I predict that the D. gliroides would shift its range where there are colder temperatures. I believe that this species would move its range more southern to cooler temperatures if its optimal survival range is in cooler temperatures. Although, if the optimal survival range is in hotter temperature then the D. gliroides would move northern to warmer temperatures. I base this prediction on the fact that animals will migrate to areas in which their survival is higher.
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.
I get scared of writing. When I write, it makes me want to let everything out. It usually ends up in me saying too much. As of now, I have so many things I could and want to write about. I want to relieve my stress by talking about what I want to talk about. If I do so, people will probably judge. I don't want that. How do I relieve my stress then? I just botttle it up inside. I replay what's happened over and over in my head. I try to think what would have happened if I did this or that instead? Would it have been better to do this or not do this. There's so many possibilities of what I could have done differently. Was I the one who was wrong. Was that person wrong? Were we overreacting? Was it a misunderstanding? Why does this keep happening? So much regret is felt. There's noone I can talk to about how I truly feel. I'd look stupid. My problems would be irrelevant to them. Would it be ok if this became my way of relieving stress? Can I just talk about anything on here without going too far? Maybe that's just impossible. Still, if I don't write about what I truly want to write about, what's the point of writing? It would just be fake-writing just trying to get these assignments over with. That's dreadful. Regardless, this is a life science course. I have to stay on topic.
Fred Sanger received his education at Cambridge University where he later continued in research on the structure of proteins. His first major project was on the structure of Insulin. He used the Jigsaw puzzle method to break apart the molecule so that he could piece it together based off of the properties of the amino acid chemical bonds. This allowed Insulin to be sequenced for the first time and his method won him his first Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He later went on to work on sequencing DNA. There were some methods already established for this, but they were not realistic for common use due how complicated and time consuming they were. Sanger created a method that would stop the strand in replication at specific nucleotide so that when put through a gel the location of certain letters could be sequenced. This method was common place for some forty years after he published it. Sanger won his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work, making him one of two people to win two Nobel Prize's in the same field.
I will use the trait #6 to determine the evolution in each phylogeny. In Phylogeny A, the presence of the tail is a derived trait in the tree. The taxa without tails are the ancestral. Based on tails being the derived trait, the trait only evolved once within the tree and connects all taxa with the derived trait only separating them further with other derived traits. The taxa included are Bears, Sea Lions, Walrus, and Seals. In Phylogeny B, the presence of trait #6 is a derived trait and evolved twice independently. Those included with tails are Seals, Bears, Sea lions, and Walrus, although, Seals are not connected to the other taxa having separately earlier with the presence of other traits. In Phylogeny C, the appearance of #6 trait is an ancestral trait. The trait evolved twice independently. The trait also was lost once therefore the deriving of Civets, Hyenas, and Cats. Based on the parsimony principle, which suggests the alternative hypothesis that has the fewest assumptions or steps is usually the best, this would suggest that Phylogeny A would be the one that is most likely.
After looking at the population size data, I see the trend that each year the population of the D. gliroides has decreased. The cause of the population decreasing in the area of the Andes in this region is because of the rising of temperatures in this area due to climate change. Based on the rising temperatures and decreasing populations, I predict that the monito del monte is nearer its more northernmost part of its range in this area. I base this prediction on the fact that if it was the southernmost in its range the population of the species would go up with the temperature since the optimal range for successful survival would be in warmer temperatures. The data, however, suggests that this species needs cooler temperatures and would then migrate to cooler temperatures. Therefore, this species with their optimal range in cooler temperatures would move closer to the poles, where there is cooler temperatures.
The movie Gattaca follows a “genetically inferior” man named Vincent Freeman in his pursuit to live the life of a “genetically superior” man named Jerome Morrow, so that he can achieve his dream to go to space. Gattaca has a very interesting premise, it is set in a world that cares more about your genes than how hard you work or what your religion or race is. Although it had some cheesy dialogue and some plot holes, it was still a much better movie than I was expecting it to be. In addition to that, the society that this movie is rooted in was very interesting to watch considering the material that is being discussed in class.
In this movie, normal births are no longer normal. In Vincent’s case, he was born normally without any genetic editing. Upon being born, the nurse takes a blood sample from him and is able to tell when he will die, his propensity for disorders, and that he has a heart condition. This is funny to see, because the free fetal DNA testing that is used in real life today requires much more time to process in order to find much less information about the infant. In the movie, scientists prepare viable zygotes and allow the parents to choose what they would want their child to be like. When Vincent’s parents went to go “design” Vincent’s brother, the scientist had already removed the risk of alcoholism, obesity, and other bad traits, which was a shock to the parents. If this was the case, there would be less need for blood tests like the ones that look for cancer, because people could be designed to be at a lower risk of cancer. In today's world, parents take the random genetic variety of their children for granted. In the pursuit of attaining children without disease, parents lost the randomness of what their child would be like.
When a couple is expecting a child, they wonder what gender it is and what defects it could possibly have. In the past, the best method to answer these question was a procedure called amniocentesis. Amniocentesis is a technique where a needle is inserted into a women’s amniotic sac through her abdomen in order to collect amniotic fluid which could then be analyzed. This process gives results with a high degree of certainty, however it has some flaws. Since a long needle is being injected into the womb, there is the risk that it could poke something that it is not supposed to. Therefore, there is miscarriage in about 1% of amniocentesis patients. That being said, there is now a new method of determining the genetic information of the fetus, and it is much less invasive. The new test goes by the name of free fetal DNA testing, and all the mother has to do is get blood taken. By collecting the blood of the mother, companies like Harmony can separate out the fetal DNA and examine it to find birth defects and determine the gender, to a lesser degree of certainty than amniocentesis. The blood of the fetus and the mother do not directly mix, however, the placenta sheds tissue into the mother’s blood stream daily. Because of the placental shedding, fetal DNA can find itself leaking into the mother’s blood stream and mixing in with her blood and loose DNA. Once the scientists collect the blood sample of the mother, they then need to separate the fetal DNA from the mother’s DNA. Scientists have discovered that the fetal DNA fragments are much smaller than the mother’s DNA fragments. Using this knowledge, they use electrophoresis in order to separate the DNA fragments. In electrophoresis, the molecules are dragged through a gel matrix using an electric current causing the DNA fragments to arrange themselves by size. Once the fetal DNA fragments have been identified, they can then be used to determine things about the genetics of the fetus.
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