mrmoy's blog

In this specific study, the researchers are trying to correlate the cavitation effect on a popping bottle to brain injuries. Cavitation is when water at rest is all of a sudden sped up with a force of acceleration, causing a destructive wave to shatter the bottle or container that the liquid is sitting in. Similar to liquid trapped inside a bottle, the brain is surrounded by fluid, so a hit to the head could cause a similar effect to our brains. Our brain is essential to almost every function that happens throughout our body and during a concussion your brain is damaged or bruised. Although one concussion might not cause long term damage, repeated amount of concussions can cause long term memory loss and diseases like CTE, like we see many football players having. With this information, researchers are able to create better safety equipment to minimize the amount of trauma our brain sustains. In conclusion, if the force of the hit to the brain is above a certain margnitude, there is no safety equipment that researchers can create to protect the person.

When dealing with carrying capacity, the theme of competition arises. Competition in ecology is the struggle for resources between other organisms within an ecosystem, as they’re all fighting to survive and thrive. In the DVD, Race, the Power of an Illusion, we learned a great deal about the idea of racism. Over time we have developed the idea that whites were the superior race to african americans, asians, latinos, native americans, etc. After settling into the US, agriculture became the way of living. As a result, the demand for workers rose significantly. At first, the lower class europeans served as indentured servants until the demand outweighed the supply, thus slavery was introduced. Slavery gave landowners a cheap alternative to the use of indentured servants and made the use of indentured servants expendable. Competition rose for those lower class europeans and demanded that they become a higher job than the african american slaves. As a result, many of these lower class europeans became overseers.

Ecology can be broken down into many specific kinds of ecologies. The broader definition of ecology is the study of the interaction between living things and their environment. One of the specific kinds of ecologies that we’re going to focus on is human ecology, which is the study of relationships and interactions among humans, their biology, their cultures, and their physical environments. A key idea in ecology is the idea of carrying capacity. In order to understand carrying capacity, we must define what an ecosystem is. An ecosystem is a geographically bounded system within a defined group of organisms interact with both abiotic and biotic components of the environment. With the definition of an ecosystem in mind, carrying capacity is the number of organisms an ecosystem can support or “carry” which is determined by the amount of resources available and by organisms interactions. This concept surreptitiously serves as a huge factor in a lot of human decisions and ideas including one of the most significant ideas: racism.

The organism that was observed had a body length of about 1.5 cm when fully expanded and a tail length that was also about 1.5 cm. The body length when the organism was at rest, was about 1 cm. The organism had a smooth, light brownish, clear body. At the bottom of its body there appear to be small digits, which seem to assist the organism when it moves. The organism appears to have no eyes, relying on its sense of touch to locate and sense its surroundings. This is apparent when the organism stretches its body out to move. It appears that a tongue or mouth like receptor extends out to sense what’s in front of it. This could be the reason why the organism only moves in a forward direction. The range of this sensory receptor also seems to be limited because the organism would usually walk into the wooden chips or move them out of its way, rather than going around them and avoiding them.  When the organism was touched or when the container was moved, it would immediately stop moving. Lastly, the organism preferred to move toward the edges of the container and at times, it would climb over the container.

• Touch:
  
  • Feels smooth
• Sight:
  
  • Looks a light brownish color, with a clear body
  • It has a tail and little feet at the bottom of its body
  • It moves by expanding its body and retracting it
  • Seems to stop moving after you touch it
  • Inside, it appears to have a black tip at the front and the back of its white body.
  • Body is about 1.5 cm in body length when fully stretched, 3 cm including the tail. 1 cm in length when it’s at rest and not moving
  • Appears to have no eyes, moves around by the sense of touch. It doesn’t avoid the wooden chips, it goes through it or moves it out of the way.
  • When its body stretches out, a tongue or some kind of touch receptor comes out to sense what’s in front of it.
  • Likes to move toward the edges of the container
  • Can climb; escaped the container a couple of times
• What does it eat?
• What environment best suits this organism?
• How does it see/sense its surroundings?
• How does it reproduce?