lgorman's blog

• In Figure 2, it has a purple arrow pointing to flags, while Figure 1 doesn’t.
• In the Figure 2, the letter labels are in bigger font and in the top right of the photos, while in Figure 1, the letter labels are smaller and in the bottom right of the photo.
  
  • Inference: the original creator didn’t specify where to place the labels
• In the Figure 2, the area captured is larger and the buildings look smaller.
  
  • Inference: The student on the right used the same maps program (visible from the similar car patterns), however they were more zoomed out than the student on the left.

• In Figure 2c, more of the UMass bush landmark is visible.
• In Figure 1c, there is a big white circus tent in the background.

Earlier this year, whenever I would walk out to my car, I would repeatedely observe that there was a wet spot right underneath the front of the car. Considering the location of the wet spot, and where it was dripping from when I looked under the car, I inferred that I had a transmission leak. When I put my fingers in the wet spot, it left a red liquid on my finger tips, which confirmed my inference of having a transmission leak. When I tried adding more transmission fluid to it, much more fluid leaked out, so I just decided to go to the mechanic and get the line patched up.

Singer is a utilitarian, so he believes that people should follow actions that bring the most good to the world. Therefore, Singer argues that the quality of a child’s life is paramount when it comes to parents deciding if their child should live or die. For example, Singer brings up the disease spina bifida, a disease that, “the lives of the worst affected children are so miserable that it is wrong to resort to surgery to keep them alive” (188). In this situation, the parents would not want the child to live because the child would be in such awful pain. Consequently, there is no reason to keep a child with this condition alive. When it comes to children with a less debilitating disease, Singer proposes how infants are replaceable.

Following his utilitarian views, Singer argues that it could be better to kill a child with a non-major disability if it meant replacing it with a normal child who will be capable of experiencing and giving more happiness. Singer writes that society treats fetuses as replaceable and considers birth as the moment when the being has moral standing. However, he disagrees with this view, saying that if society is going to treat fetuses as replaceable, then society should also treat newborn infants as replaceable too. Ultimately, since infants are replaceable and their value is extrinsic of themselves, it is wrong to equate them to normal human beings in terms of moral standing.

When designing the figures associated with this plant, three images are used. First, the photo taken of the entire plant is labeled “A” in the top left corner of the photo. Next, the second photo used is the close-up of the flower. This photo is labeled “B” in the top left corner of the photo. Finally, the third figure was the geographical range of the plant. Owing to the fact that there is no clear range of this specific flower, the range of the three plants that “Blc Momilani ‘The Gypsy’” is a hybrid of are used to design the map.

Starting with a blank world map, the range of Brassavola, the first plant, is added. Brassavola range includes Mexico, the West Indies, and Central America, so the areas are circled in black and then lightly filled with green, making it possible to slightly see the world map beneath. Next, the second plant, Cattleya’s range is added to the map. Cattleya’s range includes Costa Rica to Argentina, so that area is circled in black and lightly filled with red. Finally, the last plant, Laelia, has a range that spans from Western Mexico to Southern Bolivia. This area is circled in black and then lightly filled with purple. In some areas of the map, these colors overlap, so the colors that overlap are arranged in stripes in any areas where this happens. Once the world map is complete, it is labeled with a “C” in the top left of the picture. Figure A and B are arranged next to each other, with C arranged directly below them.

The plant was in the Durfee Conservatory across the street from University Health Services. The plant can be found by entering through the West entrance door and then going through the next door. Once inside the second room, the plant called “Blc Momilani ‘The Gypsy’” will be in the middle of the far left row. Facing the plant, a picture was taken so the entire plant would fill up the photo. Next a picture was taking of the flower part of the plant. The picture was taken of the right-most flower on the plant, close enough so the flower filled the picture. In order to get a sense of the size of the flower, a picture was taken with a UCard oriented upright held next to the flower.

