcriptional hardware, acetyl-CoA is required. This acetyl CoA is derived from the metabolism of acetate by the enzyme ACSS2. Mews et al. have discovered that, through the consumption of alcohol, a rapid increase in levels of blood acetate occur resulting in rapid acetylation of histones in the brain1. Mews et al. also performed an ex-vivo assay to understand the affect of acetate on neuron cells directly. This treatment induced the expression of 3,613 genes within hippocampal nerve cells, inculding genes responsible for nervous system activity, signal transduction, learning, and memory1. The findings of this study show that alcohol consumption directly results in changes in gene expression in the brain, including those in neuron cells.

(1) Mews, P., Egervari, G., Nativio, R., Sidoli, S., Donahue, G., Lombroso, S. I., … Berger, S. L. (2019). Alcohol metabolism contributes to brain histone acetylation. Nature. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1700-7

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