lgiron's blog

Mammals are unique in that they give birth to live young and all have mammary glands, these are the glands that secrete milk to nourish their young, with these glands comes nipples to secrete the milk. However, there are two types of mammals to go around this live birth and nipple present image we picture mammals of. The Platypus and Echidna are two of the only mammals that are an exception to this. The Platypus and the Echidna are mammals who’s young emerge from eggs, they also do not have nipples, however they do have mammary glands to produce and secrete milk from patches on their skin to nourish their young after being born. These types of mammals who are egg-laying are in the called monotremes, Class Mammalia, Order Monotremata. Many would think that these aren’t mammals since they produce eggs which their young hatch from which could be connected to reptiles of some sort but we keep them with the Class Mammalia because they hold mammary glands which are strictly limited to mammals and therefore can only be connected to mammals. In addition, to further accept them into the Class, they also have hair. This is also a distinct characteristic of the Class as no other class has hair to keep the warm-blooded animals from getting too cold. 

            Throughout decades, NASA has been trying to improve their strategies to gaining access to places within our solar system and improve their technologies to enable its capabilities in future missions and support other spaceflight activities. One project that they are in the development is the Solar Electric Propulsion, or the (SEP). This new project is a cost-effective way to lengthen and improve the capabilities of space travel to enable NASAs ability to seek new missions beyond their current capability. This project will use on-board solar arrays which will act as a solar propellant as oppose to the current chemical propulsion system, in which the solar array will be able to use 10 times less propellant with the same effect, saving cost and resources in the initial stages of getting the craft to Earth’s orbit. This new propulsion system will use high-powered solar energy from sunlight and convert it into electrical energy to the thrusters that can provide a movement force of more than 65,000 mph. In addition to its space exploration capabilities, it can also be used in other missions such as the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission which can benefit from the low-cost, high efficiency technology.

In my opinion, this is very important for future missions in space. The cost-effective and equal power of this no propulsion system will enable us to do more missions since we have the resources and money. More missions means more insight and the possibility of space missions further and further since the sun’s rays can travel for distances, meaning the space craft will not run out of fuel to travel. 

I will do my panel on Hymenocallis littoralis, or the Spider Lily. I chose this plant because it stood out to me as I have an irrational fear of spiders. This plant is native to the warmer coastal regions of Central America but have also been introduced in Florida. It ranges from a height from 60-70 cm, or 36 inches. The bulb has a diameter of 7-10 cm, or 3-4 inches. The neck that grows from the bulb has a length of 4-5 cm, or 2 inches. Each flower’s tube ranges from 14-17 cm, or 5-7 inches. The flowers that blossom off of this plant are white, vanilla scented and give the shape of a spider, hence the name. An interesting fact about this plant is that all parts of it are poisonous. There are many types of this plant. In Japan, they have been used in rice patties to deter pests that can ruin the fields. They have also given it the name of “Higanbana” which translates to “flower of death”, unlike first thought, this is correlated because they have been places on tombs of the deceased as a tribute to the dead. A legend that they have the ability to guide the dead into the next reincarnation which is highly sought after in the Buddhist community. 

In this experience, getting ready is to physically prepare for an experience or action. This can be anything ranging from putting on clothes in preparation for the day to putting books in your backpack in preparation for class. This happens in my days quite frequently and evenly throughout my day. First thing is getting dressed, this prepares me for my first class or action, followed by personal hygiene such as brushing teeth and shaving gets me prepared for any social interactions. Putting the correct notebooks in my backpack prepares me for classes that I have that day as well as any other important things I need, such as my laptop. I perform these task quite frequently throughout my day.

Structure of Scientific Literature

The similarities of these two pieces of literature are the level 2 headings, this includes the abstract, introduction, discussion and conclusions. Although the article about the non-native species in the Baltic Sea, if read one can see that they are included. On the other hand, the article on the wide spread and different traits of these species specifically states these headings. The abstract is used in these pieces of literature to give a quick summarizing background on the topic of discussion. The following section is the introduction which is a more in-depth background configuration which includes the original thought and ending with the hypothesis which will try to be validated or invalidated in the research. Materials and methods are to follow. This section is used to give specific details about how they retrieved their data in order for other scientists who are interested in the topic to perform the research on their own to validate the authors results. The results section is where they include all of their data, including well organized tables and graphs to connect all of their data in a simple and efficient display. Finally, the discussion and conclusion section is used to discuss the results point out any major setbacks or notable data they expected or did not expect. This is also where they connect it back to their hypothesis and validate or invalidate it in a clear and concise way.  

