Drafts

Clearly, the use of ADHD medication illegally, to enhance academic performance becomes an arms race of who is, and who isn’t taking the drugs. If you aren’t using the cognitive enhancing medication, you put yourself at a major disadvantage. Using these drugs becomes a moral issue firstly because it gives those who take it an unfair advantage. But to go further, these enhancements are also morally wrong because it would likely lead to more difficult course requirements. Just as in sports with anabolic steroids, the issue becomes one of deciding to take the moral path and suffer statistically, or to use enhancements to be at the top.

LLC-Pk1 parental cells will be cultured and plated in dishes. These cells will then be allowed to grow and divide until they are at confluent levels. Once the cells are confluent, a scratch assay will be conducted in which a small portion of the cells are scraped from the plate, creating a small and consistent gap between two large patches of cells. The cells are then washed twice with HBS and submerged in non-CO_2­ media. They are then observed under phase microscopy at 10X magnification in a time-lapse fashion. The migration of the cells into the “wound” will then be captured and analyzed. Rate of cellular migration and length of time it took for the wound to close will be parameters analyzed. 

Cell migration is a fundamental and crucial component in the survival and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Organisms rely on cellular migration during embryonic development and immune responses in order to correctly organize and heal tissues within the body. Investigation into the mechanisms by which cells migrate is essential in understanding these important processes.

              One way in which cell migration dynamics can be studied is via a scratch (or wound) assay. It is done in-vitro, but greatly mimics, a cells migratory pattern in-vivo. Cells that naturally form monolayers, such as epithelial cells, are exemplary to use in this type of assay as the cells behave analogously in-vitro. The assay is done by scraping a small portion of the layer of cells off of the plate, creating a gap in between cells that were once touching in the monolayer, mimicking an epithelial “wound”. The cells are then visualized and allowed to migrate into the space where cells were scraped off of the plate, thus closing the gap and “healing the wound”. The migratory pattern that cells exhibit during this time is studied and analyzed for important parameters, such as rate and total displacement. Investigating these factors of cell migration in epithelial cells is important in order to better understand mechanisms behind the healing of epithelial abrasions, which affect a large majority of organisms.

              We predict that rate of cellular movement will not be constant but will have a steady increase in rate over time as the wound healing process goes on, and slow as the wound is close to healed. The change in rate over time will be graphically reminiscent of a normal curve. Additionally. we predict that all migrating cells will have a similar average displacement over time as they fill the wound.

In cellular membranes, the electric potential changes from the outside of the cell compared to the inside of the cell, this can be seen by neurons. This is called membrane potential and it selects for certain ions to move into and out of the cell. In order for ions to move into a cell, a channel must be opened. When this channel is opened it creates a change in the electric field which signals to other channels within the membrane to open eventually leading to a response from the cell.  

Set up:

About 1,000 frog embryos at the early cleavage stage

GFP injection

Label one half of the embryos with GFP, the other half will be unlabeled

Procedure: 

After one half of the embryos have been labeled with GFP, let all of the embryos grow for 6 hrs until blastula stage is reached (multicellular).  The non-injected embryos’ animal pole would be removed and cultured alone to serve as a control.   The recombination will be of the GFP vegetal mass (endoderm) and the non-labeled animal cap (ectoderm).  The mesodermal tissue will be discarded.  The embryos will then develop for two days until the neurulation stage is reached.

Results:

At the neurulation stage, the non-recombinant embryos’ animal pole would give rise to the surface ectoderm, which is expected.  The recombinant embryos would have a GFP labeled epidermis AND GFP labeled notochord.

Conclusions:

Because both the ectoderm and the mesoderm are labeled with GFP, it suggests that the animal pole cells that would usually become ectoderm derivatives were induced to also become mesoderm derivatives.  The GFP labeled ectoderm and notochord indicates that the vegetal endoderm is what induces the ectoderm.

Experiment one tested the effects of varying substrates on survival. In each of the three
tanks, 20 random guppies, 5 Rivulus and 5 Blue Acara were added. Each tank represents a
different substrate, the three substrates are sandy, muddy and vegetative. Spot brightness was
measured after 1000 days.

Experiment two tested the effects of varying levels of predation on survival. Only tank 1
was used, representing a constant sandy substrate. Five various levels of predation were tested
separately in this tank. For each trial 20 random guppies were added. Then 0, 4, 8, 12, or 16
predators were added. An equal number of Blue Acara and Rivulus were added, so with eight
predators, there were four Blue Acara and four Rivulus. Spot brightness was measured after 500
days.

This method of enhancement can allow users advanced levels of focus and help them stay alert longer to prolong studying. Clearly this presents a great attraction to college students who are desperate to meet deadlines and receive good grades. But the problem arises of whether it is truly fair for some students to abuse this medication to do better in their classes. The problem reflects a watered-down version of the anabolic steroids in professional sports debate. How can it be fair for “natural” athletes or students to compete with these enhanced individuals? If 30% of students are able to pull off all-nighters thanks to these medications, students who are not “enhanced” are faced with quite the handicap. This becomes especially problematic when considering that if these students who are taking ADHD medication are then able to do better than they would without the drugs, this would likely raise the class average performances. If teachers see that their students on average are doing much better on exams, they may feel the need to make the material more difficult.

An extremely focused laser has a very strong electric field at its narrowest point, known as the “beam waist.” The particles are attracted to the strongest field, the center of the beam, which allows for the use of the laser to move particles around. Away from the center of the beam is higher potential, so the particles move to the lower potential in the center of the beam.

2 grams of cyclohexanol was added to a 250ml round-bottomed flask. .5ml of phosphoric was then added to the flask as well. A distillation of the mixture was then performed with the first drop occurring at 60 degrees Celsius and the plateau occurring at approximately 68 degrees Celsius. Lower layer of the remaining liquid was removed for waste. A washing procedure was followed with 1 ml of water, then 1 ml of NaOH and finally 1 ml of brine. After each washing sequence the lower layer of the liquid was removed and added to the waste beaker. The remaining liquid was then transferred to a new vial and CaCl2 was then added and contents were left to dry for approximately 7 minutes. The liquid in the beaker was then removed and placed in a new tarred test tube. The remaining liquid was then weighed and a final weight and percent recovery was recorded. Finally a potassium permanganate, bromine dichloromethane, IR and gas chromatography test were performed on the liquid to test for purity and contents.

Purpose: Dehydrating cyclohexanol and synthesizing cyclohexene by taking all that we’ve done so far including MPs, BPs, MWs densities, hazardous properties. Separate and purify using combination of extraction, distillation, crystallization, chromatography, and more. There are many processes that we learned so far in the lab, and honestly it was all pretty simple. There are step by step display on what we have to do. Lab reports are fairly simple as well, it just takes a really long time to do them. My favorite one is crystallization because different crystals are formed whether it be different color, different weight, and more factors.