Figure 1. Snake eating a Frog. Snakes are able to unhing their jaws to eat prey that is larger than their heads. Creative common licensed. Image by Brian Gratwicke. https://flic.kr/p/9NtqUM

When reviewing the website “Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus,” it is hard not to notice how much effort had been put into the design of the website. The website has a similar layout to most other conservation websites, including an FAQ, links for more information, and describing ways a person can help. However, upon further examination, it becomes quite obvious that the website is purely for humor. For example, on the tab that is supposed to include images of the creature, there are pictures of plastic toy octopuses in trees, and poorly photoshopped pictures of hawks carrying an octopus. The most interesting page on the website is the links page. On this page, there are three sets of additional websites: cephalopod websites, other animals of interest, and conservation websites. On the cephalopod websites, there is only information on the aquatic cephalopods and no mention of the tree octopus. Next, all of the other “animals of interest” that are listed are also satirical animals, like the “mountain walrus” and “prairie crayfish”. Finally, all of the conservation links are well known and reputable animal conservation websites, however upon research of those sites, the pacific northwest tree octopus is never mentioned. Ultimately, this website is a joke, and it can be noticed rather quickly if it is analyzed with any effort. The website is well made, but there is no semblance of truth to the information that it is stating, because its references do not support it at all.

Water is one of the most important parts of the success of life on earth. The fact that water is polar gives it properties that a lot of other liquids don't have. One of these properties is cohesion, it is the ability of water molecules to hydrogen bond to each other. It allows water to stick together and be tugged through plant xylem via negative pressure. The cohesion in water gives it a tensile strength that rivals other substances that are much more solid. In addition to cohesion, water molecules are also good at adhesion. Adhesion is the property of water that allows it to bond to other polar surfaces. Adhesion is the reason that water can "walk" up a thin capillary tube. The ability to move up a tube also has to do with the surface tension of the water. As water climbs up the walls of the glass tube, the surface area of the water increases. The force of surface tension wants to decrease the surface area of the water, so it tugs the water up in order to maintain a more stable surface area. All of these forces play a role in moving water up a tube, however they are all stopped eventually by gravity.

In this article, researchers wanted to learn about the conformational changes of Cas9. Conformation changes can be caused by binding of single guide RNA (sgRNA). These researchers wanted to figure out which molecular components of sgRNA caused the conformation change in Cas9 from inactive to active. In order to do that, the researchers removed different parts of the sgRNA to see how much it changed the change in conformation. When they removed the entire target recognition sequence, the sgRNA was unable to find the Cas9 and there was no change in conformation. However, when they only removed pieces of the recognition sequence, there was some conformational change. This showed that the target recognition sequence could still work if there was some pieces missing, although it would not work consistently. In addition to that, they tried removing the hairpins at the 3’ end of the sgRNA. When they removed the hairpins, they observed intermediate levels of conformation change. These intermediate levels of conformation change indicate that there was incoverting from closed to open in the Cas9 sample.

I chose the the first clicker question in lecture 4 for my deep learning assignment. It asked, “The image below depicts a specific amino acid at pH = 7. It belongs in the same group as?” and the available choices were glycine, serine, arginine, and aspartic acid. The answer to this question was serine. This question was testing whether or not the student could recognize an amino acid as polar, nonpolar, acid, or basic. Once the student could recognize this, they then would have to figure out what choice was most similar to the given amino acid. In order to solve this question, the student would have to recognize that the given amino acid is polar and uncharged. This is because there is a electronegative sulfur at the end of the the R group. Once that is figured out, the student would have to figure out which amino acid was polar and uncharged among the available choices. Using Bloom's taxonomy, I would classify this question as an “apply” question. This is because it requires you to remember which amino acids among the choices are polar uncharged. It also requires you to understand how to look at an image of an amino acid and figure out that it is polar uncharged. Since you remember and understand this information, you are able to apply the knowledge in order to solve this type of question.