The next section of for the widely distributed native and non-native article is the materials where they first talk about the species they have selected for this and from what sources they were gathering the information from, followed by the traits that were relevant to the distribution of the species being observed. Finally, it mentions the trait interaction model which is used to determine the frequency of grid-cells a species occupied in connection to the train they have and interactions. This section went from broad to specific, from what species down to the specific trait interactions. The purpose of this section is to let the audience know where and how they were going about this problem or hypothesis so the audience could try to get the same results with the same sources and therefore data that the author used in this. The first paragraph of this section is used to give the audience the understanding of where they are gathering their main data from, from which outside database they used to get the data broad numbered data.

The article on the Baltic Sea have the same purpose for this section although it doesn’t explicitly administer that is the materials and methods. However, it still includes what is used in this section. It is also structured the same way by first mentioning how the non-native species were brought into the Baltic, then going into the rate of invasion currently and the number of species and their dispersal rate. The first paragraph in this section is used to give the origin of the problem, in contrast with the first article I mentioned, this article gives an even broader start to the problem, beginning with how this started. 

Both articles are structured in a similar matter, they start off with the title which identifies the topic of the article. Followed by the Abstract. In the abstract, they both give a brief background/summary of the topic, or argument, that they will discuss in the paper. This sections is to give a very brief explanation of the subject to give the reader an understanding of this subject, this can almost relate to the synopsis on a book.

The introduction is next. In the introduction, they elaborate more on the subject matter. The first paragraph of the this section serves to illustrate the key concepts of the topic, for example in the Baltic Sea article, it talks about how there is an acceleration in the global exchange of aquatic species to due human activity. In the article on the pool of native and non-native species, it mentions how the non-native species have been increasing in different ecosystems around the world. The introduction is in much more detail than  the abstract, in this section they begin to pull in the discoveries, and comments from other scientists who have studied related topics and use those as a base for the project. It is structured in a way that it goes from the broad subject topic and gets more in depth to the problem as it goes eventually ending in the hypothesis or something they want to achieve in the paper. The last paragraph of the introduction being either what they hypothesis or are trying to prove/convey in their piece. This section is to give a deeper understanding, some viewpoints, and what is going to be tested/talked, or what they want to achieve about in the piece.

Structure of Scientific Literature

Similarities:

    Sections: Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements, References

    These two articles contain these sections within the literature.

    In addition the abstract sections are a summary on the background of the topic and are short and concise. Followed by the introduction which gives a more in depth writing on the background of the topic and slides into the matter of the task at hand. The last paragraph of introduction in the articles contains the what they are trying to convey and based off of what piece of information

Differences:

    Sections: Materials/ Methods, Results.

    The literature of origin matters does include the methods section which is critical as I read from the assignment due soon that it is used so that other individuals can replicate it to see if they can get the same results as the original. This is used to validate the information and see what differences there were and why. This would then lead to the results section. In this there is a clear section on the results the author reached with the methods explained, it is hard to know the results if there is not a clear section explaining what the results were in comparison to the original ideas.

This past summer I went to Burkina Faso, in Western Africa for a military mission. Upon getting to my destination I noticed that the ground was not like the ground here in the United States. I noticed that it was red in color and had the characteristics as clay. I went there during the rainy season of Africa and it would vigorously rain for about 30-45 minutes, and then stop for the rest of the day. However, the few days it would rain for hours, the dirt on the ground would become clay like and would prevent the water from being absorbed into the ground. This would create these rivers that would flood the streets. There were also very minimal trees and crops which grew from this red dirt. This brought me to the question on why? Why is it red? Perhaps it was the lack of nutrients that the ground had. I became interested in this and began to research and learned that the ground is infact clay and is rich in iron and aluminum due to the heavy rains and intense heat. the red color comes from the oxidation of the iron in the soil. 

Initially observing this organism, one can immediately see that she has a tail much larger than the main body. Her movement is that of a worm, where she moves her back end forward and extends forward using the forward half of main body, however her tail does not seem to have any part in her movement. She has tiny bilaterally symmetric paired feet, which do not help stick to a surface as they tip over with a slight tilt of the container. She has a semi- clear outer skin on both body and tail. On the interior of the main body, passed her outer layer, the front ¾ has a white color which could be an extra layer of skin which protects her internal organs. The lower ¼ has a darker color which could signify waste or a bowel. The darkened area connects and continues inside the tail. The tip of the tail exposes this previous covered darker area from the semi- clear skin. She has an opening on the front which she is able to poke two probes out that could potentially be her mouth. When disrupted by movement, she halts as if she has sensation against predation. When on her back, she is able to wiggle her forward half to turn upright. Bodily measurements at rest of her main body is about 1.1 cm. Her tail is about 1.6 cm, giving us a whole-body length of 2.7 cm. During movement, when she is extended, the main body reaches about 1.4 cm in length with the tail the same length as when in rest. This makes her max length around 3.0 cm. When she contracts her body, it is about 1 cm in length. Her main body has a width of about .2 cm and her tail has a width of about .05cm. With the change in body lengths between movement, and through visual calculations, she moves about .3 cm each time she extends forward and then contracts her body.